Medicinal wines have remained a favourite drink for many Chinese and Vietnamese men in their own country but also all over the world, because even when they live abroad, Asian people still like to enjoy some of the best medicinal wines available where they are born.
Usually medicinal wines are made from herbs, reptiles and mammals steeped in spirits, and Asian doctors as western doctors always are surprised by the strong effects of these wines, but these doctors like to repeat that drinking these wines can be considered as taking medicine, so people should seek out expert advice in order to avoid unexpected consequences, and not drink more than one shot a day as they shouldn’t take more pills than what their doctor asked them to eat everyday.
However it seems that few medicinal wines consumers listen to this kind of warnings, and most of the men who have tried medicinal wines as Snake wine after having heard about the advantages of medicinal wines by word of mouth, usually confess drinking it more than what they should.
“I drink different kinds of medicinal wines, especially snake wine, to help improve my health,” said Nguyen Van Vuong, 48, of a village near Ha Noi Snake village, and as most of Snake wine drinkers he doesn’t think that there’s any harm drinking medicinal wines unless you drink too much. But what is too much ?
All famous herbalists questioned about Snake wine and others medicinal wines said that these wines could cause problems if taken in excessive amounts, but fortunately not health threatening problem.
Herbalists add that Snake wine is most of the time good to drink, but some other wines as antler wine should be used carefully and this medicine would work only when it suited to the patient’s illness and when taken in the prescribed amount.
When it comes to medicinal wines, the two main ingredients are wine and “medicines”, which can include herbs or insects, reptiles as Cobra snake, and mammals that had been soaked in wine. Therefore, the effectiveness and quality of the wines also depend on the quality of ingredients and the liquor, so this is why patients must be sure to buy only authentic medicinal wine as Snake wine, and not any other wine made by people who are not herbalists or doctors.
Beware of substandard or fake wines which are made with methanol, which is not what someone needs to improve his health when being sick. The real Snake wine is made with authentic traditional rice liquor, and only rice liquor.
Don’t buy wine with vague origins and improper production process, but only real medicinal wine, and even if snake, gecko, tryonychid turtle and other animals are popular ingredients in medicinal wines as in Chinese medicine, one’s must remember that most reptiles and insects contain toxins that could harm human health if not properly used.
For example, gecko wine is dangerous for people who suffer from kidney failure, colds or asthma, and mashed bee wine can be dangerous because the bees contain toxic substances, and even with Snake which is the less dangerous among medicinal wines, people shouldn’t drink more than 15-30 ml of this wine a day.
Oriental medicinal wines have long been believed to help promote blood circulation, with the alcohol helping the body absorb the medicinal content and some recipes help prolong human life or improve men’s sexual stamina, but all these wines must be used properly, and nobody should abuse drinking them, or the effects could be worst than the illness or condition for which they are used.
AsianSnakeWine.com