... what is "jiu" cont.

The development of bai-jiu (白酒; distilled liquor)--mentioned in the previous post--was possible because Chinese alchemists’ failed attempts to discover an elixir of immortality did lead to a number of important discoveries, including gunpowder and distillation. By at least the Northern Song dynasty (960~1127), Chinese were distilling alcohol to greater concentrations (toxicity) than brewing allowed. It is generally thought that distillation spread from there, through Central Asia and the Middle East to Europe.

In Taiwan, the most common example of distilled alcohol is kaoliang jiu (高粱酒; “sorghum wine”). More famous internationally perhaps is the maotai jiu (茅台酒, named for the town of Maotai in Guizhou Province), which came to international attention during U.S. President Nixon’s breakthrough visit to Beijing in 1972.

References in Dream of the Red Chamber to shao jiu (燒酒; “burnt wine”) are assumed to refer to distilled liquor. These allusions are much fewer than those to “yellow wine” and other forms of sake, however. (“Brandy,” incidentally, derives from the Dutch brandewijn, literally “burnt wine”). One mention of grape wine also occurs in the novel, but that is about an imported wine owned by the Jia family but not actually drunk in the course of the plot.


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