Wine brewing classification editor
Apes making wine
Apes make a living by collecting wild fruits, and are good at hiding fruits. In nature, the growth of fruits has strict seasonality, so they often need to be stored. The ancient apes in the prehistoric era hid the fruits they couldn't eat in caves and stone puddles. Over time, the fruits rotted, and the wild fruits containing sugar were naturally fermented by wild yeasts in nature to produce alcohol and wine pulp. Hence the name "apes". There are legends such as "good at picking hundreds of flowers to make wine" and "tasting ape wine deep in the rocks".
This is recorded in many classics in our country. The Ming Dynasty literati Zhou Danguang's (Penglong Night Talk) and Li Hua (Zitaoxuan Youzhu) both mentioned the story of Huangshan apes making wine. Li Hua wrote:
There are many apes in Huangshan. In spring and summer, they gather mixed flowers and fruits in the stone puddles and brew them into wine. The fragrance overflows and can be smelled hundreds of steps away. Those who dig deep into the wild woodcutters may drink it secretly. Don't drink too much. If you drink too much, it will reduce the traces of wine. If you feel it, if you rub it and wait for it, you will die.
Coincidentally, Li Tiaoyuan, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, recorded the story of wine-making by apes and monkeys in Guangdong and Guangdong in his "Notes on Eastern Guangdong" and Lu Zhafan's "Odd Notes on Western Guangdong". Li Tiaoyuan wrote:
There are many children in Qiongzhou (today's Hainan Island)... I tasted the ape wine deep in the rock. The ape wine was made of rice mixed with flowers. There was about five or six liters in a stone cave. , the spiciest taste, but extremely rare.
Lu Zhafan wrote:
There are many apes in the mountains of Pingle and other places in western Guangdong, and they are good at picking flowers and making wine. When a woodcutter goes into the mountains and finds his lair, he can drink hundreds of stones of wine. When you drink it, it has an unusually fragrant aroma and is called ape wine.
Apes can not only "make wine", but they are also addicted to alcohol. The "Supplement to the History of the Nation" written by Li Zhao of the Tang Dynasty has a wonderful record of how humans capture clever apes (i.e. "gorillas"):
The orangutans love wine and clogs, and humans take them. Otherwise, place two things to lure them. When the orangutan first sees it, he will curse loudly: "Try me!" Then he will go away and come back after a while. After a while, he will be drunk and his feet will be caught in his clogs. So he gets it. Apes are very agile animals. They live in deep mountains and wild forests, jumping and climbing among rocks and trees. They appear and appear erratically, making it difficult to catch them alive. After careful observation, people discovered and mastered a fatal weakness of the apes, which is "good wine". The cartoon "Monkey Catches for the Moon" vividly shows this process. People place several jars of sweet and rich wine in areas where monkeys roam. The monkey came after smelling the aroma. He hesitated in front of the wine vat, and then carefully dipped his finger into the wine and sucked it. After a long time, nothing suspicious was found. Finally, he couldn't stand the temptation of the sweet wine and started drinking happily until he was drunk and was caught obediently. This method of capturing apes is not unique to our country. People in Southeast Asia and indigenous peoples in Africa also use similar methods to capture apes or gorillas. This shows that apes are often associated with wine.
These records from different eras and by different authors can at least prove the fact that there are many things similar to "wine" found in apes' settlements. As for how this "wine"-like thing is produced, whether it is purely an instinctive activity of biological adaptation, or whether it is a conscious and planned production activity of apes, it is worthy of study. To explain this phenomenon, we have to start with the production principle of wine.
Wine is a kind of intoxicating food, which is produced by the decomposition of sugar by a kind of microorganism called yeast. Yeast is a type of fungus that is extremely widely distributed. In the wild nature with abundant traffic, especially in some fruits with high enamel content, this kind of yeast is more likely to multiply and grow. Sugary fruits are an important food for apes. When ripe wild fruits fall, wine is produced due to the action of yeast on the peel or in the air, which is a natural phenomenon. In daily life, you can often smell the smell of alcohol emitted by rotting fruits at rotten fruit stalls or even near garbage dumps. During the season when fruits are ripe, apes store large amounts of fruits in "stone puddles". The accumulated fruits are fermented by the action of intoxicating bacteria in nature, and the "wine" liquid is precipitated in the stone puddles. This result does not affect the consumption of the fruit, and the separated liquid - "wine" has a special fragrance for enjoyment. It is both logical and reasonable that apes can "make" wine unconsciously. Of course, it is a long process from the first taste of the fermented wild fruit to the "fermentation into wine". How many years it will last is something that no one can tell clearly.
Through archaeological excavations, wine has been found in bronze vessels from the Shang Dynasty three to four thousand years ago. Through the excavation of my country's original cultural sites, we can know more clearly that whether it is the early Yangshao Culture, or the subsequent Longshan Culture and Lianggu Culture periods, pottery for serving wine has been discovered, and some are very exquisite. At the same time, A wine vat used for brewing was also unearthed. This shows that wine existed in our country long before the eras of Yi Di and Du Kang. The legendary ancestors of wine making, Yidi or Du Kang, may have further improved the wine-making process on the basis of their predecessors in the late Shang Dynasty, increasing the alcohol content of the wine and making it more luscious and intense, thus making the original Brewing has gradually evolved into a conscious and purposeful brewing activity for humans, and it has become a conscious production behavior.
It should be said that wine in ancient times was made by the natural "wine" of food in nature. As we all know, wine must be an alcoholic beverage. The sugars in food, such as maltose, glucose, etc., will produce alcohol after fermentation by yeast in nature.
Those wild fruits rich in sugar produce alcohol through natural fermentation under the action of yeast, which becomes "wine". This phenomenon of naturally becoming wine is common in people's daily lives. The special entry on "pear wine" in Zhou Mi's "Guixin Miscellaneous Knowledge" of the Southern Song Dynasty is an example.
As human society moved from primitive society to agriculture, people’s main food became grains, and grain wine appeared again. In the brewing of grain wine, because grains cannot directly interact with yeast to generate alcohol, the starch in the grains must first be hydrolyzed and converted into glucose and then fermented into alcohol. That is, first saccharification, then fermentation, and then wine. ization process. As time goes by, the natural wine-making phenomenon of wild fruits and grains in nature, after people's long-term observation and summary, has finally made wine-making gradually become a conscious and conscious production behavior of human beings.
Yidi Liquor Making
Yidi Liquor Making is the most popular theory, and it is generally believed that it was first recorded in the "Warring States Policy" edited by Liu Xiang of the Western Han Dynasty. He said:
The king of Liang, the princes of Wei Yingjin, were in Yuantai. They were drunk and asked the king of Lu to raise his muscles. When Lu Junxing came, he avoided the banquet and said: "In the past, the emperor's daughter ordered Yidi to make wine and make it beautiful. Yu drank it and liked it. Then he sparse Yidi and ordered the wine to be eliminated. He said: 'In future generations, there will be something like this. The king of Qi was dissatisfied in the middle of the night, so he fried Ao Pan and roasted it, mixed the five flavors, and mixed it with the five flavors. Duke Huan ate it until he was full, and he said: "In future generations, there will be people who will destroy their country because of the taste." Duke Wen of Jin won the power of the south and refused to listen to the court for three days, so he pushed the power of the south away and said: "There will be people who will destroy their country with sex." The king of Chu climbed to the strong platform and looked at the mountain. The lake is so happy that one forgets to die, so he joins forces to strengthen the platform and climbs it. He said: "In the future, there will be people who will destroy their country with the high platform and the pond." It is the harmony of Yi Ya; the white platform on the left and the beard on the right, the beauty of the south; the forest in the front and the blue platform in the back, the joy of a strong platform is enough to destroy the country. No precepts and?" The king of Liang said that they were good friends.
This is an exhortation given by Duke Ji Fen of Lu State to Wei Hui King Wei Ying. At that time, the state of Wei was strong and prosperous, and the kings of Lu, Song, Wei, and Han came to court. The king of Wei entertained princes from all over the world at Yuantai (mostly called Fantai in the annotations, also known as "Fantai", the ruins of which are in today's Kaifeng). When the wine is in full swing, the host proposes a toast to the guests. Duke Lu stood up, left his seat, and said sternly: "In the past, Shun's daughter Yi Di was good at making wine, and the wine tasted mellow. Yi Di dedicated the wine to Yu, and Yu thought it tasted mellow after drinking it. But because of this He distanced himself from Yi Di, gave up wine, and said, "There will be times when the country will be destroyed because of wine." One night, Duke Huan of Qi felt hungry and wanted to eat, so he roasted and cooked delicious food. The dishes were served to him, and Duke Zhi of Qi ate so much that he did not wake up until dawn. When he woke up, he said: "There must be people in future generations who will destroy the country because of their greed for delicious food." Duke Wen of Jin gained the power of the beauty Nan. He didn't come to the court for three days to govern, so he sent Nan Zhiwei away, saying: "There must be some future generations who will destroy the country because of their greed for beauty." King Ling of Chu climbed to the Qiangtai and looked at the collapse mountain in the distance. On the left was the Yangtze River. On the right is the big lake. When he climbed up and wandered around, he only felt the joy of the mountains and rivers and forgot about human mortality, so he vowed not to visit mountains and rivers again. Later, he said: "There must be people in the future who build high platforms, hillsides, and beautiful pools, which will lead to the destruction of the country." . 'Now your wine glass is filled with fine wine like Yidi's wine; on the table are the delicious dishes cooked by Yi Ya; the white table on your left and Jian Xu on your right are all beauties like Nan Zhiwei; in front of you There is a forest in the middle and a terrace behind it. They are both powerful places. Having one of these four is enough to destroy the country. But now that you have both, how can you not be careful?" After hearing this, King Wei said, He repeatedly praised the advice as very good.
It is worth noting that this is not only the earliest description of the founder of wine, but also the earliest description of the temptation of wine and the prohibition of alcohol. Wine, this magical liquid, makes human beings forever contradictory to themselves.
In addition, people from the Qin and Han Dynasties compiled the genealogy of ancient emperors and ministers (Shiben), which also records this. The book was originally lost, but a missing copy compiled by the Qing Dynasty exists. The record in this book is also unreliable. It says: "Yi Di began to make wine sober and changed into five flavors; Shaokang made Linjiu." After that, "Ancient History" written by He Zhou, a scholar of the Shu Han Dynasty in the Three Kingdoms, also said: "In ancient times, there was sour wine. Cheese, Yu Shi Yi Di made wine."
Dayu is one of the leading figures in the series of Chinese sages and is famous for curing floods in the Yellow River. It is said that he worked so hard and never visited his house three times. His subordinates cared about him and invented some fresh drinks to comfort him. This was also a concrete and subtle way of showing "loyalty". Later generations of leaders were especially considerate and understanding. Of course, Dayu was not a wood or a stone, "it tastes beautiful", which shows that Meng Fuzi's "mouth has the same taste as taste", which can be regarded as "hindsight". But the problem is that after he drank it, he did not praise and reward the inventor, but alienated him (her). Presumably, it is nothing more than making wine and wasting food. During the period of low productivity in the "upper three generations", Dayu was concerned about the food and clothing of the people. If the wine " tastes good", it will easily lead to "what is good at the top will be bad at the bottom", and people will imitate others. Once calculated by multiplication, the amount of food wasted will be huge. In addition, being addicted to alcohol can lead to sexual indiscriminate behavior, and whether you are "wise" or not has nothing to do with governing politics. Therefore, the alcoholic kings of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties later became symbols of "faint kings" and "tyrants".
For example, Xia Lai built "a wine pond that can transport boats, and the embankment can be seen for ten miles." For example, Shang Feng built "a wine pond that can be used to transport boats back to the hills, and more than 3,000 people can drink from it." (Notes from "Historical Records of Yin Dynasty") , creating a "meat forest" for "long nights of drinking", "making men and women chase each other naked, it is drunken joy" ("Lunheng·Yuzeng"), they are all rebels who "taunt the people and attack them" with strict and correct words. A good topic.
The name Yi Di seems to belong to a woman. "Yi" in ancient Chinese is the same as "娥", so the legendary concubine Chang'e of the Houjie was called "Chang Yi" in ancient times. Yi Di translated into modern language is Miss Di or Ms. Di. The ancients were aware of this, so Wang Jia, a scholar of the Eastern Han Dynasty and one of the Seven Sons of Jian'an, wrote a poem called "Ode to Wine". The first two sentences said, "The emperor's daughter Yidi ordered wine to be offered as a gift." This pointed out her gender. .
There are many contradictions in the records about wine in ancient books. An old book written by Kong Loach, the eighth grandson of Confucius in the Western Han Dynasty (Kong Congzi) (this book was also edited by later generations and is not very reliable) records the story of Zhao Sheng, the king of Pingyuan in the Warring States Period, who persuaded Zhao Sheng to drink alcohol:
Pingyuan Jun’s good people. Thousands of diners tasted it. The great grandson of Confucius, Gao Chuan, came from Lu and Shi Zhao, and the king of Pingyuan drank the wine from Qiang. He said: "In the past, there was a proverb: 'Yao and Shun had a thousand bells, Confucius had hundreds of ships, Zilu chattered, and still drank ten plants.' The ancient sages If you can't drink, what can I say?" Zi Gao said: "I have heard that the sages are moral and moral, but I have not heard of drinking." Lord Pingyuan said, "As the teacher said, how can this be said?" Zi Gao said: "Born from an alcoholic. His words of encouragement to play opera are not true." Lord Pingyuan said happily: "I am not an actor, I have never heard of such an elegant official."
Di Yao Both Emperor Shun and Emperor Yu were people before Dayu, and they were earlier than Yidi. It can be seen that there was wine before Yidi. As for the "Shen Nong's Materia Medica" compiled in the early Western Han Dynasty at the latest, it already contains the nature and flavor of wine. If you believe this, then there was wine as far back as the legendary Shen Nong's era. Making wine with grain is a very complicated process and process, and it is difficult to complete it by one's own strength. No matter how talented Yi Di was, it seemed unlikely that he would be the first to invent wine making. It is still possible to say that a craftsman or master who is good at making fine wine, or an official who supervises winemaking, has summed up the experience of his predecessors, perfected the brewing method, and finally brewed alcoholic alcohol with excellent texture. Guo Moruo proposed that "it is said that Yuchen Yidi began to make wine, which refers to a wine that is sweeter and stronger than the wine in primitive society." This statement seems more credible.
Dukang made wine
Another saying is that Dukang made wine. Except for some literati, this statement is particularly popular among the people. , treasure scrolls, books of advice and so on mostly say this. The theory that Du Kang made wine became popular mainly because Cao Cao's Yuefu poem "Dan Ge Xing" mentioned "How to understand excellence, only Du Kang". Here, Du Kang is synonymous with wine, so people regard the man named Du Kang as the ancestor of wine making. In modern times, many people who annotate this poem interpret Du Kang as the earliest brewer.
Ruyang County, Luoyang City, Henan Province has Dukang Valley, Dukang Spring, Dukang River, Dukang Tomb and Dukang Temple. There is a local legend about Dukang making wine. It is said that Du Kang was a minister under the Yellow Emperor. At that time, after Shen Nong tasted herbs and identified grains, people began to cultivate land and grow food. Du Kang was assigned to manage the production and preservation of grain, and he was very responsible. Due to the fertile land, good weather and good harvests year after year, more and more grains were harvested. However, due to the lack of warehouses and scientific storage methods, the harvested grains were piled in caves. Over time, they all became moldy due to moisture. When the Yellow Emperor learned about this, he was very angry and ordered Dukang to take charge of the food storage. If there was any mold, he would be severely punished. Du Kang was suddenly demoted from a minister in charge of grain production to a grain depot keeper, and felt very sad. But he also thought of Luozu, Fenghou, Cangjie and other ministers, who all made inventions and made great contributions. Luozu invented reeling and spinning, Fenghou invented the compass, and Cangjie invented writing. Only I have no merit and have committed a crime. Thinking of this, his anger disappeared, and he secretly made up his mind: he must do a good job in food storage.
After that, Du Kang found an open space in the forest. Several big trees around it had died, leaving only thick trunks, which were empty. Du Kang had an idea. He thought that if he put the grain in a tree hole, it might not get moldy. So, he hollowed out all the dead trees in the woods one by one. Within a few days, all the harvested grain was packed into the tree hole. Unexpectedly, two years later, the grain stored in the tree hole slowly fermented after being blown by the wind, sun, and rain. One day, when Du Kang went up the mountain to check the grain, he suddenly found several goats, wild boars and rabbits lying around a dead tree containing grain. At first he thought these beasts were dead, but when he got closer, he found that they were still alive and seemed to be sleeping. Du Kang couldn't figure out the reason for a while, and while he was still wondering, a wild boar woke up. As soon as it saw the person coming, it immediately ran into the woods. Immediately afterwards, the goats and rabbits also woke up and ran away one by one. Du Kang didn't bring his bow and arrows when he went up the mountain, so he didn't pursue him. He was about to walk back when he found two goats licking something with their tongues in front of the tree hole containing grain. Du Kang hurriedly hid behind a big tree to observe, and saw two goats licking for a while, then swaying, and lying down on the ground not far away. Du Kang quickly ran over and tied up the two goats. Then he looked in detail at the place where the goat had just licked it with his tongue. Just don't look at it. Du Kang was shocked when he saw it.
The hole in the tree where the food was originally stored has been cracked, and water is leaking out. Goats, wild boars and rabbits licked this water before falling to the ground. Du Kang smelled it with his nose, and the water that oozed out was particularly fragrant, and he couldn't help but take a sip. Although the taste is a bit spicy, it is particularly mellow. The more he tasted it, the more he wanted to taste it, and finally took several sips in succession. The drink didn't matter. In an instant, I just felt like the world was spinning. As soon as I took two steps forward, I couldn't help but fall to the ground and fell asleep.
After waking up, Du Kang filled half a can of the fragrant water seeping out of the tree hole and went to find Huangdi. After hearing the report, Huang Di carefully tasted the fragrant water brought by Du Kang, and immediately discussed the matter with his ministers. The ministers agreed that this was a kind of vitality in food, not poisonous water. Huang Di did not blame Du Kang, but ordered him to continue to observe and carefully ponder the truth. He also ordered Cangjie to give the water with a strong fragrance a name. Cangjie said casually: "This water is fragrant and mellow. Drinking it will make you feel divine." After saying this, he made up the word "wine". Huangdi and his ministers all thought this name was a good one.
However, anyone with a little knowledge of ancient culture knows that the surname Du only came from the Zhou Dynasty. "Tongzhi Clan" records: "The Du family, also known as the Du family of Tang Dynasty, has the surname Qi. After Emperor Yao, he founded the country in Liu and was the Tao Tang family. His descendant Liu Lei was able to disturb the dragon and serve Kong Jia, so he was the Yulong dragon in Xia. The surname was 9 Wei in the Shang Dynasty, and it was the Du surname in the Tang Dynasty. When King Cheng destroyed the Tang Dynasty, he moved the Tang surname to Du, and became Du Bo..." Tao Tang's surname was probably made by Tao; Yulong's family is said to raise dragons; Wei's family seems to raise pigs, 9 means pigs. King Wu of Zhou destroyed the feudal dynasty and established the Zhou Dynasty. At this time, the Du family of Tang Dynasty was still a small independent country. King Cheng, the son of King Wu, sealed his younger brother in the Tang Dynasty, so the Tang and Du Kingdoms were abolished and the Tang Du family moved away. During the reign of King Xuan of Zhou Dynasty, the descendants of the Du family of Tang Dynasty were officials and were called Du Bo. They were executed by King Xuan of Zhou Dynasty and their descendants fled to Jin State, whereupon they took the surname Du from the fiefdom. therefore. If there is a person like Du Kang, he should be from the Spring and Autumn Period, not before the Zhou Dynasty at the earliest. Conclusive historical records show that there was wine long before the Zhou Dynasty. For example, the famous kings of Xia Lai and Yin Feng, ancient books said that they had wine ponds and hills; and the word "wine" was also included in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions.
Scholars who study wine believe that Du Kang may have been a famous winemaker between Zhou and Qin. When people mention Du Kang, they know that he is talking about wine. Dou Ge, a man from the Song Dynasty who wrote the book "Wine Book", concluded this way. This inference is generally credible. If a poet today wrote: "The only way to relieve worries is Maotai." People will understand that it means drinking to relieve sorrow, and they will never and will not regard Maotai as the place or inventor of wine. In the theory of wine making by Yidi or Du Kang, people believe that wine was made by Yi Di in the Yu Dynasty and Du Kang in the Zhou Dynasty. Therefore, there are sayings that "Yi Di began to make wine mash" and "Shaokang made forest wine".
There is a legend that Du Kang often poured the endless leftovers into the hollow mulberry tree hole. Over time, a strong fragrance would emit from the tree hole. Du Kang was inspired by this. Based on this principle, wine is produced. "Jiu Hao" written by Jiangtong in the Western Jin Dynasty wrote about this:
The rise of wine originated from the emperor; or Yunyi Di, one day Du Kang. The empty mulberry leaves that are not left behind when there is food can accumulate into a stale flavor and accumulate the fragrance for a long time. This is the origin and cannot be explained by a strange recipe.
Four Ancient History and Wine
2 Chinese Wine Culture Editor
The Record of Wine in History
Chinese culture is a kind of ancient culture Culture, no nation in the world values ??history as much as the Chinese nation and consciously preserves the deeds of their ancestors. Starting from the chronicles of the pre-Qin Dynasty (Spring and Autumn Period), Sima Qian of the Han Dynasty has records dating back to the time of the Yellow Emperor and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (Historical Records). Since then, every dynasty has its official history, which records the changes and reforms in politics, economy, culture, and customs, as well as astronomy. Major events in geography, ritual and music systems, science and technology. Since wine has existed in China very early, the invention of wine should be recorded in the "Five Emperors" or "Xia Benji" in the "Historical Records". However, there is no record of the invention of wine in the historical events of these eras in the "Historical Records". The records about the first wine maker in later history books and various classics are all based on unreliable ancient documents.
There are very few existing pre-Qin ancient books in China that do not mention wine. China's earliest writings, oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions (engraved on bronze vessels), both have the word "wine". The ancient characters are simple. The word "wine" is written as "酉", and the writing style looks like a clay pot. Moving forward, among the pottery excavated from the Banpo Village site in Xi'an about 7,000 years ago, there are jars shaped like the character "You" in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions; as for the Shandong Tombs 4,000 years ago In the excavation of the Kou site, there have been a large number of pottery vessels for holding wine, such as bowls, beans, cups, etc., proving that drinking was quite common and sophisticated at that time, and the development of wine culture had reached a considerable level.
The Spring and Autumn Period, from the perspective of the history of science and technology and folklore, was an era when brewing and drinking were both flourishing. People not only used "natural fermentation" to make wine, but also invented Qu millet wine making, and quite generally mastered the "solid-state fermentation method" and "complex fermentation method" to make wine. "Shang Shu·Shuo Ming" records the dialogue between King Wuding of Yin and his ministers: "If you want to make wine, you will be called qu tiller." Qu is the distiller's mother, also called distiller's koji; tiller is the saccharifying fermentation agent such as malt and grain bud. Both the koji brewing method and the tiller brewing method are "solid-state fermentation methods," but the koji brewing method overcomes the shortcomings of the tiller brewing method's high saccharification and low alcoholization, and allows the two steps of saccharification and alcoholization to proceed at the same time, catalyzing each other and improving the efficiency of the process. It improves the quality of wine-making and shortens the wine-making process, so it is called "complex fermentation method".
This is a great progress in the history of science and technology. It can also be said that besides the four great inventions, it is a great invention of ancient China that is more than a thousand years ahead of the Europeans.
In the Spring and Autumn Period, there is a story about "the wine of Lu is thin and Handan is surrounded". This classic comes from "Zhuangzi·Fukang", but there are two interpretations of it. Lu Deming of the Tang Dynasty said in "Classic Interpretation of the Sound and Meaning of Zhuangzi":
When the princes of the Chu-Yi Dynasty arrived and drank too little wine, King Xuan was angry. Gonggong said: I, the Duke of Zhou, have served in the royal family, so it is disrespectful to give wine to you. I am just asking for more than you deserve, but it is not too much. So he returned without saying goodbye, and King Xuan sent troops to attack Mi with Qi. King Hui of Liang often wanted to attack Zhao but was afraid of Chu. Chu was interested in incense, so Liang had to surround Handan.
The story goes that when King Xuan of Chu met with the princes, Duke Gong of Lu arrived later and the wine was very weak. King Yi of Chu was very angry. Gonggong said, since I am the Duke of Zhou and I am in the royal family, it is already disrespectful to give you wine. If you blame the wine for being poor, don't go too far. So he returned without saying goodbye. King Xuan then sent troops with Qi to attack Lu. King Hui of Liang had always wanted to attack the State of Zhao, but he was afraid that the State of Chu would help the State of Zhao. This time the State of Chu asked for help, so he no longer had to worry about the State of Chu coming to cause trouble. So the Handan of the State of Zhao was not aware of the lack of wine in the State of Shi. Bai Di became the victim. "Lujiu" has also become synonymous with ordinary wine or inferior wine.
According to "Huainanzi" by Liu Xiang of the Western Han Dynasty, written by Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it is another situation:
Chu met the princes, Lu and Zhao both presented wine to the king of Chu, and Lu drank wine It is thin but Zhaojiu is thick. The chief wine official of Chu asked for wine from Zhao, but Zhao refused. The official was angry, so he offered Zhao's thick wine as a meal but thin wine as a memorial. The king of Chu thought that Zhao's wine was weak, so he besieged Handan.
No matter what the truth is, this allusion not only reflects that wine at that time was deeply involved in the political life of the military state, but more importantly, it reveals tortuously that in the Spring and Autumn Period, various countries paid attention to the quality of wine, and everyone was chasing each other. social reality.
In the West, the ancient wine king must have been brewed from grapes, which can be seen from the myths and legends in that area. The raw materials for making wine in ancient China were grains, and grapes were not introduced from the Western Regions until the time of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty. Ancient books say that "Shaokang began to make rice wine." Shaokang was the fifth monarch of the Xia Dynasty; rice is a kind of sticky millet, which northerners call "yellow glutinous rice". In the Shang Dynasty, there were "millet wine" and "jijiu", both of which were grain wines. During the late Zhou Dynasty and the Warring States Period, "pepper wine" and "osmanthus pulp" appeared in Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs"; only after the Han Dynasty did "chrysanthemum wine", "jujube wine" and countless medicinal wines appear. These wines are still made by mixing flowers and medicine into grain wine. With the spread of grapes, a small amount of wine made from grapes appeared in Liangzhou (now part of Gansu) in the west during the Eastern Han Dynasty.
The koji used for brewing wine has also been invented a long time ago. "Shangshu Yu Gong" mentions that among the Jingzhou tributes stipulated by Dayu, there is a kind of "mao". Zheng Xuan, a Confucian scholar of the Han Dynasty, noted: "For Mao, those with burrs on the Mao will make wine for the ancestral temple." Jiujiu is the ancestral temple. The meaning of filtering wine to remove the dregs. If there is wine pulp that needs to be filtered, it is by no means naturally fermented, but brewed with koji. "Yu Gong" is a book written by people during the Warring States Period. It may not be completely reliable. However, due to the frequent occurrence of the word "wine" in oracle bone inscriptions, King Wu of Zhou wrote it in view of the fact that King Feng of Shang Dynasty lost his country due to wine (Jiu Hao). Gong Siguai's "Yu Gong" It can be seen from "Qi Min Yaoshu" that at least during the Yin and Shang Dynasties, a large amount of wine was brewed, and distiller's yeast was indispensable. Because koji is used to make wine, the wine is also known as "qucai". Regarding the ancient music-making method, it is recorded in "Qi Min Yao Shu" written by Jia Sinu of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
The development of modern wine
Now, the team of things in the cup has grown even more. As far as the current situation is concerned, wine is mainly divided into two categories: national wine and foreign wine. National wine includes liquor, beer, rice wine, wine, etc. Drinking is a matter of personal preference, but everyone seems to have a common understanding that it depends on the region. Northerners in the Northeast and Northwest like to drink liquor with higher alcohol content and strong and spicy flavor, while southerners in Jiangsu and Zhejiang prefer yellow rice wine with lower alcohol content and a long aftertaste. Rice wine is mild in nature, not high in alcohol content, and has a sweet taste, so its taste is suitable for Jiangsu and Zhejiang people who eat sour and sweet foods. It is easy to drink and has a low alcohol content. What’s the harm in drinking more? Rice wine can be warm or hot. You can add ginger slices or lemon slices to it. You can also beat an egg in it in winter. In summer, you can add ice or chill it. How to drink it There are more varieties than liquor. However, it seems that the main products currently active in the market are liquor, but most famous liquors are produced in the south. Why is this?
Looking at the liquor market, the production areas are Lianghu, Sichuan and Guizhou. most. The liquor produced in the Land of Two Lakes is mainly consumed by the general public, with moderate prices and rich varieties; while the liquor produced by Sichuan Guizhi Real Estate has a relatively high value. Sichuan has always been known as the "Land of Abundance" and the "Granary of Shu". From the geographical point of view, the Tuo River flows through the place, and the aroma of wine comes all the way: there is Tuopai Qu Liquor in the upper reaches of the Tuo River, and it flows to Yibin to produce Wuliangye. , continues to flow eastward, reaches Luzhou, brews Luzhou Laojiao, and there is also Jiannanchun in Sichuan. Moutai, the national liquor on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, is made by fermenting and kneading sorghum and wheat with a complex technological process. It is the originator of my country's Daqu Maotai-flavor liquor and is known as the "national liquor". In addition to the famous liquors from Lianghu and Sichuan, there are other local liquors in my country that also have their own merits, such as Jiangsu's Site Liquor, Beijing's Erguotou, Northeast's Shaodaozi, Shanxi's Fenjiu, etc. Each place has its own specialty.