CHAPTER XXIX.
CONCERNING THE RICE-WINE DRUNK BY THE PEOPLE OF CATHAY.
Most of the people of Cathay drink wine of the kind that I shall now
describe. It is a liquor which they brew of rice with a quantity of
excellent spice, in such fashion that it makes better drink than any
ther kind of wine; it is not only good, but clear and pleasing to the
eye.[NOTE 1] And being very hot stuff, it makes one drunk sooner than
any other wine.
NOTE 1. - The mode of making Chinese rice-wine is described in Amyot's
Memoires, V. 468 seqq. A kind of yeast is employed, with which is often
mixed a flour prepared from fragrant herbs, almonds, pine-seeds, dried
fruits, etc. Rubruquis says this liquor was not distinguishable, except by
smell, from the best wine of Auxerre; a wine so famous in the Middle Ages,
that the Historian Friar, Salimbene, went from Lyons to Auxerre on purpose
to drink it.[1] Ysbrand Ides compares the rice-wine to Rhenish; John Bell
to Canary; a modern traveller quoted by Davis, "in colour, and a little in
taste, to Madeira." [Friar Odoric (Cathay, i. p. 117) calls this wine
bigni; Dr. Schlegel (T'oung Pao, ii. p. 264) says Odoric's wine was
probably made with the date Mi-yin, pronounced Bi-im in old days.
