Southeast Asia , with regard to its spirits and cocktails, remains relatively unknown in the West. The history of distillation there has also yet to be fully uncovered, although there are hints of Chinese influence in the still designs employed on Southeast Asian islands. European explorers arriving in the region encountered spirits distilled from rice wine, palm wine, sugar cane, and coconut sap, all of which are still produced today. These go by a variety of names, often falling under the generic “arrack,” and are sometimes marketed as “whisky” despite their different means of production. See arrack.
The consumption of alcohol in the region reflects not only native traditions but also influences from China and Japan, the European colonial era, a loosening of attitudes driven by modern tourism, and restrictions imposed by nominally dry Muslims. In Malaysia, for example, a dual legal system governs alcohol among the Islamic Malay majority and the assorted Chinese, Indians, and indigenous peoples, resulting in competing aims in regulation; consumption figures suggest substantial tippling among many of those who claim to abstain.
European-style lager beers, such as Singapore’s famous Tiger, are locally produced and very popular throughout Southeast Asia. In Vietnam, the Portuguese and French spurred demand for European wine. Rice distillates are widely and informally produced as part of household cottage industries. The typical process for making these, as is well documented in Vietnam, involves a two-step fermentation process using starters known as ciu. These dough-like masses are made from ground rice or cassava, sometimes with herbs and spices added, which are inoculated and allowed to grow mold. These dried starters are added to rice, which turns the starches into sugar. Yeasts turn these sugars into fermented alcohol, which can be distilled to high proof or simply fortified with additional spirits. See baijiu and qu.
Two cocktails that originated in Southeast Asia have taken on prominent status in the cocktail canon, both of them developed in hotels and clubs catering to Western visitors. The Singapore Sling, a gin-based cocktail that has taken on a variety of incarnations, is credited, probably erroneously, to the Raffles Hotel in Singapore and was popularized by the likes of W. Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward, and Ernest Hemingway. See Singapore Sling. The Pegu Club, the eponymous cocktail of a club built for British officers and administrators in 1882 in Yangon, Myanmar, was also recorded by European bartenders and appeared in the
See also arrack, Batavia; Indonesia; and qu.
Martin, Scott C., ed. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.
Owens, David J., ed. Indigenous Fermented Foods of Southeast Asia. Boca Raton, FL: CRC, 2014.
By: Jacob Grier