Republican era vats, a three storey high still, and a decades-old hunk of pork
Although Hong Kong’s modern day economy revolves primarily around finance and services, there are still a number of small factories using traditional production techniques to be found on the outskirts of the city. The local production of distilled spirits dates back more than 80 years. The Yuet Wo Sauce Factory, located in Kwu Tung, is known mainly for its soy sauces and various fermented sauces. However, it is also the only sauce brewery in Hong Kong that has its own alcohol distillery. Since the mid-20th Century, it has been producing rice wine under the “Wo Kee Distillery” brand.
Yuet Wo Sauce Factory is located in Shek Tsai Leng of Kwu Tung, and along with three nearby soy sauce factories, form a soy sauce production area that spans over 100,000 square feet (about 9,300 square metres). The area is dotted with village houses and farmland. Today, many of the fields are abandoned and have been replaced by newly constructed village houses. According to Jack Pong, the third-generation manager of Yuet Wo, Hong Kong once had a thriving distillery industry. Wo Kee Distillery originally belonged to another family, but Jack’s grandfather decided to venture into the wine and vinegar business and bought it out.
Yuet Wo and Wo Kee first established their factory in a three-story building in Tsuen Wan, alongside other sauce and spirit-makers, but when Tsuen Wan was developed into a new town in 1967, developers acquired their properties. Several soy sauce companies pooled their resources to buy a large plot of land in Kwu Tung, which provided the ideal space to reestablish each of their factories and to dry fermented soybeans in the sun.
Traditional soy sauce factories require ample space to accommodate the vats used in the sun-drying and fermentation processes. During the mid-20th century, Kwu Tung was still largely undeveloped, with most of its land predominantly rural. Furthermore, its remote location meant that there was no concern about potential disturbances caused by their operations to nearby residents. Hence, the Pong family relocated both Yuet Wo and Wo Kee here.
Yuet Wo Distillery and Soy Sauce Factory, Kwu Tung. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
Their Kwu Tong factories cover a total area of 30,000 square feet, with two-thirds of this space designated for storing sauce vats. Initially, the factory was a single-storey concrete structure that contained facilities such as fermentation rooms and a wine cellar. Several decades ago, a second storey was added to meet the increasing need for storage space for their sun-dried soy sauce. A lift was installed to help workers transport soy sauce from the ground level to the rooftop. The office and the maintenance department are located upstairs. Within the distillery area, the main building has been built over and around an over-three-story-tall distiller and boiler. Additionally, there is a room dedicated to steaming rice, a wine cellar, and a designated fermentation area for vinegar.
Yuet Wo believes that soy sauce and alcohol are complementary products. On the one hand, they add a small amount of alcohol to some of their soy sauces to extend their shelf life. On the other hand, the main buyers of their soy sauce are the food-and-beverage industry, so producing and selling double-distilled liquor, vinegar, and other products alongside soy sauce helps to increase their overall sales.
Both Yuet Wo and Wo Kee possess distillery licenses, however Wo Kee is responsible for the fermentation of liquor and vinegar, whereas Yuet Wo focuses on blending, packaging, and sales. At present, Wo Kee is the only factory in Hong Kong that produces double-distilled liquor from scratch. Their product range features double-distilled, triple-distilled, and quadruple-distilled rice wine, alongside several types of vinegar, all sold under the Yuet Wo brand.
Most areas of Wo Kee Distillery are packed with fermented spirits and vinegar. Every Monday and Wednesday, workers steam rice, then mix it with yeast and ferment it for 21 days. Once fermentation is complete, the mixture is pumped into the still by mechanical pumps and heated by a boiler. The distiller, which is about three stories tall, is a red metal cylinder with various pipes extending from it in different directions. Stairs and metal walkways have been built around it for access, and there is a monitor at the first floor level brewers to check the alcohol concentration.
Left: Workers mix steamed rice on a long metal table before fermentation. Photo credit: Ng Cheuk Hang, 2025. Right: The three-storey tall distiller used to distill rice wine. The factory building and the walkways used to access it were to a large extent built around it. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
The mixture undergoes two distillation phases to achieve an alcohol content of around 30%, producing sheung ching (“雙蒸”, which means “double distilled”). When distilled three times, it attains roughly 42% alcohol content, yielding sam ching (“三蒸”, meaning “triple distilled”). After four distillation rounds, the alcohol volume reaches 52%, resulting in sei ching (“四蒸”, meaning “quadruple distilled”) liquor.
Once the distillation process is completed, the first part of the distillate, known as the “head” (which contains up to 60% alcohol), is separated. The last part, referred to as the “tail,” which holds more sediments and impurities, is also removed and stored separately. Only the middle part of the distillate will be used for further blending. After blending, the distillate is adjusted to an alcohol content of approximately below 30% and is transferred through dedicated pipelines to storage tanks inside the wine cellar.
Up to the present day, Wo Kee employs a distinctive brewing technique called “yuk bing siu (玉冰燒)”, which is unique to Southern China. After distillation, the liquor is stored in a tank with a piece of fatty pork for four months, imparting a mellow quality to the wine. This piece of pork sits in the tank for decades, and as it gradually dissolves, its flavours meld into the wine. The name “yuk bing siu” can be broken down into two parts – “yuk” means “jade, which is a homophone of “meat”; “bing siu” means “ice burn” and refers the liquor’s unique flavour profile, characterised by an initial touch of coolness followed by a spicy aftertaste.
Factory owner Jack lifts the remaining undissolved pork from the yuk bing siu tank. The label on the tank says it originally contained 260 litres of pork by volume. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
Since alcohol is a taxable good, distilleries are directly supervised by the Customs and Excise Department in addition to having to abide by food safety regulations. All measuring tools, pipelines, and equipment involved in the distillation must receive Customs approval before they are made and used. The wine cellar is registered as a bonded warehouse because distilled liquor is theoretically already subject to taxation. To prevent theft of taxable liquor during production, distilled spirits are transferred from the distiller to the wine cellar through fully welded and sealed pipelines. Even distillery personnel are only allowed to access the wine cellar at specific times. The rest of the time, they can only observe and control the storage temperature using thermometers placed outside the room.
Wine is stored in 1,600-litre tanks in the wine cellar, to which access is strictly controlled. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
Currently, Wo Kee Distillery focuses on the production of sheung ching rice wine. In addition to their standard cooking rice wine, they provide a Premium Grade Rice Wine (醇舊米酒) intended primarily for drinking, made using the yuk bing siu method. The distillery also produced a limited quantity of sam ching rice wine for cooking or medical use in dit da clinics (跌打舖). In addition, they manufacture products like hua diao wine (花雕酒) and mei kuei lu wine (“玫瑰露”, literally translated as rose liquor). The wine lees, the sediments which are a byproduct of the winemaking process, are also made available for sale. Moreover, the mash generated during distillation is preserved as a raw material for vinegar production. Once the vinegar starter is added, the mash is stored inside vinegar vats for secondary fermentation, eventually transforming into vinegar. In recent years, Yuet Wo has revived an ancient technique of directly adding wine yeast to rice for vinegar fermentation in vats. Besides the usual white rice vinegar, Yuet Wo converts the raw vinegar into aged vinegar, sweet vinegar, Zhen Jiang vinegar, Cantonese Worcestershire Sauce, and more.
Even today, Yuet Wo still uses traditional ceramic sauce vats, each measuring approximately 1 meter in diameter and height, for fermenting wine, vinegar, and soybeans. The soybeans in these vats need to be sun-dried on the rooftop for more than nine months. On the rooftop, you will see find rows of vats exuding a strong aroma of soybean fermentation. Some of the sauce vats have the Chinese characters “Republic of China Year 20” (i.e., 1931 in the Republican Calendar still used in Taiwan) etched on the rim. They are living artefacts that demonstrate the rich heritage of the distillery. Using these vats helps maintain the traditional flavour of soy sauce and vinegar. Over the years, these vessels inevitably develop cracks, but these are naturally plugged by the crystallized salts generated by years of fermentation.
Jack poses with the vintage ceramic vats used to ferment soybeans (right) on the roof of the factory. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
Kwu Tung currently has four soy sauce factories, but due North East New Territories development, all four, along with oil factories and wineries, may soon be displaced. They will be faced with the decision to either shut down or move somewhere else. The Pong family intends to find a new location for Yuet Wo and continue making sauces, but relocating the distillery poses significant challenges. The complex process of distilling spirits requires a range of equipment, especially the large distiller and boiler, which are difficult to locate in an industrial building. Even if sufficient space could be found, getting all the required approvals might be problematic due to safety regulations, making the distillery’s future uncertain.
In addition, sales of Chinese wine products have declined in recent years. A limited number of Chinese restaurants use locally-made cooking rice wine, and the popularity of dit da clinics has waned alongside the use of alcohol in dit da treatments. For Yuet Wo, the demand for soy sauce is significantly greater. Therefore, it makes sense for them to prioritise the relocation of the soy sauce factory. As a result, if they must leave their current site without a solid relocation plan, the distillery will have to suspend production, and once the existing stock is sold, Yuet Wo/Wo Kee is likely to end their winemaking operation.
Aerial view of the Yuet Wo factory. This land is due to be redeveloped within the next few years for the Northern Metropolis. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
(This article is written by contract researcher Ng Cheuk Hang.)
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