Alcoholic Drinks

VARIANT NAMES: Shaojiu (Spirits), Bajiu (Plain Spirits), Huangjiu (Yellow Rice or Millet Wine), Wine.

ORIGIN: A drink made from any of rice, wheat, millet, broom millet, Chinese sorghum and others with leaven.

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION: There are quite a lot of alcoholic drinks due to the differences of raw materials used, methods of making, process and storage, and they differ greatly from one another in ingredients. According to the methods of making, they fall into two big classifications: distilled alcoholic drinks (that made from Chinese sorghum, for example) and nondistilled alcoholic drinks (such as that made in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province). All alcoholic drinks contain alcohol. Distilled drinks and non-distilled drinks differ in that the former contains more alcohol than the latter; besides, distilled drinks also contain higher alcohols, fatty acids, esters, aldehydes, a little volatile acid and nonvolatile acid, or a little sugar. The ingredients of non-distilled alcoholic drinks are water, alcohol, maltobiose, glucose, dextrin, glycerin, acids, sabstances containing nitrogen, esters, aldehydes, minerals; among tne acids they contain are mainly acetic acid, lactric acid, amino acid, succinic acid.

NATURE, FLAVOR AND CHANNEL TROPISM: Bitter, sweet and pungent in flavor, and warm and toxic in nature, acting on the channels of the heart, liver, lung and stomach.

EFFICIENCIES AND INDICATIONS: Promoting blood circulation, preventing pathogenic cold, enlivening the spleen, warming the middle-jiao and helping drugs to take effect soon. It is used to treat Degenerative Arthritis, Sciatica, Osteonecrosis, Reiter Syndrome (RS), cold sensation and pain in the chest and abdomen.

DIRECTIONS: Take it warm together with rice or bread;decoct it along with Chinese drugs or soak Chinese drugs ih it for oral administration. It can also be used for dripbathing, mouth-rinsing, or spread on the affected part. It should be avoided by those who indicate syndrome of deficiency of yin, loss of blood or excessive damp-heat.