Lost in Phu Quoc Pearl Island, enjoying the sun and wind, the sea and sky here is a great gift that nature bestows. Visitors are not only captivated by the beautiful culinary paradise of Phu Quoc, but also by the specialty of Phu Quoc sim wine that cannot be found anywhere else. That’s why many visitors to Phu Quoc island just want to enjoy the taste of sim wine once
By Thomas Vietnam at vemekong.com | Official Phu Quoc Visitor Guide
1. Better to Know as a Food Lover
Find them: Phu Quoc Island.
Best time: Dusk-Dawn
Don’t miss: Phu Quoc Sim Wine
Local’s pick: Bay Giao Shop
Tourist’s pick: Phu Quoc Son Sim Wine shop
Blog: https://vemekong.com/phu-quoc-sim-wine/
Facts: If Da Lat is famous for the sweet and aromatic taste of grape wine, then Phu Quoc sim wine deserves a special delicious taste no less than other excellent wines because of that special taste that no matter what tourists visit. Every visit to Phu Quoc is captivated by that fragrance.
2. Better to Know Phu Quoc Sim Wine
When talking about the recipe for Sim wine, visitors will be very curious because only this land has it, so the recipe is only available to the people of Phu Quoc. But most mainly rely on grape wine and grape nectar recipes to apply to this Sim fruit. The ingredients to make Sim wine are nothing fancy, simply: wild myrtle fruit, fruit yeast, 29 degrees Celsius wine.
When the Sim is ripe, people will pick up the ripe berries and bring them home to wash, puree and then ferment with granulated sugar in a certain ratio. The incubation time takes about 1 month until fermentation and the wine has a pinkish pink color like wine, tastes sweet and adds a bit of acrid taste. That is a success when it comes to the specialty of Phu Quoc island.
Just like wine has good effects on human health, so does Sim Phu Quoc wine. Surprisingly, the use of sim wine is very good for the digestive system, especially when you have a full stomach or eat too much protein.
In addition, it also nourishes blood, circulates blood, eats and sleeps well, good for the bones of the elderly or degenerate. Visitors will definitely want to buy it immediately and always when they know the medicinal uses of Phu Quoc sim wine.
Enjoy the nice weather days in Phu Quoc but don’t forget to buy a few bottles of Phu Quoc sim wine as a gift. Almost every house sells Phu Quoc sim wine, but every visitor wants to buy quality sim wine.
3. Phu Quoc Sim Wine in Kien Giang
Phu Quoc’s specialties not only stop at Phu Quoc Fish Sauce but also Sim wine is also an unforgettable specialty if you come to Phu Quoc. Made from myrtle fruit, myrtle is usually found in many parts of the world such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and tropical regions of Asia.
It is wonderful when nature bestows only the land of Phu Quoc with many myrtle trees, but only in Kien Giang province is the most myrtle forest.
Overwhelmed with the large space, visitors seem to be lost in the myrtle forest with countless ripe berries on the tree as if waiting for people to come here to gather and bring back. There are simply two types of myrtle, which are Hong sim and Tieu sim. Sim is ripe in the first lunar month, so it has a lot of honey, so when processing sim wine, it will be of good quality and have a delicious taste.
If you look closely, you will see that the myrtle fruit is hairy and the underside leaves are white. When ripe, the fruit is purple-black, almost like the ripe fruit of blueberries.
4. How to Make Phu Quoc Sim Wine
Ingredients for making myrtle wine soaked
1kg of forest sim
2 liters of white sticky rice 35 degrees
150g granulated sugar
Tools: Glass jars with a capacity of 2 – 5 liters
Good tip:
– In order to help the dish retain the full nutrients as well as delicious taste, you should note that you should choose fresh, succulent, ripe, medium-ripe, not over-ripe, purple-black skins, not green, Avoid the alcohol being astringent.
– In addition, you can also make white glutinous rice wine at home from simple ingredients such as glutinous rice, yeast and granulated sugar to make the wine more delicious and richer.
How to make pickled sim wine
Step 1. Clean the forest sim
First, you put 1kg of forest sim in a pot of water and wash it thoroughly, and remove dried, crushed, damaged branches, leaves or fruits floating on the water surface, then you take the sim out to Drain and cut off the top part of the sim.
Step 2. Fermentation of forest myrtle
Next, you put all the forest sims and refined sugar into a glass jar according to the ratio of 1kg of fresh myrtle and 150g of granulated sugar, shake well, cover, and let the forest sims ferment at room temperature for about 1-2 days.
Note:
– You should not put more sugar than the above ratio to avoid the sweetness from the sugar overpowering the flavor of the forest myrtle.
– Do not cover the lid too tightly to help oxygen still enter the bottle, and facilitate the fermentation process of the sim.
– After 1-2 days, at the bottom of the wine bottle will appear sim syrup, so you need to add glutinous rice wine with just enough amount of sim to slow down the fermentation process, to avoid the phenomenon of sim wine being damaged and sour.
Step 3. Brewing myrtle wine
After the fermentation period, you put white glutinous rice wine white glutinous rice wine in a glass jar according to the ratio of 1kg of wild sim and 3 liters of wine, then close the lid and incubate the wine at room temperature for about 3 months.
5. Pro tips:
Here are our tips for easing your mind (and stomach) around food-handling environments that you may not be used to.
Make sure the food is freshly cooked. If you’re eating hot street food, it’s always safest (not to mention more delicious) to eat food you can see being cooked to order.
Look for lines and busy stalls. Busy street food stalls are an indicator of popularity, and their high turnover rate means the food is never sitting out for hours and developing dreaded bacteria. Yes, long lines can be discouraging when you’re hungry after a full day of exploring, but it’s not worth the risk of grabbing precooked food from the empty spot next door.
Eat when the locals are eating. The last and most important element here is when to eat. You’re likely already on a weird eating schedule while you’re traveling, but it’s important to try and adjust to the eating times of where you are. A bowl of pho might be lunch for Americans, but it’s breakfast for the Vietnamese. This ensures that you’re eating freshly cooked food and that you can find the best and most popular places to eat.
If you can’t drink the water, then you can’t eat the salad. Most people get so hung up on not drinking the water or skipping ice in drinks that they don’t think about all of the other ways in which water is used in food service. Fruits and vegetables tend to be washed with tap water in most places, rather than the filtered water that locals drink—or sometimes it’s not washed at all. If you’re really craving some produce, try fruits you can peel or cooked veggies.
Trust your gut. If you’re unsure about the food or the way that it’s being prepared, then keep moving. Eating street food all over the world doesn’t make you an expert. Every stall and every country are different, and sometimes the rules can be harder to follow. When something doesn’t look, smell, or feel right, don’t eat it! Trust your judgment. Chances are that there’s another spot close by that’s making something more delicious.
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho: Co Ut’s Cong cake, Ut Dzach Fine Rice Vermicelli, Thanh Van Grilled Pork Sausage, Crab Noodle Soup At Floating Market, Scorched Rice with Caramelized Fish Sauce, 7-Toi’s Duck Meat Pancake, Banh Mi Thuy, Banana Blossom Salad, Fried Spring Rolls, Fresh Spring Rolls, Fetal duck egg (balut), Honeycomb Cake, Mini Sticky Rice Cake, Cassava Silkworm Cake, Grilled Banana Wrapped in Sticky Rice, Khmer-style Bun Goi Da Soup, Egg Coffee, Con Son Grilled Snakehead Fish, Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup, Lau Mam – Fermented Fish Hotpot, Grilled Snails with Pepper, Magenta Sticky Rice Cake, Duck cooked with Fermented Tofu, Rice Noodle Pizza, Vegetarian Noodle Soup, Snails Stuffed With Pork…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Chau Doc: Chau Doc Fish Noodle Soup, Sugar Palm Fruit, Basa Fish Hot Pot, Mam (Fermented fish), Phu Huong Beef Noodle Soup, Broken Rice with Pork Chop, Long Xuyen Broken Rice, Nui Cam Pancake, O Thum’s Chicken Grilled with Lime Leaves, Stir-fried Shrimp with Sesbania Flower, Sweet & Sour Soup with Siamese Mud Carp Soup & Sesbania Flower, Caramelized & Braised Catfish, Grilled Rice-field Rat with Salt and Chili…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Soc Trang: Pia Cake, Cong Cake (Banh Cong), Bun Nuoc Leo Soc Trang’s Noodle Soup, Soc Trang’s Bun Goi Da Soup, Duck Noodle Soup with black Pepper, Curry Noodle Soup, Grilled Beef on Tile, Khmer-style Tube Cake, Khmer-style Mung Bean Cake (Banh In), Dried Radish (Xa Bau), Stir-Fried Noodles with Seafood (Mi Sua), Soc Trang’s Green Rice Flakes…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ben Tre: Phu Le Rice Wine, Ben Tre’s Coconut Candy, Flat Banana, Coconut Rice, Snail Pancake, Sea Snail with Coconut Milk, Coconut Worm, Young Coconut Salad with Shrimp & Pork, Son Doc Puff Rice Paper…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Cai Be: Puffed Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Vinh Long: Elephant Ear Fish (fried giant gourami)…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in My Tho: Fried Sticky Rice, Snakehead Fish Rice Porridge, Hu Tieu My Tho (Noodle Soup), Coconut Banana Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Tra Vinh: Macapuno Coconut, Bun Nuoc Leo Tra Vinh’s Noodle Soup, Tra Cuon’s Sticky Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Sadec: Sa Dec Noodle Soup, Sadec Crab Hotpot, Lai Vung Spring Rolls, Sa Giang Shrimp Puff Pastry, Lai Vung Tangerine…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Bac Lieu: Spicy Beef Noodle Soup, Bac Lieu’s Three-striped Crab, White Radish Pies, Bac Lieu Thick Noodles & Creamy Coconut Milk, Bon Bon Pickles…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ca Mau: Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken), Grilled Vop clams with salt and pepper, Grilled Mudskipper Fish, Stone Crab Roast With Salt, Young Bee Salad, Nam Can’s Crab, U Minh Forest’s Honey, U Minh’s Fermented Fish Hotpot…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Hau Giang: Cau Duc Pineapple, Cai Tac’s Pork Organs Porridge, Hau Giang’s Bronze Featherback Fish Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ha Tien: Herring Fish Salad, Spider crab cake soup, Ken Noodle soup, Xoi Xiem (Siamese sticky rice), Steamed Noodle soup, Ha Tien Oyster porridge…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Rach Gia: Stir Noodle Soup, Kien Giang Fish Noodle Soup…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Con Dao: Bang nut jam, Vu Nang Snail, Roasted Pork Bread (Banh Mi), Coconut Ice Cream…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Phu Quoc: Phu Quoc Sim Wine, Phu Quoc Pepper, Phu Quoc fish sauce…
Hopefully, the above tips will help you to come up with a great plan for your adventure in Mekong River Delta, Vietnam. Have a safe trip!
“Sleep less, travel more, respect more” – Thomas Vietnam – Local travel expert.
Thank you
