Monkey wine is fruit liquor brewed by monkey groups. Gu Masters buy it, feed it to liquor worms, and treat stockpiles as both food and trade goods.
A caravan wine shop on Qing Mao Mountain sells it by the cup from crystal ladybug storage Gu. Fang Yuan orders a cup, takes a tiny sip, then drops his Liquor worm into the cup; the worm drinks the rest dry in a few breaths. The shop Gu Master names the drink monkey wine and tries to buy the Liquor worm on the spot. ch. 44
Use as feed and bait
The wine is a fruit liquor, sweet, refreshing, and delicate on the palate in that first cup. Fang Yuan’s motive that afternoon is to show the Liquor worm in public, not to sell it. ch. 44 A wine-shop employee later testifies that Fang Yuan ordered monkey wine, drank only a mouthful, and fed the rest to the Liquor worm. ch. 55
Higher-rank liquor worms still need wine. While resting near a grass skirt monkey group, Fang Yuan stores monkey wine until his tusita flower cannot hold more. That stock is enough to reverse-refine a Four Flavours Liquor worm, or to feed a liquor worm for at least two years, and it can also be sold if a caravan appears. Wine also serves for disinfecting wounds, warming the body, and as an auxiliary ingredient for reverse refinement of the four flavors liquor worm. ch. 213
How monkeys brew it
Getting wild monkey wine is not easy. Grass skirt monkey groups fight as a unit, and a hundred-beast scale group near thousand-beast strength with three monkey kings is dangerous to take head-on. Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing dig pitfalls, bury Charred Thunder Potato Gu, lure the kings, kill two and drive the third off, then take the wine from the defeated groups. ch. 213
Ordinary monkey groups all know how to brew wine. Taste differs by group, but humans collectively call wine brewed by monkeys monkey wine. ch. 213
Origin in legend
A Ren Zu story recounts Verdant Great Sun tasting wines brewed by honey peach, psychic, vajra, and Skywater monkeys, learning sweet, bitter, strong, and clear wine in turn. Humans were not the first species to brew wine; monkeys were ahead of them. ch. 213
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