The distilleries of Van village in Bac Giang province produce a top quality liquor but their reputation is being undermined by copycat products.

When checking the quality of his liquor, the 70-year-old liquor maker prefers to trust his sense of smell rather than drink some every time.

“If I did, I’d always be drunk. Just shake the liquor and look at the bubbles – then you can know its quality,” says Nhu.

Nhu lives in Van village in Bac Giang province’s Viet Yen district where there are over 650 households engaged in liquor making. The village is said to be home to a special kind of liquor for which the recipe is a closely guarded recipe that has survived since the early 18th century. Liquor distilled in Van village was renowned and in feudal times bottles made it as far as the royal court.

By order of the King

In 1703, King Le Hy Tong described rice liquor from Van village as pretty much the perfect tipple – though he phrased it somewhat differently, using the words Van huong my tuu, which means ‘fine liquor made by Van village’. The Nguyen Dynasty were also said to be fond of liquor from Van village.

When Vietnam was under French rule, liquor making strongly developed as a industry. In the 1930s, a French businessman built a liquor factory employing 300 workers to produce alcohol under the brand name Van Huong. The liquor produced was nep cai hoa vang, which is made from large-grained and fragrant glutinous rice. It was shipped throughout the country and even beyond to France.

After gaining independence in 1954 the Vietnamese government banned the making of liquor as part of a policy to save cooking as the country recovered from years of famine and war. Liquor making as an industry disappeared until the 1980s when the country’s economy started to recover post Doi Moi (the government’s renewal policy). But this period of prohibition led to innovation.

“Rice was also a major source of food for villagers. So liquor makers started to use sweet potatoes and cassava. Villagers found ways to get rid of the toxins in cassava to make a safe liquor,” Nhu says.

Tricks of the trade

Another liquor maker, 66-year old Nguyen Thi Mui holds a bottle under the light. “When you shake the bottle, you should see lots of tiny bubbles and when you pour, you should be able to smell the fragrance in the air,” she says. “I can look at the bubbles and smell the liquor and tell you what the alcoholic content is.”

According to Mui, who learned to make wine from her grandfather when she was just eight years old, traditionally, the liquor was made from water taken out of the nearby Cau river but it is now too polluted.

“When I was a kid families gathered during Tet in a meeting and vowed not to reveal the secret methods of distilling liquor to daughters and outsiders!” says Mui.

“I only learned because my parents died when I was very young so I was the only person my grandfather could teach.”

“Nowadays, both men and women in the village can make liquor. I am willing to teach anyone who wants to learn the business,” she says, though her friend and neighbour warns that liquor making is a challenging and time consuming business.

Keep the flame alive

Despite the challenges of making quality liquor, many households producing liquor from Van village have become relatively rich. Mui and Nhu both live in large houses with tiled roofs. The village as a whole is clearly a prosperous one. Liquor is not the only industry fuelling development. The village is also a large supplier of pigs and pork meat.

However, Hiep expresses concerns that some liquor makers are altering the original recipe by adding too much water or making liquor that’s highly alcoholic to earn more profits. Other localities make liquor and claim it’s is from Van village.

“You can see that many hotels, shops and restaurants selling Van village liquor around. But people don’t know that most of the bottles on sale are fake,” he says. “This is our big challenge. Prestige of our village’s brand name has been affected. If you are not a connoisseur, you will be cheated,” Hiep says.

However, he says that the village’s liquor makers are always finding ways to improve quality and enhance the fame of their product. The liquor industry employs some 1,700-1800 workers and can produce 42,000-45,000 litres per month. Some 15-20 per cent of the speciality is made from rice and the rest from cassava. On average, each household can earn VND5-6 million ($270-$324.3) per month.

According to Van Ha Commune’s People’s Committee, between now and 2012, the “Van huong my tuu” brand name will be registered for copyright and protection. At present, the commune has earmarked three hectares of land for constructing a liquor making factory.

VietNamNet/Timeout

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