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{{#seo:
|title=Realgar Wine (雄黄酒 Xionghuang Jiu, Dragon Boat Festival Tradition) - Chinese Food Wiki
|keywords=Realgar Wine,雄黄酒,雄黃酒,Xionghuang Jiu,realgar,Dragon Boat Festival,Duanwu,端午节,Legend of the White Snake,arsenic
|description=Realgar wine (雄黄酒) is huangjiu or spirit mixed with powdered realgar, an arsenic sulfide mineral, traditionally associated with the Dragon Boat Festival; because realgar contains arsenic, drinking it is discouraged today.
}}

{{Infobox chinese food
| image = Realgar Wine.jpg
| caption = A sealed jar of xionghuang (realgar) wine
| alternate_name = 雄黄酒; 雄黃酒; Xionghuang Jiu; xionghuang wine
| pinyin = Xiónghuáng jiǔ
| type = Wine (huangjiu or baijiu) mixed with realgar mineral powder — historical festival custom
| course = Festival custom
| country = China
| region = Historically widespread, especially in the Yangtze region
| other = Realgar is an arsenic sulfide; the drink is discouraged today because of arsenic toxicity
}}

'''Realgar Wine''' (Simplified Chinese: 雄黄酒; Traditional Chinese: 雄黃酒; Pinyin: ''Xiónghuáng jiǔ'') is [[Huangjiu]] or a clear spirit into which powdered '''realgar''' — an orange-red arsenic sulfide mineral — has been mixed. It is traditionally associated with the '''Dragon Boat Festival''' (端午节, Duanwu) on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. '''Realgar contains arsenic''', and realgar wine can contain dissolved arsenic compounds at levels far above safety limits for drinks, which is why modern health authorities and doctors discourage drinking it.<ref name="wp">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realgar_wine English Wikipedia: Realgar wine]</ref><ref name="zh">[https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/雄黄酒 Chinese Wikipedia: 雄黄酒]</ref> This page describes the tradition only.

== Tradition ==

In traditional Chinese thought the fifth month was considered a dangerous time, when heat, insects, snakes and disease were feared. Realgar was believed to repel snakes, scorpions and other "poisonous creatures" and to drive away evil, so realgar solution was sprinkled around houses, adults drank a small amount of realgar wine, and children had the character 王 ("king", evoking the tiger) painted on their foreheads with the leftover paste. These were '''folk beliefs'''; they are described here as history, not as advice.<ref name="wp" /><ref name="zh" />

Other Dragon Boat customs of the same day include eating [[Zongzi]], racing dragon boats and hanging mugwort and calamus by the door. Later tradition also connected realgar with the poet Qu Yuan, whose drowning the festival commemorates.<ref name="wp" />

== In literature: the White Snake ==

Realgar wine is central to the '''Legend of the White Snake''' (白蛇传), one of China's four great folk tales. In the story, the snake spirit Bai Suzhen, living as a woman and married to the scholar Xu Xian, is persuaded to drink realgar wine at the Dragon Boat Festival and reverts to her serpent form, frightening her husband. The episode is a staple of Chinese opera and film. It is a '''legend'''.<ref name="ws">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_White_Snake English Wikipedia: Legend of the White Snake]</ref>

== Safety ==

Pure realgar dissolves poorly, but natural realgar and wine made with it often contain soluble inorganic arsenic compounds (arsenite and arsenate), and heating can convert realgar into highly toxic arsenic trioxide. Studies of realgar wine samples have found arsenic concentrations hundreds to thousands of times higher than allowed in commercial alcoholic drinks, and poisonings have been reported; arsenic can also be absorbed when realgar paste is painted on skin. For these reasons the custom has largely disappeared or been replaced by symbolic gestures, such as using ordinary wine or painting 王 with harmless colours.<ref name="wp" /><ref name="zh" />

== See also ==

* [[Chinese Alcohol]]
* [[Tusu Wine]]
* [[Huangjiu]]
* [[Zongzi]]
* [[Osmanthus Wine]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

Realgar Wine - Revision history

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