Yellow rice wine chicken

Yellow rice wine chicken is a popular dish in Hakka cuisine. Red and white wines are widely known, but what about yellow rice wine?

In the past, villagers in the New Territories usually brewed their own glutinous rice wine for household consumption. Although its ingredients were simple - glutinous rice, water and yeast - the process itself required considerable effort.

The glutinous rice was usually home-grown. Rice was the staple of New Territories villagers, and they not only cultivated rice for daily meals but also planted glutinous rice specifically for brewing rice wine and making festive Ban Kwo for holidays. To make glutinous rice wine, the rice was first soaked and steamed, then spread out to cool before being mixed with crushed wine cake and placed in a fermentation vessel. Depending on humidity and temperature, fermentation would take three to four days in summer or six to seven days in winter, after which water was added; after a further seven to ten days, it was ready for consumption.

This type of glutinous rice wine is not distilled, and once matured, it takes on a yellow hue, hence the name "yellow rice wine".

Apart from yellow rice wine, villagers in Sha Tau Kok also used to produce various white spirits with high alcohol content, such as distilled rice wine, Chinese distilled spirit and rose liquor, which were sold at local markets like Sha Tau Kok Market. However, making distilled liquor was illegal at the time, and village breweries were often patrolled by police. If caught, the tools used for brewing and the wine containers could be confiscated or destroyed, making the practice a high-risk venture.