Honey Wine

Mil-ju

한글 밀주 · Pinyin Mi Jiu

蜜酒

乾酵, dried yeast, is entered as 酒酵子 (juhyoja), the registered form of the wine starter, with the text's own word kept in the preparation note. 水一椀, a bowl of water, is the vehicle and carries no herb id.

Composition 構成

Bongmil Feng Mi
蜂蜜 봉밀 · Honey

1280 g
Chief 君

好蜜二斤, good honey
Guk Qu
麴 국 · Brewing Leaven (wine starter)

—
Deputy 臣

白麴一升半, 1 and a half seung of white leaven
Juhyoja Jiu Jiao Zi
酒酵子 주효자 · Wine Leaven

120 g
Deputy 臣

好乾酵三兩, good dried yeast; entered as 酒酵子, the registered form of the same starter

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 1 ingredient measured by count or used as a vehicle, shown as —.

Received this formula from your practitioner? Amounts shown here are classical reference values — granule and prepared products differ. Always follow your prescribed dosage and directions.

Actions 效能

Brewed from honey with leaven and yeast, drunk as a wine

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

None given; the leaf is a brewing method

Biomedical correlates

A wine; not a therapeutic preparation

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

蜜酒, 好蜜二斤, 水一椀, 白麴一升半, 好乾酵三兩. 右先熬蜜水, 去沫, 令極冷, 下麴ㆍ酵, 每日三攪, 三日熟, 甚佳. 《元戎》

Translation

Honey Wine. Good honey, 2 geun; water, one bowl; white leaven, 1 and a half seung; good dried yeast, 3 nyang. First boil the honey and water and skim off the froth; let it grow quite cold, then put in the leaven and the yeast. Stir it three times a day; in three days it is ripe, and very good. — Wonyung 元戸 (Donguibogam · Japbang)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Mead, and competently made. Honey is boiled with water and skimmed — which drives off some water, kills wild organisms and lifts the scum of wax and protein — then cooled right down before the leaven and the dried yeast go in, because pitching into hot must kills the yeast. Stirring three times a day keeps the cap wet and the ferment aerated. Three days is the whole ferment, so what this yields is a sweet, cloudy, weakly alcoholic drink still working in the jar rather than a keeping mead; 甚佳, very good, is a drinker's verdict and not a clinical one. Honey itself is sugar with traces of enzymes and pollen, and boiling it removes even those. As with the other wines of the section, the active substance is the alcohol, and ethanol is a group 1 carcinogen with no safe level of intake. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.