Chinese medicinal mead

[Urkelbot]

I was watching "big trouble in little china" the other day and right before the big fight the old Chinese man Egg pulls out a six demon bag and make some type of drink with it that makes the Kurt russel character feel invincible.

Anyway for whatever reason this got me thinking about making some kind of Chinese medicinal tonic mead. *The first objective is actual ingredients with some documented health benefits and taste a secondary. *

What I got so far
Lingzhi**mushrooms*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingzhi_mushroom. A bitter unpalatable flavor but these mushrooms appear to have numerous beneficial qualities including reduction of some cancerous tumours.
Ginseng. Increases white blood cells flavor is not bad
Ginger. *Lots of potential Healy benefits but mostly for flavor to cover up the foul mushrooms
Astragalus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astragalus numerous potential health benefits not really any flavor at all.
Wolf berry(goji berry). Vitamin c antioxidants flavor
Hawthorn berry. *Same as goji

I want 6 ingredients hence the name 6 demon bag. *

I'm thinking ec-118 shooting for 18% abv and than some residual sweetness. *Herbs going in secondary and aging for a year. *This would be something to drink in small doses like 4oz a day. *I know I could do this with vodka or something but that's no fun.

Anyone done something similar or have any advice? *

 

[youngpretender13]

Not much in the way of advice, but i had an idea fairly close to this a few days ago. I was contemplating doing a medicinal mead with several southern U.S. herbs and Carolina reaper peppers, for use when chest colds take hold. I was thinking it wouldn't be drinkable by any means, but only used in small cough syrup amounts. I'm thinking high abv with a bit of back sweetening with honey to thicken it back up a bit. I'm curious to know how your project turns out. Keep me posted on the progress.

 

[fatbloke]

Hawthorn is edible but quite bitter........lots of tannins I understand.

If you can get them (possibly dried), then I'd use sloes instead (fruit of blackthorn), as they're sour as hell fresh but can be sweetened to give a plum like flavour and nice dark colour......

the rest ? who knows.......

 

[fuelish]

Have entertained the idea of a ginseng mead, or ginseng/ginger, but.... I can imagine ginseng root doesn't come cheap...heh

 

[IJesusChrist]

Ginseng is very expensive, what you might actually consider is getting the candy - the candy is the flavor extracted and is very cheap, but still quite strong and will add an additional complexity due to their own sugars of the candy! Perhaps boil it down to a syrup and add.

Ginger, yes. Be careful, it is quite strong.

I would also recommend some type of tea. . . Perhaps instead of the mushrooms, but that is up to you!

A vitamin C source would be great, as antioxidants will help fight hangovers

 

[cluckk]

For the ginseng you can get ginseng tea at any Korean market. They sell it in a box of gold foil packets. The tea is granulated dried ginseng root and not as expensive as the raw root. I used to keep some around the house all the time--my wife is Korean.

 

[DromJohn]

I used 8 oz of hawthorn berry for a 5 gallon BYO Chateau Jiahu. Bitter, but less than IPA bitter.

 

[Urkelbot]

Good to know about the hawthorn. Ill have to go to a couple of the Asian markets around and see what I can dig up.

 

[Matrix4b]

I recomend that you put in the Ginseng after it clears. Ginseng is an anti-microbial. So it will kill yeast. I am doing a green tea gensing mead and I made my own gensing extract from some american gensing root. I cut up about 20 small roots about 1 inch long and soaked in Rum (alcohol like vodka, 35-40% abv) for 2 months. Then took out the slices of ginseng. The ginseng swelled up in the rum and I had to add a little extra to keep it all wet.

Looking forward to that mead.

Matrix

 

[trbig]

A handful of Red Yeast Rice would be good.. would add a nice color as well since it's also used as a pigment. Unless you already take statin drugs for lowering cholesterol since this is what those are made from.

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-suppl...ctiveIngredientName=Red Yeast Rice (RED YEAST)

Statin drug companies sued to keep red yeast rice from being shipped as a supplement to protect their patents, so the Chinese by-passed this and sell it in the Asian markets as a food. lol.





One 14 oz bag of it will make 10 lbs of white rice wine this color...

 

[Urkelbot]

What kind of flavor does the wine have?

 

[trbig]

What kind of flavor does the wine have?

Sweet, but very strong, though you can make it drier. This last batch tested out at 18% alcohol. The red yeast rice gives it a bit of a fruitier flavor somehow.

You can read all you'd care to learn about the rice wine here.. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f243/making-traditional-rice-wine-cheap-fun-different-361095/