Tuak, Sarawak's rice wine, gets three days in Kuching, Malaysia this July

The Borneo Tuak Festival is set to return to Kuching in July 2026, three days built around a drink that rarely travels far beyond Sarawak: tuak, the rice wine poured at Gawai, at longhouse gatherings, and at most Dayak celebrations across the Malaysian state. 

Tuak sits inside a wider family of Asian rice ferments, made by fermenting cooked rice but landing in a different place on sweetness, strength and clarity compared to similar wines from Thailand, Korea and Sabah. It starts with glutinous rice, cooked, cooled, then mixed with ragi, a starter of yeast and enzymes pressed into small balls or discs and dried in the sun. The ragi does the work, turning the rice starch into sugar and then into alcohol, and its make-up (rice flour with ginger, galangal and a few other spices) shifts the taste of whatever comes out. Brewers often stir in sugar water, both to sweeten the result and to give the yeast more to feed on. 

Because most tuak is made at home rather than in a factory, the strength is hard to predict: roughly 5 to 20 percent alcohol, depending on the batch, the ragi and how long it sits. None of this is standardised, which is part of why two bottles from the same recipe can taste different. Interestingly, under the Malaysia Agreement 1963, native brewers in Sarawak and Sabah who customarily make liquor are exempt from the licensing that applies elsewhere in the country.

SAGO Group Sdn Bhd started the Borneo Tuak Festival as a way for rural brewers and small food businesses to sell directly to a city crowd, and the format has stayed close to that: booths run by individual families and producers, a tuak competition, food and craft stalls, brewing demonstrations and a stage programme. 

SAGO Group is planning the 2026 edition of Borneo Tuak Festival for 17 to 19 July at 11Ridgeway on Jalan Ong Tiang Swee, running 11am to 10pm each day, and is targeting around 80 vendors and more than 12,000 visitors over the weekend. 

The 2023 edition drew 4,702 visitors and 42 vendors. In 2024 those numbers rose to 10,302 visitors and 86 vendors, with more than 100 varieties of tuak on the tables. 

There would be performances from Sarawakian musicians and writers, among them sape player Matthew Ngau Jau, the band At Adau and Iban poet Kulleh Grasi. 

For three days in July, the spread on those Kuching tables is there for anyone curious enough to work through it.

More information for interested vendors and visitors can be found on the festival's official social media page.

Kanpai!

88 Bamboo Editorial Team