Beìshān jiǔjīng 北山酒經
The Classic of Wine-Making at Beì-shān by 朱翼中 (Zhū Yìzhōng = Zhū Gōng 朱肱, 撰; pseudonym Dàyǐn wēng 大隱翁)
About the work
The foundational Chinese monograph on traditional Chinese fermented-rice-wine (huángjiǔ 黃酒, the jiǔ of Chinese antiquity — typically classified as “rice wine” in English, but with closer kinship to sake or Italian vin santo). Three juàn by the Northern-Sòng physician and recluse Zhū Yìzhōng 朱翼中 (= Zhū Gōng 朱肱), hào Dàyǐn wēng 大隱翁, composed during his Hángzhōu recluse-period (c. 1088–1117). The work is divided into: juàn 1 a general discussion of wine-history, classical references, and connoisseurship; juàn 2 the qū 麴 (yeast-starter) recipes — fourteen kinds of yeast-cake, including fēngqū 風麴 (wind-yeast), shénqū 神麴 (divine-yeast), and the famous zhǔqū 主麴 (sovereign-yeast); juàn 3 the wine-making procedures themselves, with thirteen distinct wine-varieties.
Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì records the work as one juàn — a transmission-error per the Sìkù editors. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí lists the work as by Dàyǐn wēng without giving Zhū’s actual name; Lǐ Bǎo’s 李保 XùBeìshān jiǔjīng (the supplementary treatise) preface, preserved in the Shuōfú, clarifies the identification.
Tiyao
We submit that the Beìshān jiǔjīng is in three juàn by Zhū Yìzhōng of the Sòng. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí lists it only as “by Dàyǐn wēng” without giving the surname. Investigating: the Sòng Lǐ Bǎo’s XùBeìshān jiǔjīng together with this book are both recorded in Táo Zōngyí’s Shuōfú. Bǎo’s own preface says: “Dàyǐn Xiānsheng Zhū Yìzhōng wrote books and brewed wine, dwelling temporarily on the Lake. The court greatly expanded the Medical Academy, recruiting him as bóshì; he was implicated for inscribing on his door a Dōngpō [Sū Shì] poem and was banished to Dázhōu” — so Dàyǐn is Yìzhōng’s self-styled hào. The opening juàn is the general discussion; the second and third juàn record the methods of yeast-and-wine making, quite detailed. The Sòngshǐ Yìwénzhì gives it as one juàn — apparently a transmission-printing error. What the Shuōfú takes is only the general-discussion piān; the rest has only entries without text. So the present text is a complete recension. The Míng Jiāo Hóng 焦竑’s original preface refers to “investigation from Yú Tiánshì’s Liúqīng rìzhá” for the author’s name — apparently not having seen Lǐ Bǎo’s preface. Chéng Bǎiér 程百二 also took Bǎo’s preface and placed it before this book as “Preface to Beìshān jiǔjīng (Postface)” — this is also confused. At the end is appended Yuán Hóngdào’s 袁宏道 Shāngzhèng 觴政 (Sixteen Wine-Politics) and Wáng Jī’s 王績 Zuìxiāng jì (Notes on the Drunkard’s Hometown) — apparently appended by Hú Zhīyǎn 胡之衍. However, the ancients’ writings on wine-affairs are many; appending one Míng-figure and one Tang-figure — to what end? We now together delete-and-remove these. Submitted Qiánlóng 46 month 10 (1781).
Abstract
The work is the foundational and most authoritative Chinese pre-modern source on alcoholic-beverage production. Its meticulous procedural detail on yeast-cake preparation (the qū 麴), grain-cooking, the bùyān 布堰 (cloth-dam) layering method of fermentation, the yùnjiǔ 醖酒 (fermentation-warming) management, and the distillation-and-pressing of the finished beverage make it the principal source for Sòng-period Chinese wine-making.
Several aspects make the work historically significant:
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Yeast-cake recipes. The work is the principal Chinese source for the elaborate Sòng qū tradition — yeast-cakes made by fermenting wheat-bran with herbs, then dried and stored for use as starter. The fourteen yeast varieties described represent the high-point of pre-distillation Chinese fermentation technology, with each qū yielding a different wine-character.
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Wine recipes. Thirteen distinct wines are described, including Tóngjiāng 通江 (Universal-River) wine, Bǎirì 百日 (Hundred-Day) wine, Liúrì 六日 (Six-Day) wine, Wǔtóu 五頭 (Five-Head) wine, and Xiāojiǔ 消酒 (Dispelling Wine) — each with specific occasions of use.
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The first Chinese description of distilled spirits? Modern scholarship has noted that one passage in juàn 3 — describing a process involving repeated boiling and condensation in a sealed vessel with a cooled lid — may represent the earliest Chinese description of true alcoholic distillation, predating the standard date for the introduction of distillation to China (which is usually placed in the Yuán dynasty). The interpretation is contested; conservative readers take the passage as describing concentration by repeated re-fermentation rather than true distillation.
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Pharmaceutical wines. Reflecting Zhū’s medical background, the work includes recipes for medicinal-fermented-tonics (yàojiǔ 藥酒) — wines flavored or augmented with herbal medicinals for therapeutic-tonic use.
The dating is broad: Zhū’s bóshì appointment at the Medical Academy and subsequent banishment to Dázhōu (under the Húzhōu Sū Shì poem-inscription affair, c. 1108) is the principal biographical milestone; the work was composed during his recluse-period before this banishment, so c. 1088–1108. Lǐ Bǎo’s supplementary XùBeìshān jiǔjīng was composed in the early Southern Sòng.
Translations and research
- Huáng Hsing-tsung 黃興宗. 2000. Fermentations and Food Science. Volume VI part 5 of Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China. Cambridge UP. The standard treatment of Chinese fermentation history; uses Beì-shān jiǔ-jīng as principal source.
- Wáng Sài-shí 王賽時. 2010. Zhōng-guó jiǔ-shǐ 中國酒史. Jǐnán: Shāndōng dà-xué chū-bǎn-shè.
- Hong Guang-zhu 洪光住. 1984. Zhōng-guó niàng-jiǔ kē-jì fā-zhǎn-shǐ 中國釀酒科技發展史. Běijīng: Zhōng-guó qīng-gōng-yè chū-bǎn-shè.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the principal sources for the question of whether the Chinese knew alcoholic distillation before the Yuán-period (the standard view holds that distilled spirits — shāojiǔ 燒酒, sorghum spirits — arrived in China during the Yuán with Central-Asian influence). The Beìshān jiǔjīng passage on a special zhēng 蒸 (steaming) and condensation-on-cool-lid procedure has been read by Hong Guang-zhu (1984) and other modern Chinese historians as evidence of indigenous Sòng distillation; the view is not universally accepted but is well-defended.