Fangxian Yellow Rice Wine 房县黄酒
Fangxian Yellow Rice Wine is featured among the local specialties of Hubei.
Fangxian Yellow Rice Wine (房县黄酒) is made in Fang County (房县), Shiyan (十堰), using local glutinous rice and a small fermentation starter containing red smartweed flowers. Changjiang Cloud (长江云) describes its flavour as fresh, sweet and refreshing.
Ingredients
The documented traditional ingredients include Sancun Xue (三寸雪) glutinous rice and cold spring water from the Qingfeng Fault (青峰大断裂带). Red smartweed starter, or hongliao xiaoqu (红蓼小曲), supplies the fermentation culture.
How it is made
To make the starter, soaked glutinous rice is pounded with red smartweed flowers, liquorice and starter culture. The mixture is rolled into small balls, coated with starter powder and laid on thatching grass under a quilt. Once white growth appears, the balls are removed and air-dried.
In a September 2025 visit to Tucheng (土城), brewer Qu Wanjiang (瞿万江) crushed these balls into powder and mixed it into cooled, steamed glutinous rice. The mixture then went into an earthenware jar to ferment.
Where it comes from
Home brewing has long been part of local life. Hubei Daily (湖北日报) describes families making the wine for their own tables or as gifts for relatives and friends.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-27. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.