A semi-historically accurate cocktail for a semi-historically accurate game, the Dong Zhuo combines gin, Chinese rice wine, lychee liqueur and cherry brandy to create a drink capable of dominating China.
You’ll need
- 1 oz (30ml) Tanqueray gin
- 1 oz (30ml) dry Chinese rice wine (huangjiu)
- .50 oz (15ml) Kwai Feh lychee liqueur
- .50 oz (15ml) Bols cherry brandy
Add all ingredients to a shaker filled with ice. Shake thoroughly until chilled. Strain into your preferred vessel. Garnish with a lychee skewer. Serve!
“Another insect CRUSHED!”
– Dong Zhuo
How can you make a drink inspired by the 3 Kingdoms period and not name it after the biggest tyrant on the block (figuratively and literally)? There are lots of great and worthy characters in Total War: 3 Kingdoms, sure, but for pure star power? It’s gotta be the Dong Zhuo.
Here’s the thing about our favourite Big Boi: he seems to be one of the few people in Total War: 3 Kingdoms that didn’t get the exaggeration treatment. Cao Cao in actual history was an awesome strategist, but nowhere near the diplomatic mastermind he’s portrayed as in the game. Lu Bu was a hell of a warrior, but not the godlike creature you send it to decimate the enemy single-handedly in TW:3K.
Dong Zhuo, on the other hand, seems to have been just as bad in real history as he was is in the game, if not worse. Here’s an example: there are stories about the real Dong Zhuo torturing political dissidents, cutting out their tongues so they wouldn’t scream so much, dipping them in boiling oil and smushing their fleshy remnants together into a literal meatball. He’d then put this steaming pile of gore on display for everybody to see.
That’d be bad enough, but he did that during dinner with all of his court around him. Messed up dude, right? Definitely worthy of a cocktail with it’s own ‘meatball’ lychee as a garnish.
For the drink itself, we ran with the “semi-accurate” nature of the 3 Kingdoms game, using huangjiu (a form of Chinese rice wine that became popular during the Han dynasty), lychee liqueur and cherry brandy. But we also added our own spin on the drink with some gin to help balance out the yeast-y notes of the rice wine and the sweetness of the liqueurs with some herbal/floral flavours of the gin. Not 100% historically accurate, but still tasty nonetheless.
By the way, if you can’t find huangjiu (it’s rare outside of China itself), you can use dry sake instead. I have it on good authority that it’s similar.
Hope you guys enjoy!
Looking for other drinks inspired by Total War? Check out Teclis’ Tipple from Warhammer: Total War.
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