10127 New Urban Farmers Chapter 172 Cold Storage Water Cellar Bayberry Wine (Second Update)

Hehe. Don't rush! "Slap off the mud" and a rich, sweet aroma wafts out... a very fresh wine fragrance. The liquid inside the jar is a bright, pale purple color. There is some fruit pulp sediment at the bottom of the jar, but that doesn't matter.

Zhang Baoshun brought over three jin of small bowls. Xiao Hu, standing beside him, was also watching intently, his eyes shining as he swallowed. To him, fruit wine wasn't quite alcohol; it was more like a beverage. Of course, if you drank too much, you could still get drunk.

"Uncle Baoshun, pour me a lot more," Xiao Hu said impatiently.

Zhang Baoshun laughed and scolded, "You little glutton! I'll make an exception and let you have a drink today."

The purple, nectar-like liquid was carefully poured into a bowl. The fruity and wine-like aromas made Zhang Guodong exclaim in admiration. The scent was unlike any wine from outside the mountains. This fruit wine, once properly brewed, truly was like a fine elixir, imbued with a subtle, ethereal quality. Although it was a small amount, it was far less abundant than the wines found outside the mountains.

"Good wine! Brother Baoshun, I'm really in luck today!" Zhang Guodong said gratefully.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Baoshun laughed heartily and filled all three bowls to the brim. Not a single drop spilled, and then he carefully sealed the jar.

"Brother Zhang, bottoms up!" Zhang Baoshun said heartily, raising his bowl of wine with both hands.

Zhang Guodong, also in high spirits, joined Xiao Hu and Zhang Baoshun in a clinking of glasses, chuckling as they savored the flavor. A lingering sweetness, tinged with a subtle aroma of alcohol, lingered in their mouths.

It felt very comfortable after swallowing; the sourness of the plum was basically gone!

"Brother Baoshun, what exactly is this plum wine made with?" Zhang Guodong asked humbly, savoring it slowly. There are many methods for making fruit wine online, but they are all very simple. Actually, some traditional methods of making fruit wine have many details to pay attention to.

"Tsk tsk!" Zhang Baoshun pursed his lips, squinting as he savored the plum wine, thoroughly enjoying it. "To tell you how I make plum wine, first, I select plump, good-looking plums, wash them clean, and then mash them in a stone mortar until they become juice and pulp, the finer the better. Then I put them into this jar, about half full, and let them dry in the sun to remove most of the moisture. Sometimes I can add a little heat to help the water evaporate faster. Once most of the moisture has evaporated, what's left is mostly dried fruit pulp. Then I fill the jar with the fermented rice wine until it's full, and seal the mouth of the jar with mud. It's ready to drink after about three months, but the longer the plum wine is aged, the better it tastes. Three months is the minimum! This jar has been aged for about four plums, and the flavor is much better now!"

"This is the basic method. Now that you have your Moutai liquor, you can mix some Moutai liquor yeast into the rice wine, and it will be even better!"

Zhang Guodong listened attentively and couldn't help but ask, "Brother Baoshun, does adding better quality liquor necessarily mean a higher quality and better-tasting fruit wine?"

Zhang Baoshun shook his head and said, "That's not right. For a five-jin jar, three or four liang of high-proof liquor like Moutai is usually enough. It's much better to fill it with low-proof liquor like huangjiu or rice wine. In fact, it's not good. Moreover, when brewing fruit wine, the jar must be filled to the brim without leaving any gaps for it to brew well!"

"In short, fruit wine cannot be exposed to too much water, which is why rice wine is used to fill the gaps."

"Brother Zhang, it's very simple. Come here, and I'll show you how to brew a few jars. Then you'll know how. When you leave the mountain, you can take more with you!" With that, Zhang Baoshun pulled Zhang Guodong out the door, intending to personally teach and demonstrate the process. He's very impatient!

There are quite a few fruit trees in Shiya Village.

After all, this isn't outside the mountains; we need to be self-sufficient in everything, like fruit. Every family grows fruits such as apples, peaches, apricots, pears, bayberries, and watermelons. They also grow a local grafted fruit called "Purple Longan." Actually, it's grapes, but these are grafted from wild purple grapevines. After successful grafting, these grapes are the size of pigeon eggs, very sweet, and have a glossy purple color. The only downside is that they have a slightly sour taste.

Overall, the purple longan is quite delicious. Although it doesn't bear many fruits a year, its large size makes it a popular choice for every household.

Upon hearing Zhang Baoshun's introduction of the village's fruits, Zhang Guodong shamelessly asked for some watermelon seeds. The black watermelons were of excellent quality, with a deep, dark hue. According to Zhang Baoshun, once the watermelons here ripen, most yield no more than twenty at a time, with average yields around thirty, and some large ones reaching sixty or seventy, or even over a hundred pounds.

Zhang Guodong estimates that the watermelons are growing so well because of the favorable environment here.

Then Zhang Baoshun cut a few branches from the purple grape vines he had bought. He said that if these branches were buried in the ground in the spring and watered regularly, they would basically survive. However, since spring had passed, he cut seven or eight branches for Zhang Guodong to try, just in case.

"That's enough, Brother Baoshun, that's more than enough!" Zhang Guodong said, both amused and exasperated. The grapevines were currently growing leaves the size of a palm, just the time when they were bearing green fruit; pruning them too much would affect the fruit set.

But Zhang Baoshun didn't care.

"If it really doesn't survive, Brother Zhang, you'll have to come back next spring!" Zhang Baoshun said with a chuckle.

Zhang Guodong agreed, but inwardly he was full of confidence. These purple grapes are plants, and as long as they are plants, they can grow well in Peach Blossom Spring, even if the grapevines are only suitable for grafting and transplanting in early spring.

“Brother Zhang, my family also has grapevines!” Little Tiger said proudly from the side.

"Hey, you little rascal, you're even fighting with Uncle Baoshun!" Zhang Baoshun patted Xiaohu's head and laughed. "The bayberries ripen in April. You won't see them on the trees anymore, but I've hidden some in the water cellar!" He then explained how to store bayberries in the water cellar. Fresh, green fruit can't be preserved for long periods. There's no electricity or refrigerator here, so it's best to choose a cool place. June and July are the beginning of the hot season, so the villagers of Shiya Village came up with a solution. They collect rainwater in underground water cellars, which are built with two layers. The inner layer collects rainwater, while the outer alley is dry. The inner layer cools the water, making it even cooler and drier, which basically meets the requirements for storing fresh fruit. It's said that this can extend the shelf life of most fruits by two to three months.

Zhang Baoshun's water cellar is basically the same as most villagers' water cellars, with an outer fence door. From the outside, you can see that there are quite a few jujubes inside. The advantage of placing them on a horizontal plank in mid-air is that rats and other pests won't easily ruin them.

As the three entered, Zhang Guodong smelled realgar powder again.

"This realgar powder is to prevent snakes and scorpions from coming to shady places. Snakes like to come here, so with this stuff, it's much safer here," Zhang Baoshun explained.

Zhang Guodong nodded as well.

Then I saw seven or eight rattan baskets on the wooden planks in the air, each capable of holding forty or fifty pounds of bayberries, along with some semi-dried vegetables for storage, and about ten jars, roughly the same size as the jars for holding bayberry wine, which must be fruit wine.

He also discovered an old, large-bellied urn that could hold at least two or three hundred catties of water. A faint aroma of wine emanated from it, which Zhang Guodong could detect with great sensitivity.

"This must be a yellow wine vat. Every household here has a big vat. Drinking yellow wine seems to be a great hobby!" Zhang Guodong thought to himself.

However, Shaoxing wine is easy to brew; my family back home brewed it when I was a child, and it was very sweet and delicious. Looking at this large vat, Zhang Guodong felt very calm.

"Come on, Xiao Hu, help your uncle carry a basket of bayberries out." Just as Zhang Guodong was observing the storage room, Zhang Baoshun had already started calling on the calf-like Xiao Hu to carry a basket of bayberries down.

Zhang Guodong wanted to help, but Xiao Hu stubbornly carried the horse out himself, leaving Zhang Guodong shaking his head and smiling helplessly. The young boy was unwilling to show weakness in front of others.

"Brother Baoshun, did you make this jar yourself in the village?" Zhang Guodong asked as he walked out.

“Yes, things from outside the mountains are too expensive and inconvenient to bring in, so we have to make them ourselves. There’s an earthen kiln in front of the village that we fire once a year to fire tiles, pottery and the like!” Zhang Baoshun said.

Zhang Guodong initially wanted to say he would buy some, but then he realized it wasn't realistic. If he came down from the mountain carrying dozens of jars, wouldn't that arouse a lot of suspicion? Could he even carry them all?

In the afternoon, Zhang Baoshun taught Zhang Guodong how to brew bayberry wine step by step. With the guidance of Zhang Baoshun, an expert, Zhang Guodong successfully brewed two jars of bayberry wine and then sealed them with red clay and oil paper.

Finally, fearing that the jar might break in the bag, Zhang Baoshun made a net bag out of straw rope and wrapped the jar in it so that it wouldn't break when he left the mountain.

That evening, Zhang Guodong went to Taoyuan and planted the grapevines, watermelon seeds, and bayberry seeds according to the planned plot. He also placed the two jars of bayberry wine in the medicinal herb garden of the Baibei area. Leaving them outside always felt like they weren't his own.

"Crash!" Zhang Guodong, who had just placed the wine jar in the net, heard a strange clattering sound. Turning around, he saw that the little rascal had bumped into the barbed wire. This guy had been locked up in the barbed wire for several days, and it was probably getting restless. Zhang Guodong only picked some grass and threw it in every day, so it hadn't gone hungry.

Zhang Guodong walked over.

Zhang Guodong fenced off the entire 100-meter area and divided it into ten concentric circles. The two-meter-high barbed wire was enough to trap the animals inside, preventing them from getting out. He wasn't worried about them escaping and ruining the medicinal herbs.

The little chick saw Zhang Guodong approaching. Surprisingly, it didn't back down but instead stood in front of the barbed wire fence, staring at Zhang Guodong with great curiosity.

"Fool!" Zhang Guodong shook his head.

He reached out to touch it, but the young calf started to back away, then ran a few steps before turning around again. It should be a male calf with a protrusion on its head that seemed to be the beginning of horns.

After teasing him a few times, Zhang Guodong finally realized that Baozi was very different in intelligence from the dog, wolf, and the silly couple. Leaving aside the wolf and dog, he had seen wild bear cubs interacting happily with people, and they were very affectionate and intelligent. But keeping Baozi as a pet was impossible.

Zhang Guodong spent two more days leisurely at the Yi family's house, and Old Master Yi's wounds finally healed completely. He was able to get out of bed easily. This amazed everyone. He had suffered such a serious injury, especially to his brain, yet he recovered in just a few days. Moreover, Old Master Yi seemed to have become a few years younger, and he walked much more nimbly.

Despite their surprise, no one would have thought of anything else.

That day, Zhang Guodong couldn't contain himself any longer. He approached Elder Yi and said sheepishly, "Elder Yi, I've been bored and wanted to visit the place where you first dug up the Dionysus herb. I wonder if it's more... (The rest of the text is a separate, unrelated sentence about updating.)

Tiandao, not daring to boast of its achievements, aimed for stability and a successful completion of the work.

Additionally, we are still recruiting deputy moderators for the book review section. Those with time and a sense of responsibility can apply; please join the group mentioned in the content introduction and contact Tiandao. It's very easy, don't be scared away! Thank you!