Alcoholic drinks in China Alcoholic drinks in China Alcoholic drinks in China seem to precede the earliest stages of Chinese civilization. They include rice and grape wine, beer, and various liquors including "baijiu", the most-consumed distilled spirit in the world. ("jiǔ") is the Chinese character referring to any drink containing appreciable quantities of ethanol. Its Old Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as "*tsuʔ", at which point it was generally applied to drinks made from fermented millet. By the time of the first certain use of distillation during the Jin and Southern Song dynasties, the Middle Chinese pronunciation was "tsjuw". It is often translated into
Korean alcoholic drinks are six distinct flavors: sweet, sour, pungent, roasted, bitter and spicy. When the flavors are balanced, the alcohol is considered good quality. Most traditional Korean alcoholic drinks are rice wines, fermented with the aid of yeast and "nuruk" (a wheat-based source of the enzyme amylase). Main varieties include clear rice wines ("cheongju"), milky rice wine ("takju"), distilled liquor ("soju"), fruit wine ("gwasil-ju"), flower wines, and medicinal wines. "Makgeolli" (also known as "takju" and "nongju"), is a milky, sweet alcoholic drink made from rice. It is one of Korea's most-popular alcoholic drinks. The oldest traditional Korean rice wine, its alcohol content