Lihing: Sabah’s Hidden Gem Of Traditional Rice Wine

Hidden among Sabah’s rice terraces and harvest feasts is lihing—a silken, amber‑hued rice wine made from glutinous rice and ancestral yeast. Here’s a little story on how it’s crafted, how it ages, and why it’s slowly stepping into the light.

Today, we’re going to be taking a look at a traditional rice wine hailing from the tropics of Borneo. No, we’re not talking about tuak; we’re shining the spotlight on its lesser-known cousin, lihing, that comes from neighbouring Sabah. While tuak has become increasingly commercialised in the present day and has grown to be a firm mainstream fixture, lihing remains, in comparison, decidedly under the radar. In fact, as a regular drinker of tuak myself, I hadn’t even known lihing existed—that was until a friend brought me back a bottle from his travels.

Both of these traditional East Malaysian brews share a lot of similarities on the surface. For starters, they’re both fermented rice-based alcoholic beverages. Deriving their sweetness and alcohol content through the conversion of rice starch into sugars via enzymes, they’re then fermented with yeast. Tuak and lihing are also both deeply embedded within their respective cultures, being staples at communal gatherings, harvest festivals, weddings, and rites of passage.

They do, however, differ in subtle ways between their ingredients, how those ingredients are processed, and the final product. Where tuak in Sarawak refers more loosely to fermented rice wines, lihing is more strictly associated with pulut (glutinous or sticky rice) allied with a traditional starter yeast known as sasad.

At first glance, the most noticeable difference between the two lies in the clarity of the liquid. Lihing sports an amber-coloured or yellow hue and tends to be the clearer and more refined of the two. This is because the sediments and residues are usually filtered out. Tuak, in contrast, is often cloudier in its consistency, retaining more of the rice solids and yeast particles that went into its fashioning.

The making of lihing is, if you’ll pardon the cliché, both an art and a science. Guided by the accreted wisdom of their ancestors, those adroit in its craft must first cook the pulut carefully, keeping a watchful eye to neither overcook the rice nor leave it too soft. Once cooled, it is then sprinkled with a helping of yeast starter, whereupon it begins its gentle metamorphosis in a clay jar or similar earthenware.

The difference in this process, and the ones that follow, is what’s responsible for lihing’s added polish when compared to tuak. Its smoother, mellower finish is also, in part, down to its lengthier fermentation period, and this too can be manipulated to produce lihing with different profiles. A shorter fermentation of one to two weeks will net you a milder drink known as kinomol.

If left to mature longer, say two to three months or more, the flavour and colour then deepen, with the alcohol content increasing alongside it. Give it a little bit longer than that and the wine darkens further as the brew matures and the sediments settle, imbuing the beverage with a veneer of richer notes likened by some to sherry.

While normally served neat, either chilled or at room temperature, lihing also makes its presence felt in the kitchen, adding its easygoing bittersweetness to dishes such as sup manuk lihing—“lihing chicken soup”. It’s starting to make its way into mixology as well, forming a base on which creative bartenders can build upon and use to venture into as-yet scarcely charted realms of libational artistry. Some artisanal producers have even taken to experimenting with herbal infusions and fruit-flavoured varieties in an effort to garner more widespread appeal.

With more and more attention being paid to preserving indigenous culture in the present day, traditional drinks like lihing are finally getting their due and gradually making their way to the forefront of a wider cultural conversation. So the next time you’re in Sabah—or the first time, if you haven’t already been—keep a lookout for it. And if you time your visit to coincide with the Kaamatan (Harvest) Festival, all the better. You’ll get to experience for yourself how the sharing of this ancestral nectar becomes a gesture of hospitality and a symbol of unity in a season of gratitude.