Tsongsul is a Korean rice wine up to 9% vol. containing fermented human excrement and medicinal herbs. The drink is used for medicinal purposes: it is believed that it cures literally everything, from cuts and fractures to epilepsy.
History. It is not known when exactly wine from feces appeared, it is only clear that this happened at least several centuries ago, but in the 1960s, with the development of European-style classical medicine in Korea, the drink almost disappeared. The younger generation of Koreans had never heard of tsongsul. Today, only a few followers of traditional medicine make this wine for medicinal purposes.
Production technology
Korean healers claim that the most useful tsongsul is obtained from the excrement of children 4-7 years old. Feces are cooled for 3-4 days (in this case, it allegedly does not have an unpleasant odor), poured with water and insisted for one night. Toward the end of this period, rice is boiled (70% crumbly and 30% sticky).
Some “manufacturers” first bake the feces in the oven for half an hour at a temperature of 260 degrees, you can also add herbal preparations and essences to taste. There are also more exotic ingredients: for example, wood ash, cat bones.
Boiled rice is mixed with yeast, then the mixture is poured with fecal infusion, approximately in a ratio of 2: 3, other ingredients are added if necessary, and the temperature of the liquid does not fall below 30-37 degrees (for example, wrap a container with future wine with a warm blanket).
The blank wanders in a secluded place for 7 days, and the drink is ready. Before drinking, tsongsul is filtered through a cloth filter.
In Korea, bat droppings are believed to cure alcoholism, and chicken droppings are believed to help with stomach ailments, so different types of tsongsul are possible.
Of course, there is no talk of commercial production. Tsongsul is made by artisanal methods, the drink never goes on free sale, you can either make it yourself or find it “through connections”.
There are other descriptions of tsongsul: according to an alternative recipe, human, dog or chicken excrement, along with herbs, is poured with rice distillate (moonshine), after 3-4 months the tincture is filtered and drunk.
Organoleptic characteristics
According to the descriptions of the daredevils who decided to try tsongsul, the drink has a pleasant sour taste, like ordinary rice wine. Some tasters claim that there is a smell of feces in the aftertaste, but apologists for traditional oriental medicine claim that this is only autosuggestion.
Depending on the components, tsongsul wine may have a milky white color or resemble diluted cognac (if it contains a lot of herbal preparations). With proper preparation, no fecal fractions remain in the drink, and any unpleasant smell or taste is drowned out by medicinal herbs.
How to drink tsongsul
Tsongsul is drunk at room temperature from any dishes – this is not “table” alcohol, but medicinal. In Korea, it is customary to eat poop wine with dried squid.