Rice and Fruit Wines · FFET10085
Liyang Wufan Wine
The Suiyuan Shidan records Liyang wufan wine as black, sweet and fresh, and a Lishui custom of brewing a jar of it when a daughter is born.
Sweet fermented rice foams gently in a clay basin with a wooden spoon in it, beside it stand a bowl of rice-wine glutinous balls, a bunch of grapes and a basket of green plums, and grapes hang on a trellis to the left.
Rice wines of the sweet fermented-rice kind, and wines brewed from fruit.
The Suiyuan Shidan (Recipes from the Sui Garden), published in 1792, lists Liyang wufan wine in its tea-and-wine section. The author says he drank sixteen cups of it at the home of an official named Ye in Lishui, and that "its colour is black, its taste sweet and fresh, and words cannot tell how fine it is". The book adds: "It is said to be a Lishui custom that when a daughter is born a jar of wine is made, using qingjing rice; the wine is drunk only when the girl marries."