Chapter 6 Country Feast Moonshine

I always feel that those chattering waitresses in Jin Yong's novels all learned from Shi Naian.These little servants are irritating with their mouths, but they are also cutely clever, with infinite drama.For example, the waiter in Jingyanggang who sang against Wu Song is probably the most famous one in all ages.The so-called "Although my family's wine is village wine, it tastes better than old wine", and the so-called "my wine is called 'toupingxiang'; it is also called 'going out'. Falling down in no time." Ordinary customers, after hearing the names of "toupingxiang" and "going out", how can they dare to drink again?So I always guessed that the waiter in the shop saw Wu Erlang's dignified appearance, and deliberately provoked him.

Let's say this wine is probably different from ordinary sweets.Wu Song is used to drinking, and he praised his "vigorous strength", which is not low.A friend told me that it is local method of shochu, waiting to be tested.It's just that when it comes to private wine making, it's not just the Song Dynasty, nor is it just the Jingyanggang family, it's true.Gentiles argue that the Scots privately brew whiskey, the Russians privately brew vodka, and play Tom and Jerry-style games with their respective courts. It has a long history, but the private brewing in the Song Dynasty is no longer just for the common people. After Su Shi lived in Huangzhou , playing private brewing everywhere, honey wine, osmanthus wine, etc. are full of tricks.But Lin Yutang said that most people who drank his honey wine in Huangzhou had diarrhea, which is probably the same as Su Shi's ink making in Lingnan and almost burned down the house.

I have done private brewing by myself, with very little prospect. I just get some glutinous rice to make fermented rice—Jiangnan calls it fermented glutinous rice, which is used to make desserts with small dumplings, and in Sichuan, it is called fermented glutinous glutinous rice.I succeeded twice out of three times. Although the taste of the wine was too strong and the sweetness was too little, it was barely drinkable. The other time was too sour to drink.One year when I went to the south, my friend told me that my father made wine and invited me to taste it. I was shocked when I saw the orange color of the wine, because I had heard and seen it before, and I always felt that the wine was red or transparent and slightly yellow, which was already a golden rule.Later, when I went to Wuhan, I drank private wine again, and the yellow color was slightly lighter.Under the exchange, it seems to be related to the selection of grapes, whether to control the water content, and whether to crush and rot.It goes without saying that different grape producing areas have different sunlight, temperature, and soil texture, so the grapes produced are different, and the wines are very different.Even the same grapes can produce different wines: grape skins and seeds are related to the color of the finished wine; whether the grapes are dry or not is related to the fermentation of the grapes; the amount of sugar added during fermentation is also related to the alcohol concentration.Among them, Europeans have enjoyed it for thousands of years, and it is impossible to describe it in one word.

When I was a child, I accompanied my father to relatives’ houses during the Chinese New Year, and I experienced a lot of private brewing.There used to be a kind of thing brewed by the Caotaiban factory in the countryside, most of which had no product certification. The factory boasted that it was champagne, and the villagers didn't buy it, calling it sparkling wine.Now that I think about it, it's probably the product of soda mixed with wine.It's full of gas, like soda, and it feels a little bit of alcohol after the mouth.Drivers who drive trucks take it as a drink in summer, and there will be no accidents.Grandma, aunt, aunt, aunt, and younger sisters who don't drink much can drink, and they won't get drunk after drinking.The little brothers and sisters will feel a little sleepy after drinking, and they will fall asleep to the sound of playing mahjong and eating melon seeds at the parents' banquet. The host will arrange beds for them to sleep peacefully.Another use of sparkling wine is to drink it.When I was young, Coke and Sprite were rare in the countryside.The once-popular Kirin glass bottled orange soda is only available in the city.There are banquets in the countryside, and impatient running away, basically dragging a bicycle or motorcycle, and carrying a box back to the nearest small shop.Sparkling wine is used as a substitute for all sweet drinks, and it is not disadvantageous when mixed with liquor and shochu.

The Caotaiban factory also brews beer, but like sparkling wine, there is no product certificate.When you drink it specifically, the taste is not clear and the taste is often astringent, but fortunately it is cheap.In the countryside, opening a bottle of wine with a foreign brand name such as Budweiser can easily make everyone appear cautious and drink cautiously.But the nameless village-brewed beer is poured open as water, and it is very happy to drink like a wave. Some country people can produce their own privately brewed rice wine.Yellow rice wine is often sipped in the south, especially for the elderly. After sipping, their mouths sizzle, and then they suck a snail or eat a frog, and squint their eyes to savor the mellow sweetness.In the past, when having dinner in the countryside, it was popular to place a small round table in the open space in front of the door, and each person ate and drank on a low round stool.Each family eats in a row, and the chickens and dogs hear each other, and say hello while eating.When the men drank, they were like the Wei and Jin scholar-bureaucrats. They wanted to "walk away" and walk around, often asking their neighbors to "drink my house".Therefore, the male owner of a family often drinks three or four small bowls of yellow rice wine from other people's homes for a meal, and then judges carefully: this bowl is good, that bowl is so-so...why is this bowl so good?Is it brewed by your family?Put ginger?Put rock candy?Then gossip with each other.There are fewer privately brewed shochu than privately brewed rice wine, and they are polarized.Good shochu can be praised by everyone, but bad shochu can be controversial.During the Chinese New Year banquet, people who drink too much can get red necks over the quality of shochu. You say my wine smells bad, and I say your wine is spicy, and so on.There are very few privately brewed baijiu in the Jiangnan countryside, so every time you drink baijiu, whether it is Red Star Erguotou or XX Laojiao, you take it seriously, with an attitude of "this is the real drinking".But if it is really well brewed, you can use the self-brewed liquor as a banquet gift, and the audience is very happy, which is very face-saving.