Strong Phuc My rice wine

(Baonghean) - The wine-making profession in Hung Chau commune (Hung Nguyen) was recognized as a craft village by the Provincial People's Committee in 2007. Despite certain ups and downs, wine-making is still one of the professions that helps farmers here escape poverty and get rich...

The village still retains the charm and simplicity of a rural village in the Nghe An plain with flat terrain, village roads hugging residential areas along the fertile rice fields. The old village name Phuc Le originated in 1593 under the early Le Dynasty, and was changed to Phuc My during the reign of Tu Duc of the Nguyen Dynasty. Many people still know the name of the village, but no one knows exactly when the Phuc My wine-making profession began.

Distilling alcohol in Phuc My.

The Phuc My wine-making village project records that the wine-making profession was introduced to the village in 1930, but who was the first person to bring the steamer home to distill the yeast for their descendants to use as the core profession for the villagers to get rich? If you ask the Ly, Le, Nguyen families... everyone will shake their heads, no matter which family in the village has built a beautiful and solemn church, on holidays and festivals they all offer the village wine distilled from the strong wood of their kitchens, very carefully and respectfully to show gratitude to their ancestors. After all, nearly a hundred years of strong enough flavor to create the unique flavor of Phuc My wine yeast spread throughout the North and South, thousands and tens of thousands of liters since it became a craft village, but why is the name still so humble? I was surprised when the village chief - Mr. Le Xuan Cuc said: There are wine-making villages in other places whose products have labels and labels that sell well on the market, but in fact, a part of them are from Phuc My wine. Without labels or brands, the people of Phuc My village accept to sell imported wine on the market at prices that are sometimes 5 times lower than others. This means that about 100 households in Phuc My - Hung Chau are now sticking to the traditional wine making profession during the peak season, producing about 3,000 liters of wine a day, and selling wine at wholesale prices has lost about 15 million VND. Thus, in a month, the people of Phuc My village have lost about 450 million VND. Making wine, fermenting rice, distilling, and running around the market at such low prices, how can they get rich and maintain their profession?

That is, wine making must go hand in hand with animal husbandry. At its peak, many households in Phuc My wine making earned a net profit of over 100 million VND/year thanks to using by-products (whey) to raise pigs. Now, the household that makes the most wine in Hung Chau is Mr. Nguyen Huu Tho, who cooks 100 kg of sticky rice/day during peak season, and regularly fattens 30 pigs in a pen. When Vice Chairman of the commune Le Khanh Quang led me to Mr. Tho's house, I learned that this was in My Du village, but his mother, a native of Phuc My, married here and kept the profession. Another thing to know is that the wine making profession has spread beyond Phuc My village, but anyone who makes wine in Hung Chau also "eats" into the reputation of the craft village. The house is large and tiled on all sides because the wine making profession is terribly moldy and humid. The brick yard is spacious but is filled with a huge amount of round packages of sticky rice purchased to prepare for the "distillation campaign" during the beer season. Mr. Tho happily said: “I still have a full barn of sticky rice at the back of the house, some of it is still stored at my mother-in-law’s house, the rest I have paid for in advance, when the harvest season comes, they will bring it over. Every year, I use more than ten tons of sticky rice to make wine, no matter how much I store, there is never any left. Sometimes I brew up to 60 big buckets of rice wine, I have to number each bucket to cook it at the right time!”

Tho's father was a pre-revolutionary cadre, now 92 years old, vaguely remembers that before the August Revolution, the French came to the village to catch smuggled alcohol. All the alcohol that the Phuc My people put in jars and hid under the floor, and outside the pond was all confiscated. But then, no one wanted to give up the profession, just secretly cooked it, put it in rubber bags, wrapped them around their bodies, and carried them along with a load of vegetables to disguise themselves and go to the countryside markets to sell. Who thought about reputation or brand? But at that time, when customers saw the faces of the Phuc My people, they recognized the people from the wine village, believing in good wine because they trusted people. However, the At Dau famine (1945) also caused almost everyone to abandon the profession, only a few middle-class farmers and village chiefs still had rice to cook wine and the strength to drink. After the revolution, and then the new cooperatives, many families searched for jars and pots to continue the traditional wine-making profession. But it was also fickle, because after fighting the French, we fought the Americans. There was a period when we banned it because rice had to be saved for the front lines to fight the enemy. The pots and steamers for cooking alcohol were left lying around. Gradually, the copper pot for cooking alcohol that our people used to call the "turtle" pot disappeared because it was round with a waist and a waist, looking like a turtle.

Let's talk a little about the wine-making pot, because it is also associated with the tradition of the profession. In the past, the "ba ba" copper pot was considered one of the valuable items of poor farmers. In Phuc My village, it was used to make wine, but the wine still had a faint smell of copper. Later, it was replaced by a wooden pot and now an aluminum pot. Of those three pots, the pot made of Doi wood is the best for making wine, and can bring Phuc My wine to the top level, but it is inconvenient because in the hot season, after cooking, it has to be thrown into the pond to soak until the wood cracks are fully expanded. But even with such disadvantages, it can still be used if it produces a "treasure of wine", but it is expensive. Nowadays, to make a pot like that costs millions of dong, and the wine does not sell for much, so no one thinks about making a wooden pot to make wine.

Well, not yet a "treasure wine" of the level of a product offered to the king, Phuc My wine has been regularly ordered by customers in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi by hundreds of liters, just call and the villagers will send a passenger car to the place. Mr. Tho specializes in getting wine with 50 "degrees" according to customers' needs, which means only taking the "first water". His wife quickly measured out a bottle, Mr. Tho poured a little on the table and then lit a match, immediately erupting into a blue flame. However, it is smooth to drink and has a fragrant aroma that is full of the essence of sticky rice from the countryside. "The best wine, I can only sell for 35 thousand VND per liter, which is cheap, if we don't use the lees to raise pigs, the people of Phuc My village will no longer be able to make commercial wine. Therefore, if we want to keep the wine-making profession, we must definitely raise pigs" - Mr. Tho said.

The Phuc My wine-making village includes hamlets 3 and 4, Hung Chau commune. Along with the Dong Nhat - Hung Chau peanut candy and rice paper village below, the Phuc My village has received investment from the State to build rural roads with a total budget of more than 5 billion VND for the two villages, so now the village roads are solidified, spacious and well-furnished. But the impression is that modern high-rise buildings have sprung up, the size of villas, mansions, built in a rustic style but all costing from five to seven hundred million to billions of VND. The Party Secretary of Hamlet 3, Le Van Voi, while leading me to visit the village, said: "You have come back this season, which is a mistake in the wine-making season. Because this profession is also very fickle, it is okay when it is hot and windy, but if it is humid, the wine pot is considered ruined. Those who cook less will have to stop working, those who cook more will have to try to keep customers. The main season is from September this year to April next year." It was extremely busy during the main wine-making season. Phuc My village was humming with rice milling machines all day long, and from early evening every household had been brewing rice wine. Late at night, they slept for a few hours and then woke up at 3am, the whole village was red with lights, bustling and bustling, the night sky was filled with the strong aroma of sticky rice. In the morning, on the alleys and on the Ta Lam dike, women were rushing through the mist carrying wine to sell.

Party cell secretary Le Van Voi walked down the shiny steps of the new two-story house that still smelled of paint, probably alerting the host to come out to greet the guests. The fragrant smell of wine wafted from the kitchen to the spacious living room. The hostess, tying her hair tie, quickly wiping her sweat, then said enthusiastically: “This house is partly funded by my children’s contributions. But I’ll tell you the truth, if it weren’t for the hot and humid season, I wouldn’t need them to contribute any money. That’s because I’m diligent in importing wine directly from the source, so I can “earn” a few more bucks. Besides, of course I have to raise pigs! I have 20 pigs in my barn now, and they grow up very quickly when they eat wine lees, and the same goes for raising chickens and ducks! If you go to the Vinh Station area, just ask for “Wine Phuong” in any shop, and everyone will know me. My wine is even packaged in hundreds of liters at a time, sent to my family to sell in the South...” Oh, what a “pretentious” nickname! But tomorrow, if Phuc My wine village is recognized for its product brand, it will certainly not forget people like Ms. Phuong's family. In the time of illegal wine, the Westerners forced the villagers to sell wine and believe in Phuc My wine just by looking at people's faces. Now, competing with many other wine-making villages, Ms. Phuong's reputation has contributed to honoring the traditional craft of the village.

Since it is a wine-making village, the more you brew, the better, but the more you brew, the more pigs you raise. What about the village environment? Party cell secretary Voi said: “Journalists have been around the village, have you smelled the “smell” of pigs and chickens? Every house cleans its pens regularly, and waste water is discharged into the fields. The manure from the livestock is carefully composted to fertilize the fields, and I guarantee that the fields of the people of Phuc My village are always greener and more productive than those in the region. It is not an exaggeration to say that the glutinous rice grains ground to make wine look bigger than the grains of rice!”

So the wine-making profession has brought about some benefits. Phuc My wine-making village has filed to register the trademark "Phuc My - Hung Chau sticky rice wine". In the future, when it is established in the market, Phuc My wine will be sold at a price that matches its quality. If we can bring the "old man" yellow flowered sticky rice to grow in the village fields to invest in cooking according to the technology of Van village outside Kinh Bac, then surely Phuc My craft village will also have the right to dream of being the destination of a traditional wine-making village with a hundred years of strong flavor on the tourist road along Lam river. I dare to add my words to Party Secretary Le Van Voi like that, also because of the excitement after a small cup of wine that has just been distilled, all the feelings can fully perceive the quintessential flavor of Nghe An rice grains, which is no less unique!

Article and photos:Sam Temple