On Taiwan’s Quemoy island, less than an hour’s boat ride from the mainland Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou, bar owner Powei Lee draws crowds by blending the tiny island’s battle-scarred past into cocktails. During the height of the Cold War, mainland Chinese and Taiwanese forces regularly clashed over Quemoy – also known as Kinmen – and other islets controlled by Taipei along mainland China’s coast. Quemoy native Lee’s cocktails at his Vent Bar, in Jincheng township, in the west of the main island, showcase Quemoy flavours, such as the firewater Kaoliang, made with sorghum grown on the island.
Lee, 31, has designed one cocktail inspired by an extensive propaganda campaign that followed fighting in 1958, when Taiwanese forces fended off a Chinese attack on Quemoy, whose closest point is only around 2km (1.2 miles) from mainland China. Called “Pick and Eat”, the cocktail is made with a base of soy milk, ginger and whisky, and topped with a cookie.
“Back then, the two sides would drop propaganda leaflets, each trying to show that their side was doing better and urging the other to surrender,” he said. “One of the things they would do besides the leaflets was to send over supplies like snacks and food, to show that the people were well fed.” Taiwan has controlled Quemoy, and the Matsu islands, further up the coast, since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taipei in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists.
No peac.