The Adventures of Chinese Alcoholic Beverages

 

I was leafing through old documents again and came across some labels from spirits bottles that I had collected while studying in Taiwan - over 40 years ago. Back then, we liked to drink the odd wine as students, although the term wine is a bit of a stretch, as these wines usually contain 30% to even 92% alcohol. We tried out different types. Some of these alcoholic beverages are no longer available. They are even sold at top prices even in faulty bottles. So I was interested in what we had actually drunk back then, because at dinner we were asked: Do you dare to eat that [這個你敢不敢吃?]. There is always a note on the labels: 建設台灣，復興中華。[Build Taiwan, renew China.]

Before I started studying in Taiwan, I visited Hong Kong once and brought a bottle of Wu Chia Pi Chiew [五加皮酒] with me back home. Together with my father we poured ourselves the 54% herbal liquor, toasted each other, and drank it. Then we looked at each other to see if we hadn't drunk something that you usually put parts of a watch in to clean them. I looked at the label again and said: "Yes, yes, this is herbal liqueur for drinking."

The first picture shows Tiger Bone Wine [虎骨酒]. It was only available in stores as an exception. I was told that tiger bones had to be imported from Thailand first. Wikipedia reports that tiger bones are a necessary ingredient and the manufacturing process takes eight years [1]. I don't remember the taste. I wouldn't drink it today either.

The next picture shows two labels. The left label belongs to sorghum schnapps - Gaoliang [高粱酒]. I remember the taste exactly. It has a strange aftertaste that stays with you for a long time. I think it would have had around 50% alcohol content. At a friend's wedding party, I drank a special 63% alcohol content gaoliang schnapps with him and his father-in-law, a baker. And yes, I also remember the headache. More about this liquor can be found on Wikipedia [2]. A special Gaoliang comes from the island of Kinmen [金門], perhaps also known as Quemoy, which was particularly popular and of which I once got a bottle. In the shop you could see how the stock disappeared within a day.

The next label shows ginseng wine [參茸酒]. Perhaps someone has read the book “The Teahouse of the August Moon” by Vern Sneider [3], because in it ginseng wine is added to the tea. It is a spirit that is said to have health benefits (“lack of Qi”). Incidentally, it is also said to be good for dripping vaginal discharge.

The next label shows dragon and phoenix wine [龍鳳酒]. This only has 30% alcohol because it is very popular with women. It consists of herbs that are used in Chinese medicine and are infused with Kinmen Gaoliang [金門高粱酒]. Let us remember the words of the great Chairman Mao Zedong [毛泽东], who said: “Chinese medicine is a great treasure-house!” [中国医药学是一个伟大的宝库].

Now let us come to Meigueilujiu [玫瑰露酒]. This is a schnapps that I did not find particularly strong, but it still had around 50% alcohol content. Meiguei is the rose and the schnapps had a rose aroma. I just remembered a hit song from 1940 that Yao Lee [姚莉] had sung: “Rose, Rose, I love you” [玫瑰玫瑰我愛你] [4]. And here's another extra that I just looked up because I suspected it but didn't remember: the song was played in the movie "The Pillow Book" by Peter Greenaway [5].

The last label shows Changchun wine [長春酒]. Changchun means something like eternal spring and is a city in northeast China where the temperature sometimes drops below -20° C in winter. But the city has nothing to do with the spirit. It is a herbal schnapps that was prepared according to a secret recipe [6]; black beans, angelica root, wolfberry and others are said to have been used. Changchun wine has been available in Taiwan since 1967, but according to my research, production was stopped in 1985 [7].

My advice: only try a small amount at a time. And definitely don't mix everything together.

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_bone_wine
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaoliang_liquor
[3] This is a wonderful comedy, so I would like to read the book again in the near future (I only have the German translation). Vern Sneider: “Die  Geishas des Captain Fishby” (original title: The Teahouse of the August Moon). Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1958.
[4] Yao Lee (Chinese: 姚莉) lived from 1922 to 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yao_Lee  and you can listen to the song here: 姚莉-玫瑰玫瑰我愛你 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-vv-tgoab0  
[5] “The Pillow Book is a 1996 erotic Drama film written and directed by Peter Greenaway, which stars Vivian Wu as Nagiko, a Japanese model in search of pleasure and new cultural experience from various lovers." lovers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillow_Book_(film) 
[6] https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E9%95%BF%E6%98%A5%E8%8D%AF%E9%85%92 You can read there: 依祖傳秘方生產長春藥酒 [producing Changchun medicinal wine according to ancestral secret recipe].
[7] https://www.p9.com.tw/forum/forumtopic.aspx?id=201204

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Taiwan Beer – some Stories

 

Don't read on if you are younger than 18 years
Consumption of alcohol is injurious to health
Be safe: Don’t drink and drive

I was looking through old notebooks late and found a label of Taiwan Beer (台灣啤酒), which made me think of times gone by, when I've been studying and sojourning in Taiwan. If you want to know more about today's beer on Taiwan (correctly in the Republic of China), please use the internet or look up Wikipedia [1]. I'll talk about times, when there has been only one beer under the label.

The name Taiwan Beer was adopted shortly after the 2nd World War. The production of Taiwan beer was assigned to the Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Monopoly Bureau in 1947. It is brewed from barley malt, water, hops, yeast and … ponlai rice (蓬萊米, pronounced péng lái mǐ). Well, when I've read the label I had been surprised as beer in Germany brewed only using  barley malt, water, hops, and yeast according to the Reinheitsgebot (purity order) of 1516. But Miller Lite is brewed with water, barley malt, yeast, hops, hop extract, and corn syrup, and Bud Light is brewed with water, barley malt, yeast, hops, and rice. So Taiwan Beer isn't much different from international beers if compared by ingredients. And putting away the reinheitsgebot, Taiwan Beer doesn't taste much different to Kölsch, the beer that's brewed in my hometown Cologne (Köln).

What is on the label besides 台灣啤酒? It says: 建設台灣，復興中華 - develop Taiwan, restore  China. And there is 麥芽精釀, which means malt craft brewing. There's more on the label like winning a prize, but we'll leave the label now.

We don't drink beer today
Some student and expats, both German and from the US had developed to quaff a few beer on weekends. So once I went to my friends' apartment in Jingmei and brought some bottles of Taiwan Beer. I was greeted: „We don't drink beer today!“ I asked if they joined the anonymous alcoholics, but it turned out that one of them recently made the acquaintance of a student. Actually she was the daughter of the producer of the blueish bottles for Campari. So we had Campari for talking and for watching „All the President's Men“ starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

The New Fridge
One of the shop keepers in the vicinity of my friends suddenly had a new fridge. Needless to say that his shop and not the other one had regular customers.
This part of Jingmei only had some dead end streets because of the mountains.

Background actors
As for most of the students we sometimes did background acting. I've been in the movie „A Title rewon“ (錦標) from 1979. We were playing different crowd watching boxing bouts. As it had been the time of the Rocky movies with Sylvester Stallone, we were asked to stop calling the Chinese boxer (played by a younger brother of Bruce Lee) Roccy (as we were in ROC – Republic of China). And we had to cover all Taiwan Beer cans as we were playing being in the US.

這個瓶子不是我的瓶子，這個瓶子就是你的瓶子。
This sentence means: This bottle is not my bottle, this bottle therefore is your bottle. An american friend always bought beer at a certain store and when he wanted to get the refund, the shop-keeper told him: 這個瓶子不是我的瓶子 and he didn't get a refund. So once he went there in shorts and flipflops and the shop-keeper did it again. He had a bottle in each hand and started dancing, whirling the bottles and singing: 這個瓶子不是我的瓶子，這個瓶子就是你的瓶子。And then he smashed the two bottles on the concrete floor of the shop.


Links and Annotations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Beer

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