Bai Juyi, Li Qingzhao, Liu Yong and Chen Dou described this wine in their poems:
There is a glimmer of green in the old bottle and a hint of red in the quiet stove. With dusk and snow coming, how about a glass of wine?
-Bai Juyi | Tang
Put on rough clothes and drink unfiltered wine. Every autumn wind and autumn brings cool autumn.
-Li Qingzhao | Song
Wine pours green ants to open golden bottles, and jade plates serve green forests.
-Chen | Ming
It can be seen that "green ant" has always been one of the favorite wines of literati from Tang Dynasty to Ming Dynasty.
Aromatic flowers and herbs attracted the attention of the ancients because of their fragrant smell. The ancients found that these aromatic plants had the functions of warming middle warmer, regulating qi, promoting blood circulation, eliminating addiction, expelling wind and removing dampness, clearing heat and so on, which provided many aromatic raw materials for the ancients to brew aromatic wine.
From the original wine (fragrant wine made of turmeric) to chrysanthemum wine, calamus wine and osmanthus wine, the ancients constantly developed the application of various spices in wine.
Chrysanthemum wine is a wine brewed with chrysanthemum, glutinous rice and distiller's yeast, which was called longevity wine in ancient times. Its taste is cool and sweet, and it has the effects of nourishing liver and improving eyesight, strengthening brain and delaying aging.
At first, the way the ancients processed fragrant wine was to put spices directly into the wine. The method of making "chrysanthemum wine" recorded in Shennong Materia Medica Classic, "put the dried chrysanthemum in a silk bag and soak it in three pots of wine for seven days before taking it."
Gao Lian's Eight Notes on Respect for Life records that "all fragrant flowers, such as osmanthus, orchids and roses, can be imitated".
Flower wine was widely popular in ancient times, with various names, such as: Songhua wine, Lianhua wine, pear wine, tribal tiger flower wine, tribal tiger flower wine, jasmine wine, wild rose wine, pear wine, Dihua wine and so on.
To sum up the methods of making incense in ancient China, that is, soaking a single spice in wine, or mixing a variety of spices in proportion, or making fragrant koji with spices and then making fragrant wine, or storing the spices and wine together for fragrance.
After Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, distillers began to use distiller's yeast. Jia Sishao recorded that mulberry leaves, Xanthium sibiricum, Artemisia argyi and Daqu were used to make music in Volume 7 of Qi Shu and Hedong Fang.
The reason why some Chinese herbal medicines are used to make distiller's yeast is because Chinese herbal medicines contain many vitamins that are beneficial to the growth of microorganisms, which can promote the better growth of microorganisms in distiller's yeast. In addition, the wine brewed with Chinese herbal distiller's yeast has a unique flavor.
After the Song Dynasty, due to the strengthening of exchanges between China and foreign countries, the varieties and quantities of spices imported from abroad were rich, and foreign spices such as watercress, galangal, Amomum villosum, radix aucklandiae and frankincense began to enter the lives of ordinary people. At the same time, due to the improvement of brewing technology, there are many ways to brew fragrant wine, and there are more varieties of spices and fragrant wine.
The fourth volume of Chen Zhi's New Book on Longevity and Pension records the preparation and health care function of Suhexiang wine: "Suhexiang pills are made with extremely good wine on the right, five pills are soaked every night and one cup is taken in the morning to get rid of all diseases and evil spirits in the four seasons, especially old wine."
Borneolum Syntheticum, Radix Aucklandiae and mutton recorded in Volume 3 are used to prepare snowflake wine:
"A catty of lean mutton is stripped of fascia, soaked in warm water, sliced, cooked with a liter of wine to make the meat rotten, finely cut and ground into a paste. Don't melt sheep bone marrow or kidney fat in a silver pot as oil to get rid of me, but put it into the minced meat and grind it evenly, then add borneol and stir it a little, then pour it into a porcelain bottle and wait for cooling. Cut it into thin slices every time you take it out, put it in a glass and soak it in warm wine. " It is better to eat borneol when it is extremely warm, and it is better to eat a little bit of radix aucklandiae without brain, especially a little bit of each of the two flavors. "
After the Ming Dynasty, through the long-term practice of the ancients and the improvement of brewing technology, the record of making and using fragrant wine reached a historical peak. "Changchun Liquor" and "Almond soju" recorded in the miscellaneous department of Zhudaowu, Vae, are fragrant liquors mixed with dozens of spices such as loess, cinnamon, bean fan, agarwood, woody incense, clove, India, Nanxiang and Xiang Lei.
▎ Compendium of Materia Medica contains nearly 20 kinds of fragrant wine formulas, namely wine, acanthopanax senticosus wine, yellow wine, Achyranthes bidentata wine, Angelica sinensis wine, Qipu wine, Huoquan wine, ginger wine, Yinxiang wine, Shrinking Sand wine, Sagan wine, Zanthoxylum bungeanum wine, Platycladus orientalis wine, Songhua wine and Chrysanthemum wine.
Different spices basically have various functions, such as warming the middle warmer to regulate qi, promoting blood circulation to eliminate addiction, expelling wind and removing dampness, dissipating heat, etc., while wine generally has the function of warming the middle warmer to promote blood circulation. Mixing spices and wine into mellow wine can often play a greater role in treating diseases and preserving health, but it is not suitable for excessive drinking.
▎ Gao Lian pointed out at the beginning of the section "Yunzao Class":
"This is the health wine of the villagers. It is either sweet or medicinal, which is different from common products. People who drink too much should not talk. " .
* * Although the wine is good, don't drink too much ~