Every morning before the rooster called, Ông Khải, 71, lit his fire behind the house near Cẩm Nam bridge. His hands, darkened by smoke and years, moved without thinking—washing sticky rice, wrapping men rượu (rice yeast) in banana leaf, stacking the clay jars in quiet rhythm. He didn’t use timers. He listened. The bubbling told him when to turn the heat down, the scent told him when the wine was ready.
“Rượu mà nấu bằng mắt, bằng tai,” he liked to say. You cook rice wine with your eyes and ears.
In the war years, he traded bottles for rice. In the hungry years, for medicine. Now, mostly for memories. Tourists passed without seeing him. His son had opened a noodle shop on Trần Phú Street, told him to stop, to rest. But Ông Khải kept brewing—slow, smoky, proud.
One day, a local bride came, asking for a bottle: “Rượu ông nấu ngon hơn người ta bán ngoài chợ.”
He smiled, poured from a glass jar stained with time. “Cái ni là mẻ cuối.”
This is the last batch.
But the next morning, steam curled up again.
And in Hội An, as the river stirred, one man kept the fire burning—just enough for one more drop.