A friend of mine who visited Hong Kong brought back a bottle of Chinese booze with a (needless to say) dead snake in the bottle. I think the brand was called Yang Ming. I can't even begin to describe the taste... there are simply no words for it. Can anyone tell me more about this product? I'm suspecting it's a tourist thingie, but then again, maybe not. Who drinks this and why? Is it actually popular, or is it more of a "joke"? Pardon my ignorance -- please enlighten me!
It may be a tourist trap. However it may also be meant to be medicinal. I'm not familiar with that particular brand so I can't be sure. But there are many wines, usually rice wines, with various medicinal herbs and dead creatures in them. I've seen some with mice and also with a mixture of various insects in them. They are supposed to be very good for you, not necessarily good tasting. Though taste is a very personal thing. I don't know what you plan on doing with it but I suggest you not drink too much as your body is not used to it and you could have some bad side effects. Though I guess from your post, there's not much danger of that.
Not familiar with any brands of snake wine. If genuine, according to traditional Chinese doctors is beneficial as it helps improve blood circulation.
Let me take a stab at this. Using original ingredients, a small snake or lizard that had been immersed in brandy or cognac, sometime also with other herbal plants, for a period of over 1 year at least(longer the better), suppose to treat mild symptons of rheumatolgic related disease(rheumatoid spondylitis and arthritis for examples). Some of the claims include alleviating muscle and joint pains, improve circulation, and improve bodily coordination. However, since capitalistism took hold of HK and now china, this unique concoction had been inappropriately exploited by many. In this new mass market, it is difficult to authenticate the originality of this medical concoction. It could had being diluted with newer and/or cheaper brandy or cognac, the snake and/or llzard might be 2nd hand meaning the creature may came from previous batch(s) and had lost its potency when reused for the mass market production. I don't think there's harm drinking your bottle but treat it as a novelty.
Thanks all! It's definitely not wine, my guess was that it's some sort of brandy, so I guess what Cooler suggests confirms that. I don't think I'll drink the whole bottle at once...
I agree with cooler that it probably is fake. I don't mean to nit-pick, but I will. If it's diluted it's probably cognac but it may be just rice wine. Chinese rice wine is much stronger than grape wines. Even after one distillation (so not like brandy which is grape wine distilled a second time) rice wine is very strong. I've had stuff considered not so strong and it was 56% alcohol. Oh yeah, and if you're ever in asia you should try some snake blood and alcohol, I'm not sure what alcohol. It's supposed to be good for you, it could even improve your badminton game.
Be careful! Hey Mag! You should be careful! A friend of my uncle went to China and bought a concoction similar to what you described supposedly for improved strength and virility. It was quite expensive and obtained from a supposedly reputable dealer. He drank it that night and died the next morning! Turns out the drink contained lots of heavy metal compounds which are highly poisonous. Even if you don't think that is the case with your wine, better make sure first as even small amounts of toxic heavy metals can cause subtle long term harm.
I second wira's advice. In general, be careful with all the hypes. It's easy to make claims that cannot be proven (esp. when there's no official certification body, like the "Food and Drug Administraction" in U.S., to verify the content and its effect). This, I find, may be esp. true with drugs/herbs and the likes from China. Some once popular off-the-shelf medicine turns out to have mercury in it. Others supposed to be good for your liver, turns out to damage your kidneys. And people do die because of eating/drinking of these stuffs. Things like little white mice in a bottle of liqueur, are believed by older generations to be great supplement. But I hope you know better by now.
Snakes? I've heard that they also used to make this type of liquor with snake venom in it. It also had a snake in the bottle. It was said that snake venom if takin in small dosages via mouth (not injection cuz it would kill ya) can increase things such as immunity, fitness and even sexdrive(I dont know how this works... I'm just recalling something I've heared a long while ago)... so they just squeeze some venom into the bottle of liquor(I hav no idea what type) and then afterwards put the snake in it so more venom will leak out into the liquor. But in general they did not put too much venom in (commen sense... too high a concentration of venom can kill) I'm just recalling this from the bottom of my brain somwehere... so i mite be mistaken... so DONT!!! go ahead and try to make something like this at home
Haha, a dead snake in a bottle? I may be a Chinese in Malaysia but I never heard of that before. Eeww, remind me never to accept gifts from China. Okay,okay, just kidding!
haha... but there IS a difference! dead ==> cant see this message paralyzed ==> still can with the help of a friend/relative
In the newspaper This is funny... One guy in china opened a bottle of the snake wine. The snake jumped out of the bottle and bit the guy!!! Apparently, the sealing of the bottle wasn't too good and let some air in thereby allowing the snake to survive for a year!!! It didn't mention what happened to the guy or what happened to the snake afterwards....
Re: In the newspaper Wow! That must be one tough snake! Surviving over a year in a bottle?!?! Well I won't be accepting any such things from now on!
interesting. one observation: the snakes are alive when they bottle them?!? collorary : if they just throw a life snake into the bottle, that means that all the "by-product" inside the snake goes into the bottle with it. so these along with other "good stuff" will creep into the wine over time. i was hoping that they'd actually strip and clean the thing before they put them in there. that gives a whole new meaning to the term "snake oil" Mag, that bottle of wine you just taste better and better everyday, doesn't it?
Re: In the newspaper Wow. Poor guy. But can't he use his brains and not open the bottle? Just kidding!
