Review: Chinese Wine

Chinese Wine by Zhengping Li
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Please Note, this book uses the term "wine" to mean "liquor", and uses the term "grape wine" to mean "wine", except toward the end, and a bit in the middle, when it just stops using "grape wine" altogether so you sort of have to guess. This also means that "white wine" actually means a white type of liquor, and "red fermented wine" is another type of liquor, neither of which have anything to do with wine.

Given that, there are some interesting factoids in this book. I especially enjoyed the section on the most famous forms of liquor in China, and some of the history and myths having to do with liquor, as well as some of the customs in various areas (although these are sort of glossed over, and Taiwanese aboriginal tribes are all grouped under "gaoshan". Also, the legend of "nu er hong" is mentioned twice, but the story is slightly different each time.

The section on drinking games could have been skipped, and the section on beer is out of date at this point, since it doesn't even mention craft beers.

2.5 stars

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