Liquor industry of Vietnam was founded and operated independently as a traditional handicraft a long time ago. Many traditional handicraft villages have renowned all over the country. Traditional liquors such as sticky rice liquor, black sticky rice liquor, "can" liquor distilled manually also gain the same popularity as industrial liquor. It might be said that the liquor is consumed all over the country at unceasingly increasing volume and more diversified types.

In 1858, when the first French put their feet in Vietnam, the liquor industry began to experience so many changes. Before it was founded, the protective government encouraged the local residents to distill and consume liquors for tax collection. However, there were not effective tax collection measures, so tax evasion, and liquor smuggler.. were available everywhere and could not be controlled. Since the foundation of liquor industry, the protective government issued an ordinance to forbid all citizens from producing liquor, ceased to give license to households who used to live on the business and remained only several concentrated handicraft villages for the purpose of taxation. This forbiddance was strongly enhanced while liquor industrial production was highly promoted. Special investigation teams directly led by French personnel were established to chastise illegal liquor producers. Vietnamese people used to call these teams "Tay doan".

On the one hand, the protective government forbid others from distilling liquor. On the other hand, they forced citizen to consume a target of industrial liquors produced by the government (Ty liquor). Nevertheless, illegal liquor producing and selling were still available everywhere. Due to the fact that "our own liquors were considered smuggled", Vietnamese people called their own liquor " Ngang" or "Quoc lui", which all mean illegal liquors or with an aim to compare with “Quoc gia” liquor (national liquor).

With industrial liquor (Ty liquor) the protective government imposed a target of consumption based on each village population and assigned this task to local authorities. Funeral, wedding, festival ... were organized only when the villager bought a fixed volume of liquor. The consumer’s demands were not responded. Smuggling became standard practice from the last haft nineteenth century to the first haft twentieth century. The illicit liquor was transported by coffin, or by any effective means to escape the watchful eyes of the excise men “Tay doan”.

Clandestine stills were cleverly organized and hidden in nooks and crannies of the heather-clad hills. Smugglers set remote signaling systems whenever the excise officers were seen to “visit” the vicinity. To produce more and pay less, distillers in Sai Gon- Cho Lon used to bribe the excise officers. By the 1920s, despite the fact that thousands of illicit stills were being confisticated every year, more than haft of the liquor consumed in Vietnam was being swallowed painlessly and with pleasure without contributing a penny in duty.

(It was under this situation that many exceptional ways of liquor selling were invented. Examples were “sipped liquor” of Mo village girls, where the liquor seller carried a bubble of liquor under her breast, covered by her blouse - it was thought that she was fat or pregnant. The bubble connected with two pipelines to pour the liquor into a wooden cup. She sold a wooden cup as a sip, or buyer might suck liquor directly from the bubble through the pipelines, one sip was one unit, two sips were two units).

By the 1933, due to the fact that smuggle could not be controlled, liquor tax contributed an indispensable part in the national budget, while quickly developing industry was requiring more and more spirit and industrial liquor supply did not meet the demand, the French government began to allow some traditional village but under tightened control, such as Van village (Bac Giang province), Van Dien village (Hanoi) and some new ones like Xuan Lai (Soc Son district, Hanoi), Quan Dinh ( Tu Son district, Bac Ninh province), Do Xa (Hai Duong province) ...

Spirit drinking was a long-established custom of Vietnamese people and the market quickly expanded following population increase in Indochina. Spirit shipped from France was costly while raw materials were abundant in Vietnam. At that time, manual liquor production turnout in Vietnam was much lower than industrial liquor in Europe. It was certain that industrial liquor production in Vietnam would bring enormous benefit. Therefore, the protective government began to make tremendous capital investment in industrial liquor production in Vietnam. For a time, French scientists cooked rice and maize starch and matured by dried yeast, which was similar to the then way in France. But the economic efficiency was not high as freight charges and imported duties of materials from Europe to Vietnam accounted for a large part in the total cost. It was not until the success of a French scientist group led by Callmette that the production from cereals really began in fact.

In the North, Fontaine Distilleries established four distilleries, including Hanoi Distillery. Under the French protection, these distilleries acted as a monopoly in producing and distributing liquor in Vietnam, regardless the strong competition from Chinese “coong-xi” distilleries. Central liquor distilleries established distribution and sale agents at every city and province. Stable production lasted a rather long time, from 1934 to 1944. In total budget of Indochina this time, liquor industry contributed 8. 32%, of which Fontaine Distilleries accounted for 6. 57%.

Up to now, with abundant food and cereals availability, under the fact that manually distilled liquors are still consumed widely, state - owned enterprise such as Hanoi Liquor Company always upgrades its equipments and technology, raises the product quality and introduces new products to take up the domestic market, to reach the international market, and to confirm the premium quality of Vietnamese liquor.

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