Chinese 桂花酒 Hanyu Pinyin Chinese 桂酒 | Postal Kuei Hua Chiew Wade–Giles kuei-hua-chiu Postal Kuei Chiew | |
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Similar Lychee wine, Mijiu, Choujiu, Realgar wine, Mekhong | ||
Cassia wine, osmanthus wine, or Kuei Hua Chen Chiew is an alcoholic Chinese drink, sometimes sweetened, produced from weak baijiu and flavored with sweet osmanthus flowers. It is distilled, but typically has an alcohol content less than 20%.
While the plant itself is sometimes associated with cinnamon, the blossoms' lactones impart a flavor closer to apricots and peaches.
Owing to the timing of the plant's blossoms, cassia wine is the traditional choice for the "reunion wine" drunk on the Mid-Autumn or Mooncake Festival. From the homophony between 酒 and 久 (meaning "long" in the sense of time passing), cassia wine is also a traditional gift for birthdays in China. It is also considered a medicinal wine in traditional Chinese medicine. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica credits sweet osmanthus with "curing the hundred diseases" and "raising the spirit".
Within China, cassia wine is associated with Xi'an and Guizhou, but production now occurs throughout China, including Beijing and at the Hong Jiang Winery in Hunan.
