Medicinal wine brewing technology

Chapter 1 What is Medicinal Wine
what is medicinal wine
Medicinal wine, in ancient times, was collectively referred to as "mash and wine" together with other wines.In my country's earliest medical book "Huangdi Neijing", there is "Theory of Soup, Mash and Liquor".Mash is wine made from five grains. Mash is turbid wine, and Li is sweet wine.

〖=SM〗Medicated wine is prepared by soaking white wine, rice wine or yellow rice wine with corresponding Chinese herbal medicines.Medicinal wine can be roughly divided into two categories: nourishing medicinal wine and therapeutic medicinal wine according to their functions:
Although nourishing medicinal wine has a certain prevention and treatment effect on certain diseases, it mainly plays a nourishing and health-care effect on the human body and promotes good health.Most of these medicinal wines have good color, aroma and unique flavor, and can be used as general drinking wine, and can be served with meals or drunk as needed.

Therapeutic medicated wine is a medicated wine whose main function is to treat or prevent diseases, and there are usually certain requirements on the formula.The alcohol content of medicinal wine varies depending on the type of wine used.

Some medicinal wine for external use can also be prepared with medicinal alcohol.

How to choose medicinal wine
Medicinal wine is a beverage made by co-processing wine and traditional Chinese medicine, in which the wine mainly plays the role of dissolution, precipitation, stabilization, and reconciliation of taste.

When making medicinal wine, choosing what kind of wine as a solvent is the first step in brewing medicinal wine.As early as the Tang Dynasty, my country's first official pharmacopoeia "Xinxiu Materia Medica" pointed out: "All wines are different, and only rice wine is used as medicine." During the Song and Ming Dynasties, rice wine was used as the raw material for preparing medicinal wine. , Gradually popularized the use of white wine to soak medicines.Today, most medicinal wines still use white wine as a solvent. This is because white wine has a high alcohol concentration and it is easy to separate the active ingredients in the medicinal materials.

When making medicinal wine, no matter what kind of wine is selected as the solvent, attention should be paid to the quality, concentration and dosage of the wine.

The so-called quality of wine mainly refers to paying attention to the color, smell and taste of wine when buying wine.Generally speaking, it is better to use high-quality wine for making medicinal wine.Good liquor should be colorless and transparent, not turbid, free of sediment, fragrant in smell, and strong in taste.The quality of rice wine requires yellowish brown and transparent color, rich and pure smell, soft and refreshing taste.

When making medicinal wine, it is very important to grasp the concentration of the wine according to the performance and efficacy of the required medicinal wine.If the concentration of wine is too high, the water in the medicine will be easily seeped out, which will harden the medicine and make it difficult to dissolve and separate the active ingredients.If the concentration of the wine is too low, the volume of the drug may expand due to the absorption of water, and at the same time some bitter substances and impurities are easily dissolved, which will affect the smell of the medicinal wine.Generally speaking, when preparing nourishing medicinal wine, the concentration of raw wine can be lower; when preparing medicinal wine for dispelling rheumatism, invigorating qi and blood, and dredging meridians, the concentration of raw wine can be higher.

How to Make Potion
Many families also like to prepare medicinal wine by themselves while purchasing finished medicinal wine, and maintain the drinking habit of preparing it every year.The feature of self-preparation, in addition to being more economical, can also choose drugs according to individual physical conditions and characteristics, which is more targeted and more effective.However, if you don't know the properties and dosage of the medicine, and you don't know the common sense of medicinal wine preparation, it is best to prepare the medicine under the guidance of a Chinese medicine practitioner, and you should not blindly make it yourself.Now briefly introduce the preparation method of medicinal wine.

1. Select the formula
Self-made medicinal wine should choose a safe and reliable medicinal wine formula suitable for home-made.Because some formulas are not suitable for self-made, such as some toxic traditional Chinese medicines, they must be processed before they can be used, and ordinary families do not have this condition.For some unilateral and proven prescriptions circulated among the people, if you want to make medicinal wine, you should consult a doctor first to find out the nature and scope of application of the medicine, so as to avoid mistakes and even poisoning.

2. Medicinal material processing
The medicinal materials for preparing liquor are generally sliced ​​or crushed into coarse particles.Traditional Chinese medicine purchased from pharmacies according to doctor's prescription is mostly processed and does not require special treatment.For traditional Chinese medicines from folk prescriptions, first of all, its product name and specifications must be clarified, and it is necessary to prevent mistakes in medicinal materials due to different substances with the same name or different names, and to be alert to counterfeit and shoddy Chinese medicinal materials.Fresh medicines and crude medicines often need to be processed first.

3. Wine selection
The wine you choose should be selected according to your personal physical condition.It is generally believed that 50-60% rice wine and high-quality shochu are more suitable for soaking medicinal wine.Because the concentration of the wine is too low, the active ingredients are not easy to leach, which will affect the therapeutic effect, and the medicinal wine is easy to deteriorate.However, if the concentration of wine is too high, a small amount of water contained in the medicinal materials will be absorbed instead, making the medicinal materials hard and difficult to separate out the active ingredients.For those who are not good at drinking, low-alcohol white wine, rice wine and rice wine can also be used; however, the leaching time should be appropriately extended and the number of times should be increased.

4. Cold soaking method

This method is more commonly used, which is to crush the medicinal materials into flakes or coarse powder, and place them in non-metallic containers such as pottery and porcelain jars with lids or glass bottles with stoppers.If the prescription does not specify the amount of wine, it can be 1:5~10 ratio of medicine and liquor, that is, 100~200 grams of medicinal materials and 1000 ml of liquor are immersed, placed in an airtight place, shaken 1~2 times a day, after soaking for 7 days, can be changed to Shake and stir once a week. After about a month, the medicinal properties will be separated out and the wine will be rich in color. You can filter out the dregs to get the wine, store it in a bottle, and drink slowly.The dregs can be soaked in wine for one more time.You can drink 1 cup and add 1 cup until the medicinal taste is light.If the medicinal wine needs to be colored with sugar or honey, the sugar can be warmed and dissolved with an equal amount of white wine, filtered, the medicinal liquid and the sugar liquid are mixed and stirred, and then filtered to obtain the medicinal liquor.

5. Hot soaking method (boiling wine method)
Boil medicinal materials and wine together for a certain period of time, and then store them in cold storage. This is an ancient method of making medicinal wine. This method can not only speed up the extraction speed, but also make some ingredients easy to extract. Pay attention to fire safety.The indirect heating method of boiling and stewing can be adopted, that is, the medicinal materials and wine are first placed in a small pot or an enamel pot, and then put in another large pot filled with water to cook and stew.The time should not be too long, otherwise the wine will volatilize. When foam appears on the surface of the medicine, remove it from the stove immediately, then seal it while it is hot, and let it stand for about 15 days. Absorb the supernatant, press out the remaining wine in the residue, put it together and let it stand for clarification. Just filter.

6. Boiling method

After grinding the raw materials into powder, put them all into a casserole, add water 10 cm above the surface of the medicine, soak for 6 hours, heat and boil for 1 to 2 hours, filter, fry again, combine the filtrate twice, let it stand for 8 hours, take it out The clear liquid is heated and concentrated into a thick clear paste (generally 5 kg of crude drug, decocted into about 2 kg).After cooling, add the same amount of wine as the clear ointment, put it evenly in the jar, seal it for about 7 days, take the supernatant and filter it to get the decoction medicinal wine.

7. Brewing method

The raw materials are boiled with water, filtered to remove residue, and concentrated into a medicinal juice.Some medicinal materials, such as mulberries, pears, bayberry, etc., can be directly squeezed to obtain medicinal juice, then steamed glutinous rice into rice, mix the glutinous rice, medicinal juice and koji, put it in a clean container, seal it with a cover, and keep it warm place, keep as little contact with air as possible, and keep a certain temperature, about 4 to 6 days.

Among the above several production methods, the cold soaking method is the easiest to operate, does not require special equipment, and is suitable for family preparation, so it is more commonly used.

Dosage and taboos

Medicinal wine is generally better to be taken warmly, which is conducive to the exertion of the medicinal effect. The dose can be determined according to the nature of the drug and the drinking habit of each person. Generally, 10-30 ml is taken each time, and it is drunk in the morning and evening every day, or according to the condition of the patient. and the nature and concentration of the drug used.Some tonic medicinal wines can also be taken with meals.Drink slowly, drink while eating a la carte.People with a small capacity for alcohol can filter the soaked medicinal wine with gauze and mix it with an appropriate amount of cold sugar water or honey water. The diluted medicinal wine is more suitable for taste.For therapeutic purposes, it is generally not advisable to take it again after recovery, and it is not advisable to "satisfy" with medicinal wine, so as not to cause excessive drug effects after drinking and damage the body.To invigorate deficiency, it takes a long time to drink and take it to be effective, and it is not allowed to drink heavily for quick effect.

Medicinal wine is not suitable for everyone, and it must vary from person to person. For example, women have physiological characteristics such as menstruation, so it is not suitable to use medicinal wine during pregnancy and lactation; during menstruation, if menstruation is normal, it is not suitable to take it. Medicinal wine with the effect of invigorating blood.On the contrary, young and middle-aged people can consume more because of their relatively vigorous metabolism.Children's growth and development are immature, and the organ functions are not yet complete, so it is generally not suitable to take it. If the disease really requires it, you should also pay attention to the appropriate amount.For those who are used to drinking, the amount of alcohol taken by taking medicine can be slightly increased than that of ordinary people, but they must also control the amount and not overdose.People who are not used to drinking can start with a small amount and gradually increase to the required amount when taking it, or take it after cold boiled water.For some diseases such as hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, peptic ulcer, infiltrating or cavitary tuberculosis, epilepsy, cardiac insufficiency, chronic renal insufficiency, etc., it is not suitable to take medicinal wine to avoid aggravating the condition.People who are allergic to alcohol and patients with skin diseases should forbid or use alcohol with caution.

The medicinal wines used in this book are divided into two categories: nourishing medicinal wines and therapeutic medicinal wines.

Nourishing medicinal wine mainly includes several categories: nourishing longevity, nourishing blood and nourishing qi, deficiency of yang qi, hyposexuality, nourishing liver and kidney, strengthening muscles and bones, and beautifying the face.

Therapeutic medicated wine is divided into several categories: women's diseases, eliminating galls and dissipating stagnation, hepatic and iliac diseases, cough and wheezing, bruises, and hemiplegia.

The medicinal wine prescriptions selected in this book have collected more than [-] kinds of medicinal materials and medicinal wines that are relatively popular and easy to buy, make and process.Each type of medicinal wine has been elaborated in detail in terms of formula, efficacy, production, dosage, source and precautions. The formula has strict compatibility dosage, which is based on the traditional medicinal wine formula of doctors in the past dynasties, and the source is marked for convenience. Check out the comparison.

This book is easy to understand, easy to operate, symptomatic selection, and extremely practical.

(End of this chapter)