Sông Cái Distillery

Vietnam's pioneering craft distillery, founded in 2018 in Hanoi by Daniel Nguyen. Produces a distinctive Vietnamese single malt whisky using a unique mash bill of malted Vietnamese grain (53.4%) and solid-state fermented nixtamalized corn varieties including dent corn, red flint corn, and white/purple glutinous corn (46.6%). The corn is inoculated with traditional Vietnamese banh-men (similar to koji), fermented one month in liquid state and six months in solid state for residual grains, then distilled twice in a grain-on, direct-fired copper pot still and once in a solid-state wood alquitar still. Matured in American oak for 4 years at cask strength (51.4% ABV). Won Silver at the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. The use of traditional Vietnamese fermentation techniques (banh-men) and local corn varieties creates a whisky with no global parallel.