For upland people, a cup of delicious liquor is indispensable. Traditional liquor appears in bumper days, in festivals, on important occasions, or simply in daily meals. Each region, ethnic minority people have a different way of making liquor with a variety of raw materials from their own farm produce. Let’s follow Vietnam food tours all of these specialties of the Northwest.
Ruou can Hoa Binh
Ruou Can Hoa Binh (traditional liquor in Hoa Binh) is a specialty of the Muong ethnic group. Only in Hoa Binh is it made from sticky rice and leaf yeast. Since ancient times, Muong people have had the custom of drinking ruou can. However, Muong liquor is not a daily drink, only on holidays, festivals, or on the special occasion when there are many people, Muong people organize drinking alcohol. The more crowded are there, the funnier drinking liquor is.
In Mai Chau, Hoa Binh in the Muong ethnic minority, drinking alcohol is called “vit khoe” (suck through a straw). Liquor jar brewed under the ground for 100 days will be dug up, and a bowl of fresh and clear stream water will be put next to the jar. The host is the person who presides a liquor drinking, and the competition of drinking alcohol (called Piềng). One his hand holds a buffalo horn or a goat horn and the other hand holding the dipper to pour water into the liquor from the pot next to the jar. People will sing a song to replace the wishes for health and happiness to guests coming to Muong villages. The host both sing and pour water to the alcohol jar. If a group does not drink and make the liquor overflow, the members in this group will be punished by drinking a few more “horn of liquor” in the laughter of people.
The Muong people drink alcohol in the manner different from that in other ethnic groups. They use long straws (can ruou) so that many visitors on Vietnam food tour can drink together. The liquor straw to be made from the small bamboo trees, each person screws a straw to drink alcohol, only until the host says “stop”, people in competition stop, people stopping drinking halfway will be punished.
Ruou sau chit
Ruou sau chit is renowned for its efficacy, its efficacy for improving male physiological health, enhancing the health of the elderly, enhancing the health of women, especially are women after childbirth. Sau chit (larvae of the Brihaspa atrostigmella butterfly) has many good effects which have been verified so that ruou sau chit is also considered a rare drug of the Northwest.
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Ruou sau chit is a tonic of oriental medicine having the effect to improve body health, so it is not alcohol as usual as other types. Ruou sau chit must be brewed after 12 months to create the sweet, aromatic flavor and especially, this alcohol has a very low alcohol content, so it is perfectly suited for visitors on food walking tour who are women or the elderly. Formerly, sau chit was only intended for a feast for kings. Over time, the gift of the lowland came to the upland, and at the same time, the delicious traditional liquor of the minority people here also is brought to the regions in the whole country and neighboring countries.