Foreign visitor impressed with Vietnamese traditional liquid

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Foreign visitor impressed with Vietnamese traditional liquid

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The New York Times on March 9 ran an article by Neil Samson Katz on the author’s impression of Vietnamese traditional liquid during his trip to the Southeast Asian nation.
In his article, Katz wrote: “Many people go to Vietnam for the food, for the beaches, for the history. My wife and I went there to drink.”

The author went to Vietnam’s northern mountains in January with his target to explore Vietnam’s homemade rice wines and Sa Pa, a stunning mountain town less than 200 miles northwest of Hanoi, near Lao Cai.

During his stay there, Katz and his wife witnessed with their own eyes how local people make traditional wines from rice and maize and had chances to enjoy them.

“Our first taste came straight from the pot. It was warm, smelled of flowers and went down easily. We had gone to Sa Pa by overnight train from the capital of Hanoi, where life moves at breakneck speed,” the author recalled.

Continuing his trip across the country, Katz found that many Vietnamese people have kept their habits of sipping various wines distilled with herbal blends, for example snake wine or snake blood.

According to the author, Vietnam’s economy has almost doubled in the last 10 years, and on Hanoi’s leafy boulevards it shows. The occasional Porsche or Hummer mixes with the swarm of motor bikes. A Louis Vuitton outlet competes with its knock-off neighbours and still has customers. So it makes sense that while tourists flood the country in search of 50-cent beers - and find them - there is an emerging class of Vietnamese seeking a more refined tipple.

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