11 April 2010

Snake wine and scorpion wine

To prepare this incredible beverage a cobra snake or some scorpions are put into a bottle fulfilled with transparent rice wine liquor and some herbs are added before the drink is left to ferment for months. The venomous cobra snake used to make Snake wine is preserved to have the snake poison dissolved in the rice wine, but because snake venoms are protein-based they are inactivated by the denaturing effects of ethanol, and no more dangerous, but this makes a healthy liquor with many health benefits.
In my view, this is a sad fate for noble creatures, especially because as I understand it the purported "health benefits" are to increase the sexual performance of gullible men.

Pix and text via Sakkoo.

5 comments:

  1. EXACTLY!, My first reaction was
    "NOOOO NOT THE SNAKE!" (cause that was all I saw at first). Then the poor Arachnids... It hurts that so many would basically "waist" a creature's life for the soul purpose of dubious health "enhancements".
    I know this is in no way rare or new (or even very differnt from how we treat livestock and poultry) But this definitely displays the waistfull disrespect of man: The audacity and self entitlement demonstrated here is overwhelming.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The most gawd awful thing I ever drank. I was given a shot of snake wine at a bar in China. I thought it was tequila...my Chinese friends thought it was quite funny seeing my reaction - one of total revulsion.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Okinawans do this with Habus.
    I never touched it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Im in thailand for a semester and i see these all the time. sometimes they try to rip you off with the cobras. If you look closely its not always a cobra, sometimes its just a water snake that has been pulled and prodded to look like a cobra.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Can I buy this Cobra bottle online somewhere?

    ReplyDelete