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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. XXIX. RICE-WINE
441
CHAPTER XXIX.
CONCERNING THE RICE-WINE DRUNK BY THE PEOPLE OF CATHAY.
MOST of the people of Cathay drink wine of the kind
that I shall now describe. It is a liquor which they
brew of rice with a quantity of excellent spice, in such
fashion that it makes better drink than any other kind
of wine ; it is not only good, but clear and pleasing to
the eye.i And being very hot stuff, it makes one drunk
sooner than any other wine.
NOTE 1.--The mode of making Chinese rice-wine is described in Amyot's Mémoires, V. 468 sego. A kind of yeast is employed, with which is often mixed a flour prepared from fragrant herbs, almonds, pine-seeds, dried fruits, etc. Rubruquis says this liquor was not distinguishable, except by smell, from the best wine of Auxerre ; a wine so famous in the Middle Ages, that the Historian Friar, Salimbene, went from Lyons to Auxerre on purpose to drink it.* Ysbrand Ides compares the rice-wine to Rhenish ; John Bell to Canary ; a modern traveller quoted by Davis, " in colour, and a little in taste, to Madeira." [Friar Odoric (Cathay, i. p. I 17) calls this wine bigei; Dr. Schlegel (7'oung Pao, ii. p. 264) says Odoric's wine was probably made with the date Mi yin, pronounced Bi-im in old days. But Marco's wine is made of rice, and is called shao hsing chiu. Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 166, note) writes : " There is another stronger liquor distilled from millet, and called shao chiu : in Anglo-Chinese, samshu ; Mongols call it araka, arrak, and arreki. Ma Twan-lin (Bk. 327) says that the Moho (the early Nu-chên Tartars) drank rice wine (mi chiu), but I fancy that they, like the Mongols, got it from the Chinese."
Dr. Emil Bretschneider (Botanicon Sinicum, ii. pp. 154-158) gives a most interesting account of the use and fabrication of intoxicating beverages by the Chinese. " The invention of wine or spirits in China," he says, " is generally ascribed to a certain I TI, who lived in the time of the Emperor Yii. According to others, the inventor of wine was Tu K'ANG." One may refer also to Dr. Macgowan's paper On the " Mutton Wine" of the Mongols and Analogous Preparations of the Chinese. (jour. N. China Br. R. As. Soc., 1871-1872, pp. 237-240.—H. C.]
* Kington's Fred. II. II. 457. So, in a French play of the i3th century, a publican in his patois
invites custom, with hot bread, hot herrings, and wine of Auxerre in plenty ;-
" Cbaiens, fait bon disner chaiens ;
Chi a caut pain et caus herens,
Et vin d Aucheurre à plain tonnel."-
(Tlzéat. Frank.. au Moyen Age, x68.)
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_ .._.._411.11.... -ow -t••••■•• oft . . -. ~ ... . . ..
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