W Rice Wine
Sharon Ng (Co-founder)
Could you share with us about W Rice Wine?
W Rice Wine focuses on producing premium rice wine products. While the recipe has been in the family for close to a century, we only made the decision to turn it into a business in 2019 and have been focusing on producing two products, Traditional Premium Rice Wine Heritage (Hong Zao) Wine.
What made you decide to open W Rice Wine?
We felt that this culinary craft that our family has been practising since the 1930s, will soon vanish together with our parents’ time. With the support of our family and friends, we set up W Rice Wine to ensure that future generations will be able to taste this good old rice wine which we all grew up with.
Image with Caption
Mdm Sharon Ng (right) together with her husband, Mr Johnny Wu and mother-in-law with the products developed at W Rice Wine.
Mr Wu offering a cup of rice wine to his mum, who first concocted the heirloom recipe from their family shophouse back in the 1930s.
How is rice wine made, and what’s a typical day for you at the shop like?
Rice wine is made through the careful fermentation of glutinous rice into a sweet and fragrant wine. As each batch of rice wine requires three months to ferment, a typical day for us involves planning the making of new batches of rice wine, harvesting the fermented rice wine, and carrying out quality taste tests for each of the traditional clay barrels. As a small business, we also handle the bottling and the packing of the orders ourselves before handing them over them to our logistics partners to be delivered to our customers.
Can you tell us more about the project you developed through the Organisation Transformation Grant (OTG)?
Through the Grant, we developed a new product called the Aged Rice Wine. It is a one-year brew which results in a more mature and deeper rice wine aroma (different from our standard 3-month brew) and is suited for gifting to the elderly to celebrate longevity, often accompanied by a bowl of Hong Zhao Mee Sua traditionally served on birthdays.
As Research & Development costs are often high, the Grant provided a support framework that enabled us to fine-tune and develop a new product that would enable us to reach out to new audiences.
As part of the daily work, Mr Wu inspects the traditional clay barrels where the rice wine is fermented for either 3 months or 1 year.
Following fermentation, the glutinous rice produces a gorgeous red colour, a signature of W Rice Wine.
Can you share more about the challenges faced and how you overcame them?
Time management was a challenge because we needed to wait for a year before we could see the results and adjust when required. We overcame this by preparing the same aged rice wine brew in different clay barrels so that we can test extract samples easily if required. We also worked on the other aspects of the new product, such as packaging, marketing. etc. at an early stage to better manage and ensure a smooth project development from the start to end.
What have the results of the project been like?
We couldn’t stop sipping on the aged rice wine when we tasted it for the first time after it has aged for one year!
Prior to our product launch date on National Day 2024, we received many enquiries and pre-orders from customers excited to purchase this culinary gift for their folks. More people have also come to know about rice wine in general and spoke of how grateful they are as it is difficult it is to find authentic Chinese rice wine here in Singapore.
As small business owners, Mdm Ng takes pride in packing each individual quality product for her customers whenever a new batch is ready.
Mdm Ng speaking to a customer and showcasing their new 1-year Aged Rice Wine that serves as a perfect gift for seniors to promote longevity.
How has W Rice Wine benefitted from the OTG?
The Grant has certainly strengthened our heritage business in terms of brand image and widened our customer outreach. The flexibility of the grant allowed us to retain the heritage aspect of the business yet supports and encourages us to develop new products in a meaningful way that will attract the future generation who can appreciate/use/gift this traditional culinary product.
Any words of advice for other heritage businesses looking to innovate?
Innovation for a heritage business does not mean it will diminish the heritage roots of it but rather it serves to strengthen the heritage aspect of the brand, which is important especially in today’s modern context. This can be achieved through thoughtful and prudent research, as well as planning, development and support of the local community and government.
Find out more about W Rice Wine at their Website or Instagram @wricewine