Moonshine in Singapore

Posted by noelbynature under Food, Lifestyle
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Moonshine, or illicitly-distilled alcohol beverages, is not a common word you’d hear here in Singapore - the name refers to American whiskey smugglers who did their illegal work ‘by the light of the moon’. But there were illegal distilleries in Singapore back in the day, a rice liquor called ’samsu’.

cc image by icedbuddha

What is Samsu? If you google the term, you’d probably find it as the name of a province in North Korea. The local name seems to have fallen out of use these days. yg explains:

samsu is distilled from fermented rice mash. samsu was a poor man’s drink. it was also used as an ointment and an offering during prayers, mainly by the chinese. pregnant (chinese) women used to bathe with it. like toddy, it was popular with those in the low-income group. however, it was cheaper than toddy and the kick, which was twice as strong, came quickly.

many of the illicit samsu distilleries were hidden in the rural farming areas like tampines, yio chu kang, lim chu kang, upper thomson, upper serangoon and potong pasir. these ‘factories’ were usually located near some streams or ponds because a lot of water was needed for the production of the samsu.

The distillation of rice wine is fairly common in Southeast Asia and East Asia, and rice wine comes in the form of many names such as sake from Japan or tuak from Sarawak. In Singapore, you can’t distill your own rice wine, but you are allowed to homebrew your own beer if you’re 18 and above! But for more information about illegal samsu manufacturing, check out yg’s post here.

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