Rice, water, and yeast are the vital ingredients to make rice spirits. But what make the flavor and aroma of HAVINKY unique from any others? That uniqueness is directly tied to our great efforts to bring together the finest ingredients, and using a historical and natural process to age our spirits in the finest handcrafted ceramic pots. We summarize what we do in 4 key activities as follows: Harvest, Fermentation, Distillation, and Aging.
We select the sticky rice of the most desirable attributes for the spirit of HAVINKY. The spirit is produced from carefully selected sticky rice of the highest quality cultivated in the area around the Limestone Mountain in Kinh Mon, Vietnam.
Some of the qualities of the rice are influenced primarily by genetic factors while others are governed by environmental factors of the area such as soil and fertility, rainfall, sunlight and temperature, and wind and humidity, both during the growing season and at harvest. The growing period of the rice lasts for about 6 months, generally sown in early June and harvested in December.
The condition of the harvesting time is around 15-25 °C, with sticky rice moistures normally dropping to 13-15 percent in the field. In overall, both genetic and environmental factors make the essential properties of this type of sticky rice perfectly suited for the rice spirit production.
Fermentation takes place about 3 months after harvest. This is the ideal time regarding the chemical factors of the sticky rice as well as the temperature of around 15°C -25°C favorable for the yeast to produce the fermented results with expected flavor and aroma. The fermentation period of each batch takes at least 15 days. Bamboo-made tools are used during the fermentation process in order to infuse the spirits with special aromas.
To distinguish the flavor of our rice spirit from others, we nurture proprietary yeast strains using 37 natural ingredients according to our patented formula while still using the yeasting technique and the traditional fermentation methods in Phu Loc which have been highly recognized in Vietnam since the 18th century.
We use Coffey-type copper column stills to distill our spirits. We apply long-time distilling practices, much longer than Vietnamese traditional methods, to enhance the quality of the new spirits. Our distiller finely crafts small batches of new spirits which has aroma and taste derived from the raw materials used in its production.
During each distillation, in addition to considering the factors of the alcohol percentage and temperature, the distiller skillfully evaluates the aroma and taste to make “cuts” properly. We recycle the heads (the first cut) and tails (the last cut) and take only the heart (the middle cut) as the most desirable result meeting both measureable objectives related to chemical properties and subjective aromatic evaluations performed by our experienced distillers before entering the aging period.
The aging of rice spirits plays the most important role in our whole spirit production process. We use Vietnamese traditional craft of aging the spirits in handcrafted ceramic pots and have pioneered a couple of new practices including selecting only the finest handcrafted ceramic pots which properly allow the spirits to breathe in the pots, and creating an eco-friendly warehouse environment in which the pots are stored and the spirits are rested in a properly balanced condition including space, temperature, humidity, and airflow.
The aging of the spirits requires at least 3 years in the pots at the eco-friendly warehouse of HAVINKY Co. During the aging period, the unwanted character of the new spirits is gradually removed and the pungent aromas of the new distillate transform into the mellow characteristics of the well-rested spirit. We don’t use any kind of filtration to keep its flavor as full and rich as it is derived from the raw materials used in its production. No other substance than water is added and the final product retains its pure and clear color.
