Alcoholic drinks

alcoholic maize beverage

1. Ferment maize

• Haard N.F. et al. 1999, Fermented cereals: a global perspective, FAO Agric. Serv. Bull. 138, ch. 2 Table 3 ( and ch. 4 Table 1 ( adapted from Wacher-Rodarte 1995. Fetched and parsed, ch. 4 Table 1

Also called agadagidi, plantain wine.

cloudy, effervescent, sweet-sour drink for festive occasions; hard to store

1. Pulp overripe plantains and extract the must
2. Ferment the must3 days

• Sanni A.I., Oso B.A. 1988, 'The production of agadagidi — a Nigerian fermented beverage', Die Nahrung 32(4):319–326, doi:10.1002/food.19880320403 (abstract via Crossref)
• FermDB (Bokulich lab, ETH Zurich), FermDB_data.tsv, row Agadagidi
• Olanbiwoninu A.A. et al. 2026, "Ethnogeographic distribution of Nigerian fermented foods", Foods 15:3087, doi:10.3390/foods15173087, PMC13564609
• The Conversation, 'Nigeria's plantain wine: a traditional drink with huge economic potential' (2023)

1. Ferment rice with starter, ginger and cane juice

• Wikipedia, Philippine wine (outline only)

Also called 赤い酒, 黒酒, akai sake, red sake, kuroshu.

Akaisake is sake coloured pink to red by brewing with red yeast rice, rice grown with Monascus mould. Kuroshu is sake brewed from unpolished brown rice. Both follow the ordinary sake process with one changed ingredient; no primary source describing either was found.

Colour (akaisake)

Pink to red, from the pigments of red yeast rice (Monascus) (Wikipedia)

Rice (kuroshu)

Brewed from unpolished brown rice (Wikipedia)

Made like Sake (base flow: junmai, sokujo starter).

• Wikipedia, Sake (outline only)

Also called 灰持酒, akumochi-zake, akumochishu, akazake (Kumamoto), jizake (Kagoshima), jidenshu (Izumo).

sweet, reddish, slightly alkaline sake, now used mostly like mirin; taxed at the mirin rate as a 'mirin-like' liquor [JAWP:灰持酒]

1. Brew a thick mash with reduced water
2. Add wood ash just before (or a few days before) pressing
3. Press and filter (the ash does not remain)
4. Store without heat pasteurisationmonths

• Wikipedia (ja), 灰持酒, citing Koizumi, Tsunoda & Suzuki, 酒学入門, Kodansha 1998 (outline only)

historic beer

• phys.org 2011, VTT examined the first bottle of 170-year-old beer
• BeverageDaily 2012-05-22, Shipwreck beer bacteria holds formulation promise

Also called aloja, jwa'ay-hat'es (Wichí), ckilapana (Kunza, Atacama; reported), aloja, algarroba beer, aloja de algarrobo.

frothy, bittersweet-sour pod beer drunk at algarroba-season festivals

1. Gather and select podsduring the fruiting season
2. Pound into pieces
3. Add water and ferment covered24 h – 2 days · 0 % salt

Safety: Past 48 h (the third day) it 'passes' and causes belly pain, vomiting or diarrhoea [Herrera Cano and Suárez 2020]. Pods stored 6 months at 4 °C gave a mainly lactic, nearly alcohol-free drink (0.02–0.03 % ethanol), so fresh pods matter.

• Herrera Cano A.N. and Suárez M.E. 2020, Ethnobiology of algarroba beer, the ancestral fermented beverage of the Wichí people of the Gran Chaco I: a detailed recipe and a thorough analysis of the process, Journal of Ethnic Foods 7:4, doi:10.1186/s42779-019-0028-0 (open access; PDF read)
• Spanish Wikipedia, Aloja (bebida) (fetched 2026-10-16)
• Sciammaro et al., CIDCA-UNLP study of Santiago del Estero aloja (cited in the 2020 paper; not read directly)

Also called ḥnqt, Egyptian emmer beer, Tutankhamun Ale (1996 reconstruction).

lightly sweet, cloudy cereal beer

1. Malt
2. Split batch: cook half, keep half raw
3. Strain and ferment

• Samuel D. 1996. Archaeology of Ancient Egyptian Beer. J. Am. Soc. Brew. Chem. 54(1):3–12. DOI 10.1094/ASBCJ-54-0003
• Samuel D. 1996. Investigation of Ancient Egyptian Baking and Brewing Methods by Correlative Microscopy. Science 273:488–490.

Also called আপং, poro apong, nogin apong, ponggin.

Mash name

The fermenting rice and starter mix is called khamtip

Keeping

The settled concentrate is the best grade and keeps 4–5 days; diluted apong keeps about 3 days

Consumption

The most consumed drink in all 14 districts surveyed; men's consumption peaked at 75.2 % in Tirap

• Shrivastava K., Greeshma A.G., Srivastava B. 2012, Biotechnology in tradition: a process technology of alcoholic beverages practiced by different tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, North East India, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 11(1):81–89

Also called ཨ་རག་, arag, arak.

clear to white grain spirit (sometimes only fermented), usually drunk hot, neat or with butter and poached or scrambled egg and rice [WP:Ara (drink)]

1. Cook grain in a large cauldron, usually outdoors in a shed
2. Spread on a bamboo mat to cool; sprinkle powdered starter
3. Ferment wrapped in blankets in a bamboo or wooden containerlonger in cold weather; more starter is needed when cold (via search summary)
4. Distil (or drink the fermented form)

Safety: Distillation concentrates methanol as well as ethanol. Home distillation is illegal in many countries.

• Wikipedia, Ara (drink) (outline only)
• UVA Mandala, 'Ara making' https://texts.mandala.library.virginia.edu/node/48891 (could not be fetched; via search summary)
• Rawat J.M., Pandey S., Debbarma P., Rawat B. "Preparation of alcoholic beverages by tribal communities in the Indian Himalayan Region: a review on traditional and ethnic consideration." Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 5:672411, 2021. Tables 1–2 list beverages, starters and starter plants by state and tribe, Table 1

DISTILLED spirit; grades (dagim, tinsis) not documented this round

1. Ferment a tella-like mash
2. Distil (DISTILLED)

• Frontiers in Nutrition 2025 review 10.3389/fnut.2025.1519547 (via search summary)
• Fentie E.G. et al., "Cereal- and Fruit-Based Ethiopian Traditional Fermented Alcoholic Beverages", Foods 9(12):1781, 2020, Table 1 (names, raw materials)

Also called आसव (āsava), अरिष्ट (ariṣṭa), सन्धान कल्पना (sandhāna kalpanā), medicated wines, Draksharishta, Dashamoolarishta.

bitter-sweet, aromatic medicinal wine. Self-generated alcohol preserves it and extracts actives.

1. Prepare basehours (decoction)
2. Add sugar source and Dhataki
3. Sealed fermentation in an earthen jar30 days
4. Filter and mature

Safety: Alcohol content; herb toxicity in some formulas; modern GMP controls alcohol limits.

• Sekar S., Mariappan S. 2008, review of fermented medicines (asava and arishta) in the Brihat Trayee, PMC3326893
• Journal of Ayurveda & Holistic Medicine 2013 1(9). https://wisdomlib.org/uploads/journals/jahm/volume-1-issue-9-2013/133-117-347.pdf
• Bentham 2025, Medicated Wines: A Review on Ancient Fermented Formulations. https://www.benthamscience.com/chapter/28503
• NCBS GRAYU database, Draksasava formulation (read through a search summary; page later returned 404)

1. Cook the rice and spread it to cool
2. Mix in powdered hamei
3. Ferment in the sun3–6 days
4. Filter the sweet or bitter beer
5. Distil yu (DISTILLED)

• Singh P.K., Singh K.I. 2006, Traditional alcoholic beverage, Yu of Meitei communities of Manipur, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 5(2):184–190
• Devi P., Suresh Kumar P. 2012, Traditional, ethnic and fermented foods of different tribes of Manipur, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 11(1):70–77
• Nath N., Ghosh S., Rahaman L., Kaipeng D.L., Sharma B.K. 2019, An overview of traditional rice beer of North-east India: ethnic preparation, challenges and prospects, Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 18(4):744–757

Also called 백세주, 百歲酒, baekse-ju, Bek Se Ju.

Baekseju is a branded Korean yakju, a clear rice wine flavoured with ginseng, goji (gugija), omija and other dried herbs. Its maker grinds the rice raw instead of steaming it and ferments it with wheat nuruk, in a seed mash and then a main mash, before the wine is settled, filtered and pasteurised.

1. Grind the raw rice with water
2. Brew the seed mash with nuruk and herbs2–3 days
3. Ferment the main mash3–4 days
4. Settle and filter off the lees24 h
5. Pasteurise at low temperature and bottle

• Financial News (Korea), 3 February 2008, visit to Kooksoondang's Hoengseong brewery (Gangjang baekseju process)
• Kim S.-E. 2024, 32살 백세주의 재탄생 (baekseju renewal and raw-rice brewing), News Tomato, 7 November 2024
• E-Today (Korea), 2 August 2019, 국순당 백세주 and the Jibong yuseol tale
• Wikipedia, Baekse-ju (outline only)
• Wikipedia (ko), 백세주 (outline only; 13 % alcohol)

red, sweet-sour palm wine drunk at Kaamatan and Christmas

1. Collect fresh coconut sap
2. Add rosok bark, stir slowly, cover with cloth or banana leaf
3. Ferment12–24 h

• Wikipedia, Bahar (drink) (outline only)
• Wikipedia, Palm wine, names table (outline only)

historic meads; both extinct (WP:Philippine wine)

1. Ferment diluted honey

• Wikipedia, Philippine wine (outline only)

cassava beer; Karbi apong made this way keeps 1–2 weeks and strengthens in storage [SHRI2012]

1. Cook cassava, cool and grind to a paste
2. Mix with starter and ferment as for apong
3. Karbi kodtak extraction: add 4–5 L water per kg (lukewarm in winter), ferment a further 8–9 h, draw beer up a closed bamboo pole (hiru) and squeeze it out with a dried luffa sponge

• Shrivastava K., Greeshma A.G., Srivastava B. "Biotechnology in tradition: a process technology of alcoholic beverages practiced by different tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, North East India." Indian J. Traditional Knowledge 11(1):81–89, 2012. Survey of 21 tribes in 42 villages of 14 districts. Process flow charts read from the PDF figures
• Rawat J.M., Pandey S., Debbarma P., Rawat B. "Preparation of alcoholic beverages by tribal communities in the Indian Himalayan Region: a review on traditional and ethnic consideration." Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 5:672411, 2021. Tables 1–2 list beverages, starters and starter plants by state and tribe, Table 1

Also called basi, basí.

Basi is the sugarcane wine of the Ilocos region. Fresh cane juice is boiled with samak bark and leaves, cooled in burnay stoneware jars, started with a little old basi or a starter, and left sealed for months. The method is not standardised and varies from maker to maker.

1. Boil cane juice with samak bark, then samak leaves, and skim
2. Pour into a burnay jar and cool24 h
3. Add parek, cover with samak leaves and seal or bury the jarat least 2 months

Safety: No sourced safety values were found for basi.

• Wikipedia, Philippine wine (outline only)
• Wikipedia, Basi (outline only)
• Gregorio et al., University of the Philippines Diliman, headspace GC-FID study of lambanog, tapuy, basi and tuba, Philippine Journal of Science 149(3a) (seen only in a search summary; the PDF was behind a 403 block)

Also called bees wine, beeswine, wine bees, beer seeds, Californian bees, Palestinian bees.

Bees wine was a home-brewed drink made by keeping gelatinous grains of yeast and bacteria, the "bees", in a jar of water sweetened with brown sugar and treacle. The grains rose and fell on the bubbles of gas, and every week or so the fermented liquid was poured off and drunk and the jar was topped up with fresh sugar water. The result was a mildly alcoholic, rather sweet, slightly sour drink.

1. Start a culture (if none is to hand)2 days
2. Put the bees into sweetened water
3. Ferment
4. Pour off the drink and top up with sugar water7 days

Safety: The culture is a mixture of unknown composition. The National Collection of Yeast Cultures stopped supplying it to the public for health and safety reasons.

• Kebler L.F. 1921, "California Bees", Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association 10(12):939–943
• National Collection of Yeast Cultures, Beeswine (archived web page, 2008)
• Wikipedia (en), Bees wine (outline only)

Low-sugar sap (~1 %) needs added sugar; lightly fermented kvass-like drink (berezovy kvas) or wine (typical; verify).

Also called 菩提酛, 水酛.

The oldest starter. Raw rice soaks with a little cooked rice until the water sours (soyashi-mizu), and that lactic water starts the yeast. Chosen for hot late summer because the acid kept it safe; it smells fierce.

1. Sour the soaking water (soyashi-mizu)2 days
2. Layer steamed rice, koji and sour water7–10 days

• Wikipedia, Sake (outline only)
• Wikipedia (ja), 菩提酛, quoting the Muromachi-period brewing manual Goshu no nikki (outline only)

Also called boj.

thick sour cane-maize drink for religious feasts and daily use

1. Cook maize over a wood fire3 days
2. Soak the maize, then grindabout 2 days
3. Press cane; pour juice into a clay pot, then into a tinaja holding fermented maize and ginger
4. Fermentabout 8 days

Safety: Largely made clandestinely though Guatemalan law covers it (USAC).

• Ronquillo Blau, Escoto, Hutzler, Zarnkow, Jacob, Sampaio 2023, 'Production process and physicochemical characterization of the Guatemalan artisanal fermented beverages boj and suchiles', J. Am. Soc. Brew. Chem., doi:10.1080/03610470.2023.2204300 (metadata via Crossref; text not reached)
• Sandoval & Ortiz, Revista Científica FCQF-USAC 6(1) (via search summary)
• Comboni Missionaries, 'Guatemala: the native flavour of boj' (2019) (popular)

1. Mix honey:water 1:4 in a cleaned cow bladder2–3 days
2. Add a little honey; ferment anaerobically2 days

• Fentie E.G. et al., "Cereal- and Fruit-Based Ethiopian Traditional Fermented Alcoholic Beverages", Foods 9(12):1781, 2020

Before fermentation, Botrytis cinerea grows on ripe grapes in humid conditions (~20 °C, >80 % RH) followed by dry weather; berries lose up to 60 % mass, sugar/acids concentrate, glycerol and gluconic acid form; Furmint (Tokaji Aszú), Sémillon, Riesling (WP).

1. Noble rot on vine20 °C
2. Slow fermentationweeks to months (typical)

• Wikipedia, Noble rot (outline only)

Also called брага.

rustic low-alcohol mash; today mostly the wash for samogon

1. Make kvass-like wort with rye malt and hops (Soviet recipe ~1 g hops/L)
2. Ferment3–10 days (home recipes)
3. Optional distil to samogon (DISTILLED)

• sport24.ru history-of-braga article (popular, via search summary)
• ru.wiktionary 'брага' (etymology probably Turkic)

Also called brem, brem Bali, Balinese rice wine, brem cair.

Brem is a sweet, brownish rice wine from Bali. Glutinous rice, often black and white together, is steamed and fermented with ragi tape into a juicy tape mash for about five days; the liquid is pressed out and fermented a second time, for weeks to months, before it is bottled.

1. Soak, drain and steam the rice1 h
2. Cool and mix in ragi tape
3. Ferment the rice as tape mash5 days
4. Press out the liquid
5. Second fermentation of the pressed liquid15 days – 6 months

Safety: No sourced safety limits were found for brem. The tape stage relies on a clean ragi starter.

• Sujaya I.N., Mikumo D., Orikasa Y., Urashima T., Oda Y. 2011, Baking properties of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains derived from brem, a traditional rice wine from Bali, Food Science and Technology Research 17(4):369–373 (introduction cites Sujaya et al. 2000 and 2004)
• Nazarudin H. 2013, Making brem and arak Bali, The Jakarta Post, 26 January 2013
• Wikipedia, Brem (outline only)
• Wikipedia, Tapai (outline only)

Also called busaa, busa.

opaque sour maize beer drunk actively fermenting

1. Make kimera: soak millet; germinate in ventilated open pans7 days
2. Ferment maize paste7–8 days
3. Fry on open charcoal fire~30 min
4. Mix kimera with roasted maize
5. Add water 1:3 solids; ferment in open drums2 days

Safety: Mycotoxins (aflatoxin, fumonisin, DON) found in busaa in Bomet County (via search summary). Nout (1981) studied Kenyan traditional beverages.

• hapakenya.com 2014 recipe crediting 'Food Chain' (via search summary; low)
• Nout M.J.R. 1981, Kenyan traditional fermented beverages (via search summary)

thick, sour, lightly alcoholic cereal drink (stronger than Turkish boza)

1. Cook cereal flour with water
2. Add sugar, then ferment with yeast and lactic bacteria

• Turkish academic press via search summary (process only)
• Wikipedia, Boza (outline only)

Also called caiçuma, caissuma.

fermented drink of manioc, banana or maize

1. Cook the base and ferment

• Wikipedia (pt), 'Caiçuma' (fetched 2026-10-16), links a Puyanawa production video

Also called फेणी, fenni.

cashew feni ~42–45 % ABV; seasonal late Feb–mid May

1. De-seed and stomp cashew apples in a rock basin (collmi), or press (pingre)
2. Ferment first juiceseveral days
3. First distillation
4. Redistil urrak with neero/wash

• Wikipedia, Feni (liquor) (outline only)

1. Cook and ferment manioc

• Brazilian Journal of Biology 2024 review of Amazonian ferments (tucupi, caxiri), via search summary

Also called ჭაჭა, Georgian grape brandy, Georgian pomace brandy.

Chacha is a Georgian spirit distilled from grape pomace, the skins and pips left after winemaking; the word chacha also names the pomace itself. In the Kakhetian method the pomace first ferments with the juice in a buried qvevri, then it is distilled. Georgia registered chacha as its first geographical indication in 2011.

1. Ferment the grapes with their pomace in a qvevri10–20 days
2. Draw off the wine and keep the pomace
3. Distil the pomace
4. Rest, or age in wood

• Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia, "ჭაჭა/Chacha" geographical indication specification, registration No. 1, 13 December 2011 (copy published by the UK government)
• Mittova V., Tsetskhladze Z.R., Motsonelidze N., Palumbo R., Roviello G.N. 2026, Georgian grapes and wines as a source of phenolic compounds - composition, antioxidant activity and traditional winemaking, Molecules 31(2):303
• Wikipedia, Chacha (brandy) (outline only)

DISTILLED grain spirit; called 'Nubian gin' in older literature

1. Ferment grain mash
2. Distil (DISTILLED)

Safety: Distillation concentrates methanol as well as ethanol. Home distillation is illegal in many countries.

• Vice 'Really Strange Brew' (popular; conflates busaa and chang'aa; low)
• Kenyan food-science monograph (title only)

alcoholic beverage

1. Heat slowly and ferment

• Haard N.F. et al. 1999, Fermented cereals: a global perspective, FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 138, ch. 4 Table 1 (adapted from Wacher-Rodarte 1995)

Also called 沉缸酒, 龙岩沉缸酒, Longyan chengang wine.

Chengang jiu is a sweet red-qu huangjiu from Longyan in Fujian. Its name, "sinks in the jar", comes from the way the mash sinks and rises again and again in the jar while it ferments. It follows the Fujian hongqu rice-wine family; Wikipedia gives it about 20 % alcohol and 20 % sugar.

Style

A sweet huangjiu made with hongqu

Alcohol

About 20° (20 % alcohol), as given by Wikipedia citing a 1989 reference book

Sugar

About 20 %, as given by Wikipedia citing a 1989 reference book

Made like Hongqu jiu / Fujian laojiu (red-qu rice wine).

• Wikipedia (zh), 沉缸酒 (outline only; cites 中国文化知识精华, 湖北人民出版社 1989, p. 434)
• Wikipedia (zh), 黄酒 (outline only)

Also called chhang.

home barley beer, 5–7 % alcohol; served from a brass kettle (chapskan) to guests; drunk at weddings, births and Losar

1. Cook barley
2. Inoculate with powdered phabs (one-year-old phabs preferred) and ferment
3. Optional: distil to aarak (DISTILLED)

• Angmo K., Bhalla T.C., "Preparation of Phabs — an indigenous starter culture for production of traditional alcoholic beverage, Chhang, in Ladakh", Indian J. Tradit. Knowl. 13(2):347–351, 2014

Also called muko / muqu (Quechua), aqha (Quechua, chicha), masticated chicha.

low-alcohol, cloudy maize beer

1. Chew maize flour into balls
2. Cook and fermentseveral days (typical)

• Wikipedia, Chicha. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicha
• Moseley M.E., Nash D.J., Williams P.R. et al. 2005, Burning down the brewery: establishing and evacuating an ancient imperial colony at Cerro Baúl, Peru, PNAS 102(48):17264–17271

Also called chikokivana.

Quick sorghum-family style millet brew drunk the next day.

1. Mix millet malt, maize meal, yeast and waterminutes
2. Ferment24 h
3. Strain

• FERMDB row Chikokivana (citing GADAGA1999)
• GADAGA1999 abstract (classifies chikokivana as an alcoholic beverage from sorghum or millet malt)

Chiya is a grain-in sorghum beer of the Kayah people of eastern Myanmar, brewed only by women. Sorghum is boiled until sticky, mixed with a home-made yeast cake and left two days in a fibre basket, then sealed in a clay pot for five to seven days. It is sipped through a straw from the pot, grains and all.

1. Boil the sorghum until stickyat least 1 h
2. Cool on mats and mix in the yeast cake
3. Rest in a fibre basket2 days
4. Seal tightly in a clay pot5–7 days
5. Sip through a straw from the pot

• Cornell M. 2022, Traditional brewing in Myanmar, an amazing heritage, Zythophile (review of Corbin L.J. 2022, Heritage Drinks of Myanmar, Silkworm Books), 21 February 2022; read through the Internet Archive copy

Also called chouchenn, Breton mead, hydromel breton.

Chouchen is the mead of Brittany, honey fermented in water. In the Breton tradition the ferment is started with freshly pressed apple juice, and buckwheat honey gives it a dark colour and strong taste. It is drunk chilled as an aperitif.

1. Mix honey and water
2. Start with fresh apple juice (or yeast) and ferment

• Wikipedia (en), Chouchen (outline only; fetched 2026-10-16)

1. Ferment

• 2026 lab study on Chubitchi (via search summary)