SC - rice wine

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> 
> A couple of questions:
> 1) Rice was known, and I believe grown, in Europe in period. Is there
> any evidence that it was ever brewed into a beverage?

In Europe? I doubt it. Rice was grown in places that had too much
respect for grapes even to make regular ale or beer, let alone rice beer
_or_ wine.
 
> 2) Why is it called rice "wine"? It really sounds more like rice "beer"
> to me. I think I may have asked this before but right now I'm trying to
> figure out whether to place this recipe in my beer-msg file or in my
> wine-msg file. Since everyone seems to call it a wine, I think that
> is where I will place it since that is where folks would probably look
> for it.

You probably should just place it with the wines. Yes, it's made from
grain, but there the similarity to beer, modern or otherwise, pretty
much ends. It is often not made by malting the grain, never hopped, and
made with entirely different yeast strains. 

It's a clear, almost invariably still (not carbonated) beverage,
sometimes, but more often not, flavored with herbs. Sometimes consumed
warm. It has easily as much right to be called wine as, say, dandelion
wine or a number of others, and only the French, in an attempt to
protect their export trade, have had the temerity to claim that such
non-grape products cannot be called wine.

Which reminds me, it's time to put up the cherry wine and bottle last
year's batch. Excuse me. ;  )

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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