Scientists believe that the Celestial Kingdom has the longest history of strong beverages in the world. Wine producing started in China at the time of Shennong, more than 7,000 years ago. The term “wine” loses something in translation because the majority of Chinese wine is actually strong spirit that would be better described as vodka.

Yi Di and Du Kang are considered the originators of wine-making in China. According to ancient annals, Yi Di was ordered by Emperor Yu to produce mellow wine from fermented glutinous rice. The concoction tasted good and Yi Di was confident he would receive a reward. Emperor Yu, while agreeing that the drink was of excellent quality and had a good taste, stopped short of rewarding its maker. Why? Because the Son of Heaven decided that over indulgence of this new beverage could be dangerous – it could make a person (read – the Emperor himself) lose his wits and inadvertently put the country at risk. Wise man.

Another founder wine-maker, Du Kang, created a formula for high quality liquor made of sorghum. As legend has it, one winter he put cultivated sorghum seeds in a hollow. The following spring he noticed a strong smell coming from it and was amazed to discover that the sorghum he left there had fermented. This accidental discovery inspired Du Kang to create an alcoholic beverage.

Many have heard about sake, a drink popular in Japan, but not so many know that this type of rice spirit exists in just one country other than Japan – China, its country of origin. Neither wine nor liquor, in the Middle Kingdom it was called chiu, approximately translatable as “strong beer.” Ordinary beer or, to be more precise, its 4-5% strong prototype has been produced around the world over centuries. It was popular in Babylon and Egypt and in around 1500 BC in China for sacrificial ceremonies. Production of chiu three times stronger than beer started in 1000 BC.

One amazing piece of information about alcohol production in China is that it was here that brandy first appeared. Grapes, and drinks made from them came to China with Arabian merchants in the second century BC. This Chinese wine was first mentioned by Paracelsus. It caused a sensation in Europe, where techniques of fermentation and distillation were as yet unknown.

These days China produces brandy equal to that of France, only cheaper

China began its classification of alcoholic drinks in the early Middle Ages. Most common is bai jiu, a white colorless spirit of 30 and higher degrees. On sale everywhere, it costs anything from a few yuan to thousands, depending on the brand. Bai jiu is an effective social tool, it can strengthen business alliances and turn yesterday’s enemies into good friends. It is produced from cereals, usually sorghum and rice, and fermented with yeast and sugar. If first filtered and then bottled, a new kind of alcohol, cui jiu, is born. If distilled after fermentation you have shao jiu – a stronger, purer drink, generally found in the north. There have been dozens of popular and famous wines throughout Chinese history, many created by well-known scientists and poets. The Confucius family jiu a strong, sweetish and fragrant drink produced in Qufu, home city of the great sage, for more than thousand years, is just one of them.

During the last couple of centuries classic wines (or vodkas, as we agreed earlier) have been made from sorghum. Most famous is that produced in Maotai, Guizhou Province, which is regarded as much a national treasure as is Longjing tea.

Wines from Maotai are the most expensive in China. They are refined seven times and matured for no less than 3 years. Their potency varies from 39 to 55 degrees. Historians will proudly tell you how Maotai changed the world because the three cups drunk by Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon cemented Chinese-American relations and marked the start of a new era in world politics.

Maotai is, however, an expensive pleasure. It starts from 10 US dollars per bottle and for many years was produced exclusively for leaders of the country. Now it is available to all. But the real people’s drink in China is erguotou, priced at a couple of yuan per half liter bottle. The most loved brand is “Hongxin Erguotou” (Red Star), and accounts for one-quarter of all alcohol produced in China. The word erguoto” itself means “second distillation” which indicates its level of purity.

The Chinese have always considered wine mainly as a medicinal drink, and ancient medics used it to make many tinctures with it as remedies to promote vitality. Any Chinese medical reference book will list more than 70 kinds of medicinal wines. According to one ancient book “Wine’s ability to prevent diseases surpasses that of any diet”.

Wine relaxes and opens the energy channels of the organism and promotes blood circulation. Distiller’s yeast is frequently used as medicine to stimulate the appetite and improve digestion.

As a carrier for medicinal wine, a fermented or distilled beverage can be used. Herbs and other ingredients are infused in wine, heated up or steamed. Every drugstore in China has bottles of wine containing pickled bees and snakes, scorpions and other vermin along with herbs such as ginseng. The Chinese are convinced that the more poisonous the animal, the more health-giving wine from it will be. But be warned: in your rush to promote your health don’t drink the whole bottle. The usual limit for imbibing “snake wine” is 100 g. More could be harmful to the health.

My advice for anybody planning to come to China is, don’t bring your own tipple. This country has something for everything on that score.

INESA PLESKACHEUSKAYA is the Beijing bureau chief of the Belorussian national newspaper Belarus Today and the National TV channel ONT.