What led to this drinking epiphany was a Chinese rice wine house that opened in the Sanlitun area of Beijing last summer in which Lu soon became a regular, enjoying time there with friends.

"I'd go there with my best friends because it's such a great place to relax," she says. "For most friends it would be whiskey or beer, but for very close female friends it would be rice wine."

Rice wine, or mijiu, is made from fermented glutinous rice in which the sugars are transformed into alcohol by yeast. It is a sweet wine of low alcoholic content that by many accounts goes well with seafood and meat.