Wine or liquor has been intimately intertwined with almost every aspect of Chinese culture since earliest times. The Chinese word “jiu” in Chinese is commonly loosely translated as “wine”; but the word actually can refer to any type of alcoholic beverage, from beer pijiu to liquor of any kind including grape wine. Many Chinese “wines” are in fact liquors or spirits, and Tibetans have a brew called qingkejiu, made from barley.

This article by Yang Tianqing and Daniel Kister.