How many types of Vietnamese snake wine that you might not know

[Travel idea Local]

An insightful look into types of Vietnamese snake wine & its prices

I - Origin Vietnamese snake wine

Snake wine is a traditional medicinal wine that has been used for thousands of years and is still popular today because of its excellent health benefits. The snake carcass will be soaked in high concentration of rice wine, usually a poisonous snake, but there are also cases where the animal is still alive despite being soaked in alcohol for a long time. It can also be found in China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and throughout Southeast Asia.

II - Facts about Vietnamese snake wine ingredients, making process, benefits & price

Only adults over 30 years old are allowed to use snake wine, with 1 small glass of at most 30ml before going to bed - pregnant women absolutely should not use it. 

Snakes are reptiles found all over the world, with thousands of species and familia, many of which are poisonous snakes that can kill a person with just one bite. However, there are many species of poisonous snakes that have been used to make medicine since ancient times, or are now extracted by modern scientists to get filtrate to make medicine. Vietnamese snake wine is made thanks to almost all the parts of a snake that are valuable in health treatment, for example, snake meat helps to nourish the body, treat joint pain, while snake carcass helps to disinfect and treat scabies. Snake bile and snake solid secretion that are said to have the best use, respectively, to treat cough, bronchitis, back pain, knee fatigue and kidney and yang tonic.

That is why the poisonous snake becomes the main ingredient in Vietnamese snake wine, through the process of being soaked in alcohol to become beneficial for human life. There are many snakes as mentioned above, but only certain species can be made into medicinal wine, the most typical is the Chinese ratsnake, Bungarus fasciatus,… and the most famous one is the Vietnamese cobra wine. In addition to the normal type with only one snake, the receipts for soaking snakes in medicinal wine are usually divided into 2 main types, using 5 snakes or using 3. 

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2 - Making method

When making the Vietnamese snake wine, there must be at least two people, one person holds the snake’s head tightly tied to prevent it from biting, the other uses a knife to cut the snake’s tail to extract the snake’s blood. When they were done, they used a scalpel to remove the snake’s intestines and take the snake’s bile, which was kept along with the snake’s secretions for later use because these are also very precious and nutritious ingredients. The snake then is washed with alcohol, soaked in a mixture of fresh ginger and alcohol to remove the smell, drained and rinsed again with alcohol and then wrapped around the inner wall of the jar.

The herbs are put inside the Vietnamese snake wine bottle in turn, then the 40° rice wine is poured just enough to cover the snake, you can add snake blood or snake bile if you like. But it is still best to mix them with alcohol to drink directly, it will bring the highest efficiency, however, snake bile is slightly poisonous, so only a very small amount should be used - should not be arbitrary. The drugs added usually include multiflorum, dried tangerine skin, schefflera octophylla, lignum dracaenae cambodianae,... must be soaked for at least 3 months to be used.

3 - Benefits 

According to folk experience, Vietnamese snake wine has a lot of benefits and good effects for health, typically in the treatment of joint pain and numbness in limbs. It also promotes health, enhances male physiology and helps relieve sciatica and hemiplegia. Currently, there are many places to supply this product, especially farms specializing in supplying snakes and raising snakes, other reptiles. 

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4 - Vietnamese snake wine price 

Snake wine Vietnam price usually ranges from 1,500,000 to 5,000,000 VND ($64.73 - 215.76), depending on the species, quantity and quality of the snakes being soaked.

Large bottles of solid wine with amber-yellow wine color, inside is a winding snake that looks like it can jump out at any time is a nightmare for many international guests when they know it. Snake wine is very popular in Southeast Asian countries and is often sold at stalls and shopping malls, considered a commercial product that has grown at a surprising rate. Vietnamese snake wine is still mostly used as a precious medicine, with many good effects on health, especially for patients with joint pain.