Taisugar to market DIY rice-wine brewing kit

"We'll market our [DIY]product in three-bottle packaging, with a bottle each of the three main ingredients."

a spokesman for Taiwan Sugar Corp

Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar) announced yesterday it will market a new variety of "mix it yourself" rice wine next month to counter bootlegging.

The company said the alcohol content of the rice wine produced from its new kit will be 85 percent, higher than the 19.5 percent of the popular red-label rice wine produced by Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Co (TTWC).

Moreover, a company spokesman said, Taisugar has invented an innovative way to keep the price of its new rice wine at around NT$100 (US$2.87) per three-bottle set, lower than TTWC's price of NT$130 per bottle.

"We'll market our [DIY] product in three-bottle packaging, with a bottle each of the three main ingredients -- alcohol produced from molasses, ethanol made from fermented rice and special water," the spokesman said, adding that consumers can mix the contents of the three bottles to produce a single bottle of rice wine.

By selling the ingredients separately, the spokesman said, Taisugar will be able to skirt the WTO's tax requirement for distilled spirits.

He said that as Taisugar produces molasses itself, its production costs will be lower than TTWC's, which has traditionally bought molasses from Taisugar to produce its rice wine.

Bootlegging rice wine has become rampant in recent months because prices for the cooking staple were driven up as a result of Taiwan's entry into the WTO.

During WTO entry negotiations, Taiwan agreed to tax rice wine at the same rate as similar products after accession.

As a result, the government had to start taxing rice wine to the tune of NT$150 a liter at the beginning of this year. That pushed the price of a bottle of rice wine from NT$30 to around NT$130. Prices will rise next year when taxes on the spirit are raised to NT$180 per liter.

At least 11 people are thought to have died after drinking bootleg rice wine.