Yeah, ask her what the stuff is like though, there are lots of different versions of rice wine, dozens and dozens even just within china and pretty much every country and every region of every country in asia has its own sort of rice wine.
Here is how a guy from singapore is making red rice wine - Much the same without the red rice yeast would work too.
http://unclephilipsg.blogspot.com/2009/07/...a-ang-chow.html
I just make a basic sweet rice wine. Here's how (pictures are links to bigger more detailed photos on photobucket)
Ingredients from your local asian grocer.
*1kg glutinous rice, you can use normal rice if you really insist - but use glutinous rice.
*1 ball chinese yeast - comes in a pack that looks like this
*Some water
*Thats it
*wash the rice a couple of times till the rinse water is a little less milky
*Soak the rice overnight in cold water
*Drain rice thoroughly in a colander, let it drain for a good 30min at least ans shake it to get excess water out.
*Steam the rice for an hour (yes, you can skip the soaking and steaming and just use a rice cooker, it works but the wine wont be as good)
*Allow the rice to cool to body temperature or less
*Put the rice into a non-reactive (glass, stainless, plastic) container in layers about an inch thick - grind up 1 or 2 balls of the yeast in a blender or motar and pestle and sprinkle a light covering on each layer, leaving more than enough for the top.
*Push a hole down the center of the container and sprinkle the yeast over the top and make sure yuo have enough to sprinkle some down the hole
*Cover the container and walk away leaving it at a moderate room temperature.
You will notice there was no added liquid. You dont need to. The chinese yeast contains starch converting enzymes & bacteria as well as yeast. They will work with the moisture in the steamed rice and will start to pull moisture out of the rice and will eventually liquify and reduce the "dry" mixture to a mush, which will then start to ferment. After a day or two you will notice liquid in the hole, you dont really have to, but when it looks like there is a fair bit of liquid, I like to stir it all up and then stir it every day or two to stop a wine fermentation style cap of dry material being forced to the top by the fermentation gasses. The mush should start to look like porridge, then eventually like soup.
BTW - at any time after the liquid starts to come out, you can scoop out a little bowlfull of the stuff and have it as dessert. It is like a syrupy sweet and slightly boozy rice pudding. Delicious. The longer you leave it the boozier it becomes.
After a few weeks it will stop bubbling and settle down, and its pretty much ready to go. You can drink it with the chunks in, or you can put it in a calico bag (i use an old calico enviro shopping bag) and strain it through. It doesn't go through easily and you will hace to squeeze it through and wring out the booze like you were wringing out the washing. If you have a fruit or wine press, you ciuld put th bag in that, but otherwise you wring it through. What comes through will be a milky liquid whichnis lovely to drink as is, or you can let it stand and rack clear wine off the top of the lees.
This should give you something like 1 - 1.5L of
very sweet, around 20% abv wine, less if you only want to drink the clear stuff.
Now, you can get more wine by adding water to the start of the process. Up to a point, this wont even reduce the abv% - it will just make the wine less sweet. The fermentation has an excess of sugar and stops only because the yeast stop working at about 20% abv. Thin the sugars out withnadded water and they still take the whole thing up to 20% - just there is more sugar converted and less left over for sweetness. A liter of extra at the start will still give potent booze and less cloying sweetness - two liters will give you maybe a 16(ish)% drink that is still fairly sweet and with a slight hint of bitterness. I like it either with no water or with around a liter.
Keep it in the fridge or it will start to go sour on you.
Its super easy and tastes really good, i usually have trouble not eating half of it as dessert before I manage to turn it all into booze. The mash/mush tastes bloody fantastic with a bit of custard mixed into it.
There are a million variations of rice wine, all different, but this is the one i make and its good.
