State-run Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar, 台糖) will begin selling do-it-yourself (DIY) rice wine today in a move designed to bring down the price of a 0.6L bottle of the popular commodity to NT$85.
Yeh Hung-chan (
"Consumers can mix the three ingredients to make a 0.6L bottle of rice wine," Yeh said.
Since the ingredients are sold separately, the product can be exempt from WTO-imposed taxes on distilled spirits.
"We only have to take the NT$11 per liter alcohol tax into consideration," Yeh said.
The three-bottle rice wine kit will retail for NT$85, much lower than the NT$130 per 0.6L red-label rice wine that Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corp (TTL, 台灣菸酒公司) offers.
All TTL red-label rice wine is made from molasses supplied by Taisugar, therefore the quality and taste of Taisugar and TTL rice wines should be quite similar, Yeh said.
An academic, however, reminded the public that the DIY kits may be dangerous.
"Alcohol is flammable ... it can be a threat to public safety, especially if it's stored near an open flame," said Shyu Yuan-tay (徐源泰), a member of the Consumers' Foundation (消基會) and a horticulture professor at National Taiwan University.
The alcohol content in Taisugar rice wine is 85 proof.
As a result of Taiwan's WTO entry, the price of rice wine surged from NT$21 to NT$130 per bottle because of WTO tax requirements.
High prices have fuelled bootleg-wine operations that have resulted in the sale of lethal wine that killed 10 people over the past few weeks.
* Taisugar's DIY kit includes alcohol produced from molasses, ethanol made from fermented rice and mineral water.
* The three-bottle rice wine kit will retail for NT$85 and is exempt from WTO taxes.
To ease the threat of bootleg wine, TTL has reduced rice-wine prices.
From Dec. 6 through Dec. 20, TTL is offering a free bottle of salted-rice cooking wine for every two bottles that are purchased.
Each consumer can buy up to six bottles of salted-rice wine at over 120 TTL outlets, as well as at some 50,000 retail stores around the country.
Taiwanese negotiators failed in their attempt over the weekend to convince the US to agree to tax cuts on rice wine to combat the problem of bootleg wine.
US trade negotiators said that a tax cut would violate WTO rules and the terms of the US-Taiwan bilateral agreement that preceded Taiwan's entry into the global trade organization on Jan. 1.
The US side was unmoved by Taiwanese arguments that the high tax on rice wine has encouraged the production and sale of the cheap bootleg wines, causing people to be poisoned.
US negotiators said that Taiwan would have to conduct "full consultations with all the members of the WTO and obtain a consensus" and agree to some sort of waiver before taking any unilateral steps to change the tax on rice wine.
Making a unilateral legislative change before that would be "inadvisable," the Americans said.
Taiwanese negotiators, as a result, left Washington with no concessions from the US.
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