''Rượu thuốc'' () or ''rượu dân tộc'' () is a kind of Vietnamese
distilled liquor
Liquor (or a spirit) is an alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar, that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Other terms for liquor include: spirit drink, distilled beverage or hard l ...
(''rượu'') with herbs and medical animals, considered by traditional medicine as good for health. This drink is a mixture of
alcohol
Alcohol most commonly refers to:
* Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom
* Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks
Alcohol may also refer to:
Chemicals
* Ethanol, one of sev ...
mixed with herbs or animals which are used as drink and medicine in
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
. In Vietnam, ''rượu thuốc'' is widely believed to help drinkers improve their health and virility.
Production
Raw herbs like
ginseng
Ginseng () is the root of plants in the genus ''Panax'', such as Korean ginseng ('' P. ginseng''), South China ginseng ('' P. notoginseng''), and American ginseng ('' P. quinquefolius''), typically characterized by the presence of ginsenosides an ...
,
jujube
Jujube (), sometimes jujuba, known by the scientific name ''Ziziphus jujuba'' and also called red date, Chinese date, and Chinese jujube, is a species in the genus ''Ziziphus'' in the buckthorn family Rhamnaceae.
Description
It is a smal ...
, or raw animals like
seahorse
A seahorse (also written ''sea-horse'' and ''sea horse'') is any of 46 species of small marine fish in the genus ''Hippocampus''. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek (), itself from () meaning "horse" and () meaning "sea monster" or " ...
s,
snake
Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...
s, or
termite
Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes (eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blattode ...
s are placed into a large earthenware jar of alcohol and kept for days to let the expected medical substances in these herbs or animals to dissolve in liquor before the mixture is served. Distilled liquor must be strong enough, with alcoholic concentration of 45% or more.
Drinking
''Rượu thuốc'' is typically drunk before a meal. It's believed among Vietnamese that drinking ''rượu thuốc'' may treat several diseases (not diseases caused by viruses or bacteria).
See also
*
Cơm rượu
''Cơm rượu'' () also known as ''rượu nếp cái'' is a traditional Vietnamese dessert from Southern Vietnam, made from glutinous rice.
To prepare ''cơm rượu'', glutinous rice is cooked, mixed with yeast, and rolled into small balls. ...
*
Rice wine
Rice wine is an alcoholic beverage fermented and distilled from rice, traditionally consumed in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. Rice wine is made by the fermentation of rice starch that has been converted to sugars. Microbes are the so ...
*
Rượu cần
''Rượu cần'' ( or 'straw liquor') is a fermented rice wine indigenous to several ethnic groups in Vietnam, in areas such as Tây Nguyên or Tây Bắc. It is made of fermented glutinous rice (''nếp'') mixed with several kinds of herbs (in ...
*
Rượu nếp
''Rượu nếp'' (sometimes also called ''rượu nếp bắc'', or ''rượu nếp cẩm'', ) is a pudding or drink from northern Vietnam.
Preparation
It is made from glutinous rice that has been fermented with the aid of yeast and steamed ...
*
Rượu đế
''Rượu đế'' is a distilled liquor from Vietnam, made of either glutinous or non-glutinous rice. It was formerly made illegally and is thus similar to moonshine. It is most typical of the Mekong Delta region of southwestern Vietnam (its equiv ...
*
Snake wine
Snake wine (; vi, rượu rắn; km, ស្រាពស់, ) 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 ...
*
Sơn Tinh (liquor)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruou thuoc
Vietnamese alcoholic drinks