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If you’ve never seen it, never been around it, and it’s not in your own ancestry, the first thing you think of when you hear about spit fermented alcohol is probably “gross.”
Anyone who’s read about spit fermented alcohol or watched a documentary on it likely has a visceral gut reaction to this delicacy from the wilds of South America.
But before you pass judgment, be sure you know all there is to know about spit fermented alcohol. You never know; you might change your mind.
Spit fermented drinks are thousands of years old and are a deeply ingrained part of many cultures around the world. The most well-known today are the kuchikamizake from Japan and the chicha and masato from Peru.
Kuchikamizake, which literally means “mouth-chewed sake,” is made from rice that is boiled, chewed up, and spit into a large bin. The spit and rice combo is then left for days to ferment. Other ingredients are added for flavor and spice, and now you have a beverage for your family gathering.
Chicha is produced much the same way, only in this case the main ingredient is a purple Peruvian corn called choclo. Once again, the corn is cooked, chewed up, and spit out, and left to ferment.
Masato follows all of the same steps but with the famed and native yuca root from Peru. This drink is perhaps the most interesting and dangerous among the three as eating yuca incorrectly can actually make a person terribly ill. It can even be deadly. Thus, it is a deeply ingrained cultural process to peel and boil the yucca to sit in the mouths of the preparers before being spat out for fermentation.
Just like with beer, it was and has been traditionally a female process to grow and harvest the food, and then to prepare, chew, and spit out the grain or root for the fermented drink.
Indeed, in Japan, the nobility once demanded that their kuchikamizake be made only by beautiful young virgins.
Spit fermented alcohol across civilizations also has myriad cultural implications. A high-quality drink is aged for many days, includes various fruits and spices, and has a rich and fruity flavor to it. Lower quality drinks are sourer thanks to the inclusion of Lactobacillus and the absence of added ingredients.
While women have largely been left out of many of these civilizations’ histories, they hold a great deal of power as they are the ones choosing to prepare high- or low-quality beverages, how to serve them, and in what order to serve them to their men.
A man in trouble with his wife may find himself the last to be served and in an ugly, crumbling dish, letting the whole tribe know this marriage is in conflict.
So now you’re wondering if spit creates alcohol; after all, these drinks are all alcoholic, most hovering around the 6% ABV range.
What the spit does is convert the starch in the main ingredient – corn, rice, or yucca – to sugar.
You see, these grains and rice are all high in starch, much like the barley or wheat we use for beer.
Whereas grapes have all their own natural sugars, and so can simply be crushed and fermented, barley and wheat are high in starch, so brewers will roast the grain before boiling and steeping it to convert the starch to sugar.
The same process is undergone with rice for sake. It must be cooked and milled before steaming and fermenting.
Well, somehow, and no one is quite sure how, ancient cultures picked up on the power of human saliva to essentially do the same thing.
Human saliva has enzymes in it that break starches and carbohydrates down and convert them to sugar. So the act of chewing and holding the grain or root in your mouth will convert the starches to sugar. Then, when you spit it into a container, the chewed ingredient and your spit are ready for fermentation.
Next, of course, you need the essential ingredient for all fermentation, the only ingredient on earth that will produce ethanol , which is alcohol: yeast .
In the old days, the spit ingredient was simply left out with a light cover on it to prevent any bugs or other solid contaminants from getting into it, and yeast, and often bacteria, would eagerly get into the spit “juice” and get to work converting it an alcoholic beverage.
As with all other fermented beverages made in this way, the production of alcohol will cleanse the drink of toxins or anything else that could harm a human, and in the vast majority of cases these drinks are perfectly safe.
One health concern is that Hepatitis B has been known to transmit from drinking Chicha or Masato for those who do not have their shots in order. Alcohol, apparently, will not clear out Hepatitis B. So be mindful of that.
In terms of body fluids and saliva, however, all reports seem to say that you cannot tell that you are drinking human saliva. Indeed, in the case of masato, the drink tastes like a fruit cocktail.
It is also critical to be mindful of the fact that it is pretty much cultural suicide to refuse the drink if it is offered to you by a tribe you happen to be visiting.
So, either don’t visit anyone who might offer you this drink, or prepare to offend.
In the end, like with everything, you will most likely make your decision, in the moment, based on your gut.
Passionate about yeast fermentation and all the wonders it can do? So are we! If you’re interested in finding out how you can use our technology to control fermentation and monitor your yeast, save work hours and improve the cost-efficiency of your business, drop us a line at info@oculyze.net
Also, check out these product pages, if you’re into beer or wine making:
…or our custom solution page for other use cases (yours included):
For brewers interested in the history and details, this article answers the question “what does yeast need to reproduce.”
If you have been asking the question “does priming sugar increase alcohol content?” This article has your answers.
If you’ve been asking “why does my beer explode when I open it?” check out this article that goes into great detail on the process.

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Though most people find the thought of saliva rather disgusting, spit plays a vital role in our lives. It allows us to comfortably chew, swallow, and digest. It fights off bacteria in our mouths and elsewhere, and leads the mouth’s bold fight against cavities. Here are 11 facts that might have you reconsidering that unsung hero of bodily fluids: spit.
Saliva consists of about 99 percent water . The other 1 percent is made up of electrolytes and organic substances, including digestive enzymes and small quantities of uric acid, cholesterol, and mucins (the proteins that form mucus).
Healthy individuals accumulate between 2 and 6 cups of spit a day. That’s without stimulation from activities like eating or chewing gum, which open the spit floodgates [ PDF ].
Your body typically produces the most saliva in the late afternoon , and the least at night. Salivation is controlled by the autonomic nervous system (much like your heartbeat), meaning it’s an unconscious process.
Salivation has five distinct phases , most triggered by the passage of food through the body. Not all of them are a good thing. The first type of salivation is cephalic , the kind that occurs when you see or smell something delicious. The buccal phase is the body’s reflexive response to the actual presence of food in the mouth (which aids in swallowing). The esophageal involves the stimulation of the salivary glands as food moves through the esophagus. The gastric phase happens when something irritates your stomach—like when you’re just about to puke. The intestinal phase is triggered by a food that doesn’t agree with you passing through the upper intestine.
There’s a reason the phrase “lick your wounds” came about. Spit is full of infection-battling white blood cells. And, according to a 2015 study in the journal Blood , neutrophils—a type of white blood cell—are more effective at killing bacteria if they come from saliva than from anywhere else in the body. So adding saliva to a wound gives the body a powerful backup as it fights off infection.
The calcium, fluoride, and phosphate in saliva strengthen your teeth . Spit also fights cavity-causing bacteria , washes away bits of food, and neutralizes plaque acids, reducing tooth decay and cavities. That’s why chewing gum gets dentists’ stamp of approval —chewing increases the flow of saliva, thus protecting your oral health.
Saliva acts like a solvent for tastes, ferrying dissolved deliciousness to the sites of taste receptors. It also keeps those receptors healthy by preventing them from drying out and protecting them from bacterial infection. Many people who have dry mouth (or xerostomia ) find their sense of taste affected by their oral cavity’s parched conditions. Because many medications have dry mouth as a side effect, scientists have developed artificial saliva sprays that mimic the lubrication of real spit.
A 10-second kiss involves the transfer of some 80 million bacteria, one study found.
Babies don’t start drooling until they’re 2 to 4 months old . Unfortunately, they also don’t really know what to do with their spit. They don’t have full control of the muscles of their mouth until they’re around 2 years old , so they can’t really swallow it effectively. Which is why we invented bibs.
The body’s fight-or-flight response is designed to give you the energy and strength needed to overcome a near-death experience, like, say, running into a bear or giving a big presentation at work. Your blood pressure goes up, the heart beats faster, and the lungs take in more oxygen. This is not the time to sit around and digest a meal, so the digestion system slows down production, including that of saliva .
In some ancient societies, saliva was used as a basic lie detector. In ancient India , accused liars had to chew grains of rice. If they were telling the truth, they would have enough saliva to spit them back out again. If someone was lying, their mouth would go dry and the rice would stick in their throat.
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Those plants that are more important to the survival of man, or which have stimulating psychological effects upon him, are, in tribal and early Western societies, thought to incorporate a particularly powerful force.” – Mikal Aasved, 1988
Unless you’ve spent some time in South America or follow Sam Calagione and Dogfish Head Brewery, you may not have heard of chicha. Chicha is an ancient beer traditionally made from chewed-up corn, saliva, and a few spices.
Similar to Belgian beers, chicha is not a single, homogenized drink – there are variations native to each region and group. In fact, other than the use of corn, chicha can be made with different ingredients such as manioc (a woody shrub), wild fruits, cacti, rice and potatoes, among others, native to the particular region it’s brewed. Historians have recreated many traditional versions of the drink, while other modern drinkers tweak and experiment with the fermented beverage.
At the end of the day, it’s entirely up to you what to put in your chicha (and whether or not you want to chew or germinate the maize). The drink that follows is simple, light in body that primarily smells and tastes like corn with a slight farmhouse funk.
Chicha is an ancient beer indigenous to many cultures ranging from the Andes up to what is now the southwestern United States. Somewhere along history, either someone decided it’d be a good idea to chew up corn, spit it out, boil it and then ferment it in a clay pot for a few days until it was ready to drink or someone lost a bad bet.
The drink’s history dates back to around 5000 B.C.E. where there’s evidence of early pottery in the Andean region used as vessels to carry and store chicha. The drink soon played a crucial role in history and civilization. It became a cultural signifier for many Andean groups (i.e. Incas and Aztecs) and was not only central to many economies as a means of payment, but also became important for its intoxicating effects.
For many of the Andean groups, drunkenness was a way to spiritually communicate as well as develop a sense of community and togetherness. Sharing a drink with another person was seen as an act of friendship and understanding. Sound familiar? To better grasp chicha’s significance, we need only look at the Incan Empire for some answers.
Corn was a sacred crop for the Incas. Huge farms were dedicated to the production of corn, primarily powered by the demand for chicha, which was considered a sign of high social status. Recent archa
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