Abstract

This article uses the perspective of public anthropology. It first reviews anthropological research on alcohol and outlines its limitations and dilemmas. Then it uses the specific practice of medicinal wine and its technical aspects along with shared experiments to open up more possibilities for alcohol research. Western gin and Taiwanese piper betel both have medical effects. However, people often use them without regard for their medical properties. Both gin and piper betel have been abused and thus stigmatized by social and political factors in history, but behind them are also symbols of the spirit of the times. Finally, the article examines gin wine and its use in a combination of Chinese and Western
medicine for the prevention and treatment of gout, and reconsiders the relationship between alcohol and health through the material, social, and political elements in two different cultures, and re-examines alcohol in more public connotations. This article believes that from the perspective of food culture, it is useful to return the focus back to the medical needs to understand what happened in different eras.

Keywords: gin, piper betel, medicinal wine, gout