You’re missing the point. The seeds (grains) are harvested and used to make the drink. We eat rice, we don’t eat rice grass nor grass, we eat rice, which is a kind of grain. Same goes for 高粱. We drink 高粱(酒), we don’t drink 高粱草(酒). Surely apples grow on trees, but apple juice is made with apples (fruits) , not any other part of the tree. If you fail to comprehend that, there’s nothing more I could do.
Oh, I see now. You weren’t saying that gaoliang was made from grapes. You were using grapes as an example of an alcoholic beverage that is made from the fruit of the plant, not from the plant itself, and you were implying the same thing about gaoliang.
After looking at your post again, it occurs to me that we may still not be on the same page.
So just for certainty’s sake, I think I should mention that the seeds are called grain:
Yes. They are made from sorghum. Sometines blended with rice and ither cheap grains (grass family seeds)
The important part to note is that the nasty taste that taiwanese love so much is from the blending of the heads and tails of the distilation. It also accounts for the aggressive behaviour, headaches and hangovers connected with this cheap to manufacture drink. I dont like it specifically because of their piss poor separation of distilates. But millions sip it like a fine wine specifically because of such impurities. To each their own!
What’s quite odd is that most Taiwanese assume Kaoliang 高粱 (sorghum) refers to the liquor “高粱酒”. You’re average Taiwanese doesn’t seem to know what sorghum is.
We import sorghum based food products and the ingredients are 高粱 (sorghum on the Chinese label). Some of our Taiwanese customers get absolutely perplexed by seeing “sorghum” on the label as they think it contains liquor.
In China, Kaoliang liquor 高粱酒 falls into the category of baijiu 白酒.
It might be because normally the grain adds the character at the end. Think of it as sorghum fruit. 高粱果 cooks and health food type people usually know it. But ya, common names are confusing normally. There is a type of galangal called the same with ginger added to the end. Just adds confusion in my opinion…hence botanical names being useful.
They will also use flower, stick, branch etc to describe it.