Montagnard Rice Wine
 

Anybody know if there is a place in the US where you can buy some?

But why?...
 

I get a knot in my throat just thinking about the stuff. Of course my experiences with it are based on how much we could drink with the Yards before we puked...

Ah, the memories.. ;)

I never saw it bottled in RVN. It was in a big crock. You drank it with a straw and water was added to the (??????) to replace what you drank.

There is a bottled version from Thailand called "Mekong". I don't know if they export it.

Trying to find a "representative receipe" for Montagnard rice wine would be like finding the true receipe for chili. Like QRQ 30 said, I only saw it in a large crock which everyone drank from thru bamboo straws. It was nasty stuff and it was not uncommon once they stirred it to find things other than rice bubble up to the top that had fallen into the crock and lay their quietly fermenting. Probably one of the most vivid memories I have of the effects of this stuff is one young lieutenant, dressed in overwhites, executing a perfect swan dive off a berm into a freshly planted rice paddy. The lad had no idea where he was, where he got the overwhites from ( which were now anything but white ) nor how much he had to drink. He remembers the headache he had, however, to this day.

Jack Moroney:D

Matchanu was looking for some "Mekong" the other day, said he was about to run out...So I presume he may know where to procure some, I was no help to him:

Terry

Lao Lao
 

I can probably get you a couple of bottles of Lao Lao...similiar stuff to the Yard only not as sweet...
The Loa put all kinds of critters in it too for various purposes...scorpions for wood, bees for headache, tarantulas for "stealthy hunting", etc...
Tarantula hair floating in my alcohol was a bit to get over at first...but I didn't have to get over it for very long :D
Let me know...we have teams deploying back to Laos in just a couple of weeks.


Eagle

IMO any critters floating in the pot are OK as long as they have six or more legs.:D

Re: Lao Lao
 

It might be interesting to put that on the head table at Nancy's next scientific advisory board meeting. She has some of the worlds leading Neuroscientists on her board (to include a couple of Nobel Laureates) the last one was at our home in Santa Fe, we had a catered dinner party for 40. I brought out several botles of Tequila after the dinner was over to supplement the after dinner wine and brandy, 6-8 of the guys stepped up to sample the various Tequilas, and fun was had by all:

Terry

Re: Lao Lao
 

J:

I would purchase two bottles of that nasty stuff, how much dinero do I need to send you?

Terry

Booze now...money later
 

Morning Terry!

Don't sweat the $$$...I'll ask the team to scoot back a couple of bottles.
Just be sure that Nancy doesn't destroy any of her most precious neurons with it.
I'll get your address as soon as I get confirmation of delivery :D

Joe

Joe:

You da man!:)

Terry

Re: Lao Lao
 

Sounds great. Just PM me the details and I will send you money and shipping info. Much appreciated.

For those who have indulged in both this Mantagnyard Rice Wine (or Lao Lao for that matter) and Korean Makkali, do you mind filling me in on how they compare? This thread has me intrigued, as Makkali is also a sweet rice wine, albeit from MUCH further north

(and I just found a Korean market that will hook me up with both it an soju! Yippee, school has just gotten less painful. It is amazing the barriers you can break when you buy Kimchee and speak Korean to the old lady at the counter - before you know it, liquor comes out of storage in the back :D)

Makkiali, a delightful substitute for 'yard wine.
 

Makkali?

I didn't know that is how it was spelled.

I would have spelled it Mock-Lee.

Looked like milk.
Tasted like Rhine (white) wine.
Delicious.
Refreshing.
gulp gulp
Next thing you know, you are laying on your ear.

We drank a lot of it in ToKoRi and Tong Du Chong-Up in the Republic of Korea.

I'm guessing 'yard rice wine was the same.

Re: Makkiali, a delightful substitute for 'yard wine.
 

Yard Wine was NOT DELICIOUS !!! Unless you were already half-trashed !!

Picture a 3-4 foot tall earthenware crock, small bottom belled out center, narrow throat (same size as bottom approx 1 foot) top diameter about 18 inches.) filled about 1/4 to 1/3 way up with rice then Bananna Leaves on top, all leaves taken from the UPPER part of tree (so's the dogs pissing on them would not impart anything "bad" into the BREW) !!! Fill it with water and wait a couple of weeks, This shit, if you were to put a cap in it and "pop it", would go THERMONUCLEAR !!!!

Now the interesting part. Remember John Wayne, after he made the GBs?? Notice all of the "Brass Bracelets" that he wore, even in the Westerns ?? Those were Montagnard "Ceremonial Ricewine Bracelets". When you went to one of these "Ceremonies", you would sometimes adopt the "Native Dress" ie. Loincloth, and then proceed to drink the wine !!

A piece of split bamboo was placed across the mouth of the jar. Then a hollow "straw" was placed through it and it was pushed down until it barely touched the surface of the "Wine". You then grabbed the straw with one hand and again with your other hand above the first then removing the lower hand and forcing the straw down for three cycles !!! That's three handwidths of straw down into the "Wine". Then you drank until you sucked AIR !!! Or PUKED, whichever came first. When you successfully accomplished this, not puking part way through, you were ceremoniously presented a "Bracelet" !!! Imagine how much JW had to drink with hands the size of HIS !!!!

There were variations of this, but all of the ceremonies that I attended were as stated. Many of the Yards had actually met JW while he was doing his "Background Study" for the movie and they loved his "Cowboy" personna .

This stuff was really BAD, unless you were 2nd or 3rd because after one did it, they added water and then shook it all around for the "Next" victim !!

Later
Martin