Wine

[Victor Steinbok]

I can certainly attest that I've seen references to rice wine both in
literature and in restaurant menus, referring to everything from sake to
soju in Chinese, Japanese and Korean restaurants (but not Vietnamese or
Thai, even though they have their own versions). On at least one
occasion, I've seen sake identified as "rice beer". FDA has fairly
strict categories of what qualifies as wine and beer in several
different varieties, all determined by alcohol content. With beer, the
content varies by category, but, once it's high enough, it becomes malt
liquor, then barley wine (I believe, at 11% and above). Regular wine is
generally cut off at about 15% because this is the upper limit of
natural fermentation. Anything from 16-18% qualifies as fortified
wine--I am not sure what the upper range is, but it's probably about
20-21%, not higher. Some of the beverages listed as "rice wine" had
alcohol concentration of 35-40%, the equivalent of Western hard liquor.
It is even more amusing to see menu contortions, trying to explain how
"rice wine" is not really wine at all, but a distilled product.

VS-)

On 12/9/2011 1:54 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> notes that the process used is different from both wine and beer, but closer to beer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sake).
>
> The Wikipedia article on Chinese wine mentions discusses distillation; the word "wine" in English is certainly is used for both distilled and undistilled in Chinese contexts:
>
> -----
> The two main varieties of Chinese alcoholic beverages are fermented beverages (Chinese: 黃酒; pinyin: huáng jiǔ; literally "yellow liquor"), which may be clear, beige, or reddish-brown in color; and distilled beverage (Chinese: 白酒; pinyin: bái jiǔ; literally "white liquor"), which are usually clear liquids.
> -----
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA

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