Top 10 Distilleries in Vietnam
Vietnam has one of the oldest and most deeply embedded distilling cultures in Southeast Asia. Rice wine — ruou — in its many regional variations is produced across the country, from the upland villages of the northern highlands where ethnic minority groups distil traditional spirits from glutinous rice, to the Mekong Delta where sugarcane and fruit provide alternative fermentation bases. The spirit that emerges from these traditional processes is not always refined by the standards of international spirits markets, but it is genuine and deeply rooted in local agricultural and social life.
In recent years, a more commercially oriented spirits culture has developed alongside the traditional. Vietnam's rapid urbanisation and economic growth have created a large market of young, internationally oriented consumers who drink scotch, bourbon, and craft gin alongside the traditional ruou. Out of this market, a generation of Vietnamese craft distillers has emerged, producing gin, whisky, and botanical spirits that draw on the country's extraordinary botanical diversity — one of the richest in Southeast Asia, spanning tropical lowland, montane, and Mekong Delta ecosystems. Find the full range of Vietnamese producers on the distillery map.
1. Halico / Hanoi Vodka Distillery, Hanoi
Halico — the Hanoi Liquor Company — is Vietnam's largest commercial spirits producer and the company behind Hanoi Vodka, the best-known mass-market spirit in northern Vietnam. The company was established under state ownership in the 1950s and has been producing grain-based spirits for the Vietnamese domestic market throughout the country's modern history. Hanoi Vodka is produced from rice and corn, rectified to high purity, and consumed widely in the north as a table spirit — drunk neat as shots throughout meals, following the Vietnamese toasting culture of "mot, hai, ba, yo!" (one, two, three, cheers). The vodka is also used as the base for traditional medicinal wines, in which herbs, roots, and animal ingredients are macerated for their supposed health-giving properties.
2. Saigon Spirit, Ho Chi Minh City
Saigon Spirit is Vietnam's first craft gin distillery in the modern craft spirits sense, founded in Ho Chi Minh City in 2015 by two Vietnamese-American founders with backgrounds in food and beverage. The gin uses Vietnamese rice as its base spirit and Vietnamese botanicals including lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime leaf, and Saigon cinnamon — the variety of Vietnamese cinnamon (Cinnamomum loureiroi) that has one of the highest essential oil concentrations of any cinnamon species and is prized by pastry chefs and now increasingly by distillers. Saigon Spirit's Vietnamese Gin has won international awards and is distributed across Asia, the United States, and Australia, demonstrating that Vietnamese gin can compete at the premium international level.
3. Ruou Can Producers, Northwest Highlands
In the mountainous Northwest region of Vietnam — in the provinces of Son La, Dien Bien, and Lai Chau — ethnic minority groups including the Thai, H'mong, and Muong peoples produce ruou can (jar wine), a communal rice wine drunk through long bamboo straws directly from ceramic fermentation jars. The production of ruou can involves fermenting glutinous rice with traditional starter cultures — men ruou — that vary by family and village, giving each community's production a distinctive character. Some producers distil the fermented mash to produce a stronger spirit, using traditional bamboo and copper distillation equipment. These are not commercial producers in any formal sense, but represent one of the world's most authentic living examples of traditional cereal fermentation and distillation culture.
4. Son Tinh Rice Vodka, Hanoi
Son Tinh is a premium Vietnamese rice spirit producer founded in Hanoi, producing a range of rice-based spirits that seek to elevate traditional Vietnamese rice wine into a contemporary spirits category with international appeal. The production uses single-variety glutinous rice from selected growing regions — including the Hai Hau region of Nam Dinh Province, which produces a particularly aromatic variety — fermented with traditional men ruou cultures and distilled in copper pot stills. The resulting spirit is clear, fragrant, and distinctively Vietnamese in character, with the clean grain sweetness of glutinous rice. Son Tinh has positioned itself as Vietnam's answer to premium Japanese sake and distillates, aimed at consumers seeking authenticity in Asian grain spirits.
5. LocoBird Distillery, Ho Chi Minh City
LocoBird is a Ho Chi Minh City craft distillery producing gin and botanical spirits with an emphasis on Vietnamese and Southeast Asian ingredients. The distillery's approach is culinary rather than strictly traditional — the founders draw on the complexity of Vietnamese herb culture, where fresh herbs, roots, and aromatics are fundamental to every meal, and translate that sensibility into botanical spirit production. LocoBird gins use ingredients including Vietnamese mint (rau hung lui), perilla (tia to), and dried tangerine peel alongside conventional gin botanicals. The distillery operates a bar and restaurant space in Ho Chi Minh City that functions as both a tasting room and a development kitchen for new botanical concepts.
6. Phu Quoc Rum Island Distillery, Phu Quoc Island
Phu Quoc Island in the Gulf of Thailand, better known as a premium beach resort destination and the home of Vietnam's most prized fish sauce, also hosts a small rum distillery taking advantage of the island's sugarcane production and tropical climate. The Phu Quoc Rum distillery produces small batches of rum from locally grown sugarcane using a combination of pot still and column distillation, aging in ex-bourbon barrels under the tropical island conditions that accelerate maturation dramatically. The rum has developed a following among the island's international tourism community and among spirits buyers looking for Southeast Asian rum with a specific geographical identity. Phu Quoc's Protected Geographical Indication status for its fish sauce has inspired the rum producers to pursue similar recognition.
7. Hanoi Craft Spirits (Red River Distillery)
Red River Distillery is a Hanoi-based craft operation producing gin and whisky in small batches for the Vietnamese premium market. The distillery takes its name from the Hong Ha (Red River) that runs through Hanoi and historically fed the rice agriculture of the Red River Delta — the most productive rice-growing region in northern Vietnam. Red River's gin uses local botanicals including star anise (Vietnam is the world's largest star anise producer, grown in the Lang Son province), dried chrysanthemum, and longan — a fruit with a distinctive sweet, floral quality that translates effectively into botanical spirits. The whisky program is in early stages, aging locally distilled malt spirit in small American oak casks.
8. Vietnam Soju / Ruou Nep Producers, Mekong Delta
The Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam — one of the world's most productive agricultural regions, producing enormous quantities of rice, tropical fruit, and sugarcane — is a major centre of traditional Vietnamese spirit production. The speciality of the delta is ruou nep (glutinous rice wine) and its distilled derivative, produced by small family operations across the provinces of Vinh Long, Tien Giang, and Dong Thap. The Mekong's year-round growing season and the abundance of locally grown glutinous rice mean that production can continue throughout the year, in contrast to the northern highland producers who are limited by seasonal grain harvests. The spirit produced is typically light, sweet, and consumed fresh rather than aged.
9. Chai Distillery, Da Lat
Da Lat, the highland city in the Lam Dong Province of central Vietnam, sits at over 1,500 metres elevation and has a temperate climate that supports a completely different range of agricultural products from the tropical coastal regions — including strawberries, hydrangeas, artichokes, and wine grapes. Chai Distillery in Da Lat is exploring the potential of this unusual highland microclimate for spirits production, producing a wine-based brandy from Da Lat's small but growing grape wine industry and a gin using Da Lat highland botanicals including wild rosemary, rose, and artichoke. The Da Lat terroir is genuinely distinct from any other Vietnamese spirits-producing region, with the highland fog, cooler temperatures, and European-influenced agricultural heritage creating a completely different production environment.
10. Traditional Medicinal Wine Producers, Central Vietnam
Across central Vietnam's Hue and Quang Nam provinces, a tradition of medicinal wine production exists that bridges fermentation, distillation, and herbal medicine. These producers, working under the banner of ruou thuoc (medicinal alcohol), produce high-strength grain spirit that is then macerated with combinations of animal and plant ingredients believed to have therapeutic properties: deer antler velvet, geckos, cobras, ginseng, and dozens of dried roots and herbs are common inclusions. While these products occupy a different regulatory and cultural space from conventional spirits, they are genuinely distilled at traditional distilleries and represent a fascinating intersection of local medical tradition, agricultural practice, and spirit production that is unique to Vietnamese culture.