Chinese Alcohol

Chinese Alcohol (Simplified Chinese: 中国酒; Traditional Chinese: 中國酒; Pinyin: Zhōngguó jiǔ) is this wiki's overview of alcoholic drinks made and consumed in China. The Chinese word jiu (酒) covers every drink that contains alcohol, so English translations such as "wine" or "liquor" are loose: a brewed grain drink such as Huangjiu is usually called "wine", while a distilled grain spirit such as Baijiu is called "liquor". Beer is pijiu (啤酒) and grape wine is putaojiu (葡萄酒). This page is an encyclopedia map of the main families of drinks and the customs around them; it does not recommend drinking, list prices or promote any seller.

Brief history

What makes Chinese grain alcohol distinctive is the fermentation starter qu (曲, also jiuqu 酒曲): a cake or loose mass of grain on which molds, yeasts and bacteria have been cultivated. The molds break grain starch down into sugars while the yeasts turn those sugars into alcohol, so saccharification and fermentation happen together in one vessel. Large brick-like daqu (大曲) made mainly from wheat, barley or peas is typical of northern-style and premium baijiu, while small rice-based xiaoqu (小曲) is common in southern rice wines and some spirits.

The earliest chemical evidence for a fermented drink in China comes from pottery at the Neolithic site of Jiahu in Henan. Residue analysis published in 2004 identified a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey and fruit (hawthorn and/or grape), dated to roughly 7000–6600 BC. It is among the oldest known alcoholic beverages in the world, but it was not the same thing as any modern Chinese drink, and exactly how it was fermented is still discussed by researchers.

By the Shang and Zhou periods, bronze vessels for holding and warming grain wine were central to ritual and court life, and millet and rice wines resembling today's Huangjiu were the main drinks for many centuries. Traditional texts credit the invention of wine to legendary figures such as Yi Di (仪狄), said to have offered wine to Yu the Great, or Du Kang (杜康), later honored as a patron of brewers. These stories are folklore and cannot be tied to a real inventor. Distilled spirits developed later; historians still debate the date, but distilled liquor was clearly widespread by the Yuan and Ming dynasties and eventually became the modern Baijiu.

Baijiu (distilled spirits)

Baijiu (白酒, "white liquor") is a clear grain spirit, usually made from sorghum alone or a mix of grains, fermented in solid state with qu and then distilled. Most bottlings are about 38–60% alcohol. Chinese producers and standards group baijiu by aroma type (香型):

• Strong aroma (浓香, nongxiang) — rich, fruity and estery, made in long-used mud fermentation pits; the dominant style in Sichuan and Jiangsu. Examples: Luzhou Laojiao, Wuliangye; also Jiannanchun and Yanghe.
• Sauce aroma (酱香, jiangxiang) — deep, savory and roasted, from a long seasonal cycle of repeated fermentation and distillation; centred on Guizhou. Example: Moutai; also Langjiu from the same river valley.
• Light aroma (清香, qingxiang) — clean, crisp and dry, typically fermented in buried clay jars or stone pits. Examples: Fenjiu from Shanxi, Beijing Erguotou and Taiwan's Kinmen Kaoliang.
• Rice aroma (米香, mixiang) — lighter spirits distilled from rice with small qu, typical of Guangxi and other southern rice regions.
• Other types — Chinese classifications recognise further categories, for example fengxiang (凤香, "phoenix aroma") represented by Xifeng liquor from Shaanxi, jianxiang (兼香, "mixed aroma") that combines strong and sauce characters, and several smaller regional types.

Baijiu is the usual liquor for formal banquets and toasts; for aroma chemistry and serving customs see Baijiu.

Huangjiu (yellow wine)

Huangjiu (黄酒, "yellow wine") is a brewed, undistilled grain wine made from glutinous rice, rice or millet with qu, then pressed and usually aged. Alcohol is typically about 8–20%. The most famous style is Shaoxing wine from Zhejiang, whose four classic types are grouped by sweetness:

• Yuanhong (元红) — dry
• Jiafan (加饭) — semi-dry, brewed with extra rice; aged jiafan is widely sold as Huadiao (花雕, "carved flowers"), a name taken from decorated storage jars
• Shanniang (善酿) — semi-sweet, brewed partly with older wine in place of water
• Xiangxue (香雪) — sweet, fortified with distilled spirit made from wine lees

The nü'er hong (女儿红) custom — burying wine when a daughter is born and opening it at her wedding — is a well-known Shaoxing tradition. See Huangjiu for details.

Rice wines

Chinese rice wines overlap with huangjiu but also include lighter, sweeter and local drinks:

• Mijiu (米酒, "rice wine") — a broad term for rice-based wines. In much of mainland China it means a light, sweetish home or local rice wine; in Taiwan it usually refers to a clear distilled rice spirit of about 20% that is used heavily in cooking.
• Jiuniang (酒酿, also laozao 醪糟) — sweet fermented glutinous rice with the grains left in; very low in alcohol and eaten as a dessert, for example with Tangyuan.

Fruit and flavored wines

Fruit, flower and herb wines are usually made by steeping ingredients in a base spirit or rice wine, or by fermenting fruit directly:

• Chinese Plum Wine (梅酒 / 青梅酒, meijiu) — green ume plums steeped in spirit or rice wine; related to Japanese umeshu. Bayberry (杨梅酒) wine is a Jiangnan relative.
• Osmanthus Wine (桂花酒, guihua jiu) — a sweet, floral wine scented with osmanthus flowers, linked with the Mid-Autumn Festival.
• Lychee wine (荔枝酒) — a southern fruit wine from Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian lychee-growing areas.
• Grape wine (葡萄酒) — China has a modern grape-wine industry; the oldest large winery is Changyu, founded in 1892 in Yantai, Shandong. Ningxia, Xinjiang and Hebei are other important wine regions.

Beer

Beer (啤酒, pijiu) arrived with foreign-run breweries around 1900 and is now the most widely consumed alcoholic drink in China by volume. Most Chinese beer is light pale lager, drunk cold with everyday meals, hot pot and street barbecue.

• Tsingtao Beer (青岛啤酒) — founded in 1903 in Qingdao, Shandong; China's best-known beer abroad.
• Snow (雪花) — a China Resources brand that grew from a Shenyang brewery; one of the highest-volume beer brands in the world.
• Harbin (哈尔滨啤酒) — traces its history to a brewery founded in Harbin in 1900, see Heilongjiang Food.
• Yanjing (燕京啤酒) — the major Beijing brewery.

Beer is also a cooking ingredient in dishes such as Beer Duck and Beer Fish.

Festival and ritual drinks

Special drinks mark several festivals in the Chinese calendar. Many of these customs are now practised symbolically or have faded:

• Lunar New Year — Tusu Wine (屠苏酒), a spiced herbal wine traditionally drunk on New Year's morning, youngest family member first.
• Dragon Boat Festival — Realgar Wine (雄黄酒), wine mixed with the mineral realgar and tied to the Legend of the White Snake. Realgar is an arsenic sulfide, so health authorities today discourage drinking it; see the article for context. The festival food is Zongzi.
• Double Ninth Festival — chrysanthemum wine (菊花酒), drunk while climbing hills and viewing chrysanthemums, a custom traditionally traced back to the Han dynasty.
• Mid-Autumn Festival — Osmanthus Wine (桂花酒), drunk as a family "reunion wine" alongside mooncakes.

Wine is also poured as an offering at ancestral rites and grave visits, a use recorded in the ritual classics.

Ethnic and regional drinks

• Highland barley wine (青稞酒, qingke jiu; Tibetan chang) — a lightly alcoholic brewed drink made from Tibetan highland barley, served at festivals and to guests in Tibet, Qinghai and western Sichuan; a distilled barley spirit is also made in Qinghai. See Tibetan Food and Qinghai Food.
• Mongolian milk liquor — fermented mare's milk (airag, koumiss, 马奶酒) and a clear spirit distilled from fermented milk (arkhi, 奶酒) are traditional among Mongolian herders; see Inner Mongolia Food.
• Many other ethnic groups in southwest China brew their own rice or corn wines, often drunk through bamboo straws from shared jars at festivals.

Drinking culture

• Toasting — at Chinese banquets drinks are usually taken together in rounds of toasts rather than sipped alone. The host toasts first, guests return toasts, and people often touch glasses with the rim held slightly lower than that of a senior person as a sign of respect.
• Ganbei (干杯, "dry the cup") — the call to empty one's glass in one go, most often with small cups of Baijiu. It is common to decline politely, or to toast with tea or a soft drink instead.
• Warming huangjiu — Huangjiu is traditionally warmed before serving, sometimes with a slice of ginger or a dried plum in the pot, while beer is served cold.
• Alcohol in cooking — Chinese kitchens use wine to remove fishy or gamey smells and add aroma. Shaoxing wine is essential to red-braised dishes such as Hong Shao Rou and DongPo Stewed Pork and to the "drunken" dishes Drunk Chicken, Drunk Shrimp and Drunk Crab; Taiwanese rice wine flavours Three Cup Chicken; beer is used in Beer Duck and Beer Fish.

Chinese law sets 18 as the minimum age for buying alcohol, and drink-driving is strictly punished.

See also

• Chinese Drink
• Baijiu
• Huangjiu
• Mijiu
• Jiuniang
• Tea
• Chinese Food Map
• List of dishes (A-Z)