Sông Cái Distillery

The idea of using Vietnamese botanicals to create a unique gin came to founder and master distillery Daniel Nguyen while he was working with a mountain community in the district of Si Ma Cai. Daniel explains, “Farmers there were having trouble selling corn they had grown, so they fermented it and distilled it into whisky, which was far easier to sell.”



That was when it struck him: a spirit might be the best way to introduce outsiders to the amazing plants of northern Vietnam. Rural communities had cultivated and foraged these botanicals for centuries, and by distilling them into a gin, they could share them with people across Vietnam and beyond. Not only would this support Vietnamese biodiversity and allow traditional ways of life to thrive, but it would also mean sharing the stories of these remote communities with the wider world. And so, in 2018, Daniel threw himself into a new challenge: creating Vietnam’s first craft gin distillery.