A hand pours golden wine from a bamboo dipper into a shallow two-handled bowl, beside it stand a jar sealed with a clay cap and a bamboo tray of steaming glutinous rice, and paddy fields lie in the distance.
Brewed from grain
Introduction
Huangjiu, fermented from glutinous rice, millet or wheat and then pressed.
Huangjiu is a brewed wine made from glutinous rice, millet, wheat or other grains fermented with a starter and then pressed, without distilling. Book seven of the Qi Min Yao Shu records starter cakes, white-liquor starter, coarse-starter wines and standard wines, which shows that grain wines were brewed with starter by the Northern Wei. Huangjiu is drunk and also used in cooking, where its alcohol helps remove the smell of fish. Distilled spirits belong to baijiu, and rice wine and fruit wine have a class of their own.