Millet beer is the drink the steppe peoples brewed from millet and other grain. It depended on grain, and the grain often came from settled neighbours. The Chinese histories record liquor among the Xiongnu, the Wuhuan and the Kirghiz. In the eleventh century, Mahmud al-Kashgari gives the Turkic names of the drinks.[1]

Han liquor for the Xiongnu

The first Han emperor made peace with the Xiongnu by marriage. Wine was among the goods the Han undertook to send every year.[2] In 162 BC the emperor Wen wrote that his officials sent the chanyu glutinous millet and malt, 秫糱, every year, because the Xiongnu lived in the cold north.[2] According to the Han Shu, the Han general Li Guangli surrendered to the chanyu Hulugu. In the following year, Hulugu demanded ten thousand shi of malt liquor, 糱酒, every year, with five thousand hu of millet and ten thousand bolts of silk.[3]

Liquor appears among the Xiongnu in war as well. According to the Shiji, a man who cut off an enemy’s head or took a captive received a cup of wine.[2] When a Han army surprised the Wise King of the Right at night, he was drunk with wine.[2] The Shiji does not say whether the Xiongnu brewed this liquor themselves or drank what the Han sent.[2]

The Wuhuan and the Gaoche

Pei Songzhi quotes an early history of the Wei in his commentary on the Sanguozhi. According to this history, the Wuhuan could make a white wine, 白酒, but did not know how to make the ferment and the malt, 麹蘖.[4] For grain they always looked to China.[4] The text does not say what their white wine was made of.[4] The Hou Han Shu otherwise follows the same account of the Wuhuan, but it leaves this sentence out.

The Wei Shu says of the Gaoche, whom the later histories call the Tiele, that they had no grain and made no wine.[5] The Tongdian repeats the words of the Wei Shu.[6]

The barley drink of 449

Priscus accompanied the Roman embassy to Attila in 449. He records a barley drink that the villages north of the Danube gave to the envoys’ servants. The barbarians called it kamos.[7] Scholars dispute whether the word is Turkic or older than the Huns.

The sweet drink of 569

In 569 the Roman envoys attended the feast in the camp of Istemi. Menander says that they drank no wine from grapes, because the land did not grow the vine.[8][9] They drank their fill of another kind of sweet wine.[8] It may have been kumys. Beer or ale has also been suggested. A third proposal rejects kumys, which was sour, and prefers mead or rice wine.[10]

The Kirghiz

The Kirghiz of the Yenisei brewed their own grain.[11] The Xin Tang Shu says that they sowed millet, 穄, in the third month and reaped it in the ninth. They cooked it as food and brewed liquor from it.[11] Their tribes lived on meat and fermented mare’s milk.[11]

Kashgari’s words

Mahmud al-Kashgari’s dictionary names bägni, “beer of wheat, millet or barley”, and buxsum, “millet beer”.[12] A Turkish history of Turkic culture gives the same word for the drinks of barley, wheat and millet, beer and boza.[13] A handbook of Turkish culture says that the Göktürks called a drink made of wheat and millet begai. It names no source for the word.[14] Under uγut he describes the making of a beer leaven.[15] Herbs are mixed with flour of sprouted barley. The mixture is kneaded, cut into portions the size of hazelnuts and left to dry.[15] The leaven is crumbled over wheat that has been cooked together with barley, one portion to one mann of cooked wheat.[15] The wheat is wrapped in something clean and left to ferment for three days. Then it is put into a vat for ten more days.[15] Finally, water is poured on and the liquid strained.[15] Kashgari calls the result “wheat wine”.[15] One study gives boza as the Turkic word for a drink of millet and water.[16]

The evidence for grain beer on the steppe follows the evidence for grain. The Xiongnu received malt and malt liquor from the Han. The Wuhuan made a white wine without knowing the ferment. The Kirghiz brewed the millet of their own fields. By Kashgari’s time, the drinks and their leaven had Turkic names.

References

  1. ^ Han Shu, juan 94; Sanguozhi, juan 30; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk
  2. ^ a b c d e Shiji, juan 110
  3. ^ Han Shu, juan 94
  4. ^ a b c Sanguozhi, juan 30
  5. ^ Wei Shu, juan 103
  6. ^ Tongdian, juan 197
  7. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 83
  8. ^ a b Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 121
  9. ^ Laufer 1919, p. 233
  10. ^ Blockley 1985, p. 264
  11. ^ a b c Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  12. ^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 327, 360
  13. ^ Ögel 2000, p. 328
  14. ^ Kafesoğlu 1997, p. 318
  15. ^ a b c d e f Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 98
  16. ^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 425

Sources

Literature

  • Karl Müller (ed.), Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Bd. IV (darin: Menandri Protectoris fragmenta, griechisch mit lateinischer Übersetzung) (1851)
  • R. C. Blockley, The History of Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (1985)
  • Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture (1973)
  • Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī, Dīwān Lughat al-Turk (1072–1074)
  • Berthold Laufer, Sino-Iranica. Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran (1919)
  • Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Kültür Tarihine Giriş II: Türklerde ziraat kültürü (2000)
  • İbrahim Kafesoğlu, Türk Millî Kültürü (1997)

Related

What links here8

Peoples
History of the Turkic peoples
Foods
Grape Wine in Central Asia · Kamos · Millet · Steppe Diet
Customs & Pastimes
Culture of the Turkic Peoples · Feasts in Kashgari's Dictionary
Sources
Sanguozhi

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Millet Beer.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/foods/millet-beer/

Last revised: 8 November 2026