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
Noah's wine Noah's wine Noah's wine is a colloquial allusion meaning alcoholic beverages. The advent of this type of beverage and the discovery of fermentation are traditionally attributed, by explication from biblical sources, to Noah. The phrase has been used in both fictional and nonfictional literature. "Noah's wine" refers to alcoholic beverages. In the Bible, the few chapters that come between the creation of Adam and the birth of Noah contain no mention of alcoholic drinks. After the account of the great flood, the biblical Noah is said to have cultivated a vineyard, made wine, and become intoxicated. Thus, the discovery of