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Alcoholic drinks from Malaysia

Montoku (Sabah distilled rice spirit)montoku

Montoku is a DISTILLED rice spirit of Sabah, made by heating the lees of lihing rice wine (or soured tapai) and condensing the vapour. The base is glutinous rice fermented with the sasad starter in a sealed jar. In rural northern Sabah it costs far less than beer, RM0.48 per standard drink against RM3.85 in a survey published in 2016.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks2 months – 3 monthsFamily: Lihing / tapai (Sabah rice wine)

Recipe

Montoku (Sabah distilled rice spirit), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: PeaceSeekers, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceThe base amounts are a government cultural portal's lihing recipe; no amounts for the distillation were found.
Glutinous rice, for the lihing base3 kg[jkkn-lihing]
Sasad (dried fermented-rice starter), pounded fine[jkkn-lihing]
Starterkoji/qu/mold-starter: sasad, inherited from the lihing base

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 months – 3 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Glutinous rice is cooked fairly dry and spread out to cool

Step 1 of 4
Cook glutinous rice and cool it on a tray
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Mucor
Rhizopus
Wickerhamomyces

Output: cooked, cooled rice.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Montoku is a DISTILLED rice spirit of Sabah, made by heating the lees of lihing rice wine (or soured tapai) and condensing the vapour. The base is glutinous rice fermented with the sasad starter in a sealed jar. In rural northern Sabah it costs far less than beer, RM0.48 per standard drink against RM3.85 in a survey published in 2016. Made in 4 steps over 2 months – 3 months. The longest step, ferment into lihing, takes 2–3 months (Jabatan Kebudayaan dan Kesenian Negara (JKKN)…). Mucor and Rhizopus moulds and Saccharomycopsis and Wickerhamomyces yeasts, in sasad bought at a Penampang, Sabah market does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2–3 monthsReported[jkkn-lihing]Ferment into lihing
Temperature30 °CReported[koay2023]Mix in sasad, pack into a jar and seal it
AciditypH 3.6–3.8Measured[koay2023]Ferment into lihing

What makes this one different

Montoku is distilled from the lees of lihing, while lihing itself is the undistilled rice wine drawn from the jar. Its appearance is similar to the langkau of Sarawak.

Related ferments

Safety

A survey of rural northern Sabah, published in 2016, found that most alcohol drunk there is smuggled or informal. Montoku was more likely to be drunk by problem drinkers, and the authors judged that the low price of local spirits is likely adding to alcohol harm. No safety limits specific to montoku were found.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Wikipedia says montoku rests on the Kadazan-Dusun belief in Bambarayon, the spirit who protects the paddy fields, and that brewers follow taboos so the taste is not affected.

  1. [jkkn-lihing] Jabatan Kebudayaan dan Kesenian Negara (JKKN), Pemetaan Budaya, Kinomol and Lihing (Sabah), read 2026-10gov
  2. [shoesmith2016] Shoesmith W., Oo Tha N., Naing D.K.S., Abbas R., Abdullah A.F. 2016, Unrecorded alcohol and alcohol-related harm in rural Sabah, Malaysia, a socio-economically deprived region with expensive beer and cheap local spirits, Alcohol and Alcoholism 51(6):741–746paper
  3. [WP:Montoku (drink)] Wikipedia, Montoku (drink) (outline only)wiki
  4. [koay2023] Koay M.W. 2023, Identification of microbial communities in rice wine traditional starter (sasad) and fermentation of rice wines, MSc thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (sections 3.7, 4.3.4 and the sasad community results)paper