I want to know something about medicinal liquor. What is the development history of medicinal liquor?

Wine and medicine are inextricably linked. The traditional word "medicine" comes from "unitary", which is also wine. This is probably because the ancestors accidentally ate fermented melon juice and found that it can treat some diseases such as deficiency cold and abdominal pain, thus making wine closely related to the initial medical activities. There is a treatise on decoction and medicine in Huangdi Neijing, which specifically discusses the way of medication. The so-called "soup" is today's decoction, and "mash" is medicinal liquor. Obviously, during the Warring States period, people had a deep understanding of the medical function of medicinal liquor.

The method of making medicinal liquor has been discussed by the ancients for a long time. For example, in Su Wen, there are discourses that "the ancient sages made soup to wake up the spirit" and "evil spirits should be well served when the time comes", which are the early records of medicinal liquor treatment. The cooking methods of red and blue wine and hemp yellow wine soup collected in Zhang Zhongjing's synopsis of the golden chamber in the Eastern Han Dynasty are similar to those of modern hot soaking method. Tang and Sun Simiao's "Prepare Thousand Gold Prescriptions for Emergency Use" comprehensively discussed the preparation method and taking method of medicinal liquor. "Where the wine, medicine cut thin, medicine silk bag, head seal. On April 5 th, spring and summer, and July 8 th, autumn and winter, the taste is full, and the slag is removed to take the wine ... It is appropriate to take the wine in winter and stop at the beginning of spring. " Another example is Compendium of Materia Medica, which records that shochu is made by distillation. "With spirits and distiller's grains, dew was taken away by the steamer. Any sour wine can be soju, steamed in a jar with distiller's yeast for seven days, clear as water, with extremely strong flavor and full of wine dew. " This method of operation is basically the same as modern one. In addition, the methods and operation methods of making medicinal liquor by cold soaking and traditional hot soaking were explained in detail. According to the medical literature of past dynasties, ancient medicinal liquor and modern medicinal liquor have different characteristics. First, the ancient medicinal liquor was mainly medicinal liquor, and there were also cold soaking and hot soaking methods; Second, the base wine, mostly yellow wine, is milder than white wine. Modern medicinal liquor mostly uses white wine as solvent, and the alcohol content is generally 50%-60%. A few varieties are still brewed with yellow wine, and the alcohol content is 30%-50%. The preparation method is extraction and small amount of brewing.