Baby what, wine, eh?
Yes indeedy, baby mice wine. It’s wine with, well, baby mice in it.
Found in China, this deliciousness is believed to be a cure-all health tonic. It is believed it can cure anything from asthma to liver disease.
Baby mice wine isn’t just baby mouse flavoured, or have one baby mouse inside. Oh no, it has a whole pile of baby mice, only a few days old, floating around at the bottom of the bottle. Nasty huh? Well it gets worse – the baby mice are plucked from their mother’s teet, placed in the bottle alive and drowned. Perhaps that improves the flavour?
One thing I haven’t clarified is whether the mice in baby mice wine are eaten/drunk along with the wine, or just filtered out. Surely if they are the source of the ‘goodness’, they should be crunched upon and ingested along with the wine.
I’m sure many of us have eaten the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle but how many of us could stomach a mouth full of baby mice?
Baby Mice Wine Update: The well travelled folk who comment on articles here at Junch have informed us that they have seen this fine delicacy in china and once the wine is consumed you are supposed to indeed eat the baby mice.
There are other similar products to baby mice wine including cobra wine and others, but perhaps we should keep them for another article.
24 Comments until now.
I am Korean and never heard of this stuff. I don’t know where you got the information on that. BTW, the photo shows clearly that it’s from China.
Well, the article did say Korea AND China. Besides, just because you’re Korean, doesn’t mean you’ll know every single food item of the country. (Not to mention the difference between North and South Korea.)
Well… I’m chinese and I’m not familiar with this but I’m also not surprised. The chinese also have snake wine… sorta the same thing except a lot of snakes instead of a lot of mice.
this is.. wow. I’ve never heard of this. I was just searching up mice b/c of my boredom. I am not a animal-lover or hater but THEY DONT DESERVE THIS. snake wine??! wdf is this crap?!
Amy Tan mentions drinking mouse wine in her book “THe Secret of the Hundred Senses”.
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Chinese buddy of mine went to mainland China on vacation and came across this stuff. Yes, you do eat the mice. Brought me back a bottle of cobra wine as a gift – same idea as the baby mice wine.
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I lived in Korea and it’s really not something you find in the average shop…
okey that’s ewwwwwwwwwww totaly freakin’ me out
[...] certain I’d rather drink this stuff than baby mice wine although I’m not sure I’d be able to eat the venomous beasts when I’d finished [...]
wow… they really drink this? well in Indonesia they eat lizard or snake as satay. But mice… in your drink…
It never cross my mind.
I have lived in Korea for a long time, and have never heard of this. I agree with Kim’s opinion, and Elli, your logic is improper. The post should provide data to backup its claim; for example anyone can post an article about mice wine being sold in Austin Texas, but without a proper evidence it is just a claim not to be taken for a fact. Maybe the writer has a proof of this claim indeed?
Ellie – I think koreans would know more about korean cuisine than a north american? not to mention that north korea and south korea, although divided for some time now(actually not that long), share the roots, customs and the food. And in any case, I think an average south korean would know more about north korean cusine than an average north american.
Also this article mentioned it as a ‘traditional’ wine. If this is traditional, why wouldn’t average korean person know about it?
Also your logic that ‘the article says so and so, so it must be true’ does not prove anything. Anyone can write an article online these days and even real news articles sometimes make mistakes with false claims. It is as if you are saying ‘well this one article I read stated earth is rectangular, not round’ without any proof to back up your claim.
Using your logic, I can say “In Texas it is traditional to eat donkey testicles around Christmas. It is true because it says so in this one article!’ And if someone from LA disagrees with me, all I have to say is simply, ‘just because you’re american, doesn’t mean you’ll know every single food item of the country. (Not to mention the difference between LA and Texas.)’
Reference to korea removed based on amy’s post and the fact that other commenters have said that the writing on the bottle is in chinese…
[...] bottle? The Chinese have trumped that. In spades. Keep supporting those Chinese imports – Baby Mice Wine - this is disturbing. You’ve been [...]
Yucky, I would really puke my heart out at the sight of this.
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Didn’t realize they’re now mass producing this stuff. I grew up with a bottle underneath my bed that was made by my grandmother way before I was born -it’s still there in my mom’s house in China. The baby rats were collected before their mother culled them (by eating them). It was like a last resort medicine for certain types of ailment(s)… not consumed like coconut/vitamin water. good grief
I think it has been around for a while. My mom said when she was a kid (in China), her grandfather used to have this, and all the kids would freak out. I never believed her, but I guess it’s true…
[...] junch.com Tagged with: baby • china • disgusting • junch • junch.com • mice [...]
[...] http://www.junch.com/baby-mice-wine/ [...]
Actually I used to routinely run into purveyors of this stuff in Japan years ago. I didn’t realize that it was mass produced and at the time it was promoted as a “Healthy” wine along with such drinks as ‘PoKari Suetto’ or Pocari Sweat!
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