Snake wine

A bottle of snake wine photographed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
Snake is one of Vietnamese varieties of rượu thuốc.[1] The bottle on the left is a cobra wine (Rượu rắn).
Scorpion and snake wine.

Snake wine (Chinese: 蛇酒; pinyin: shé-jiǔ; Vietnamese: rượu rắn; Khmer: ស្រាពស់, sra poas) is an alcoholic beverage produced by infusing whole snakes in rice wine or grain alcohol. The drink was first recorded to have been consumed in China during the Western Zhou dynasty (c. 1040–770 BC) and believed in folklore to reinvigorate a person according to Traditional Chinese medicine.[2] It can be found in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, North Korea, Goa (India), Vietnam, Okinawa (Japan), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and throughout Southeast Asia.

The snakes, preferably venomous ones, are not usually preserved for their meat but to have their "essence" and/or snake venom dissolved in the liquor. The snake venom proteins are unfolded by the ethanol and therefore the completed beverage is usually, but not always,[3] safe to drink. The Huaxi street night market (華西街夜市) of Taipei, Taiwan, is renowned for its snake foods and wine products.

  1. ^ "The Last Days of the Mekong Snake Hunters". 9 August 2016. Archived from the original on 13 October 2016. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
  2. ^ 蛇酒的泡制与药用 [The production and medicinal qualities of snake wine], 2007-04-09, archived from the original on 2011-07-06, retrieved 2009-10-20
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference moon was invoked but never defined (see the help page).