I continued doing this work until I had squeezed all the sugarcane, and I got a large and a half jars of sugarcane juice, which I estimated to be more than 50 kilograms.

I didn't intend to waste the squeezed sugarcane residue. Instead, I found several large baskets and filled them all up. This sugarcane residue will have a great use later.

With nothing to do, Top went back to its hut and fetched some wild fruit to share with me.

I poured half of the sugarcane juice into my golden pot. As the firewood crackled below, white steam gradually rose from the sugarcane juice inside.

After a while, as the temperature inside the pot continued to rise, the sugarcane juice began to thicken, and large bubbles began to rise from the bottom of the pot.

I held the golden spatula and kept stirring the thick sugar water. The large bubbles burst and began to turn into a continuous stream of small bubbles.

There was a sweet, sugary smell in the air. Monkey Top seemed to be smelling this for the first time, and he couldn't help but curiously approach the pot to look at the big lump of stuff I was stirring that was starting to turn slightly red.

I smiled at the monkey and said, "Top, could you go and get me some more firewood? I'll let you eat the sweetest thing in the world in a little while."

Top didn't understand, but he still diligently fulfilled my request. After a while, he came to my side, swaying from side to side, carrying a small bundle of wood; it looked quite comical.

As time went on, the syrup became increasingly thick. I felt like the spatula in my hand was about to give way to the sticky resistance.

Fearing I might damage my spatula, I switched to using a flat piece of poplar wood to continue stirring.

I didn't remove the pot until the syrup had darkened and a thick layer of it coated my wooden planks.

At this moment, a square mold I made from a stone slab was already placed on a bamboo mat. I poured all the syrup from the pot directly into that mold.

One mold, one pot of sugar. I also made this mold from basalt. Because my workmanship is quite solid, I estimate that the thickness of this piece of sugar will exceed ten centimeters.

However, I'm quite satisfied. It's a bit thicker, but it doesn't affect my normal use. My brown sugar is only about five times thicker than the kind sold on the street.

While the large piece of brown sugar was still cooling for a while, I poured all the remaining sugarcane juice into the pot.

A new round of simmering has begun.

This time, from the dozens of kilograms of sugarcane juice, I got two pieces of brown sugar that were as precious as gold ingots. I weighed them in my hand and estimated they weighed about two or three kilograms each, so the sugar yield seems to be quite high.

I remember that in the past, people could only extract five pounds of sugar from a hundred pounds of sugarcane juice. My few dozen pounds of sugarcane yielded only two or three pounds of sugar, which was considered a very high yield.

After the two pieces of brown sugar had completely cooled down, I used a thin wooden board to gently lift them from under the bamboo mat.

I broke off a small piece of the brown sugar I had made and handed it to Top. Top was also seeing this for the first time and seemed very happy. He always maintains a curious mind towards new things.

Top put the small piece of brown sugar in its mouth and chewed it. Immediately, its eyes lit up with countless stars. Clearly, it had never eaten anything so sweet in its life.

This was several times sweeter than the sweetest wild fruit it had ever eaten. It was unbelievable that such a delicious thing grew out of a pot, which made Top look at the golden pot with more longing.

I felt that the sugarcane residue could still be used. So I kept pouring water over it to dilute the sugar as much as possible.

So I got two more big jars of sugar water. This time the sugar water concentration was naturally not as high as before, so I still had to boil it.

This time, however, I didn't turn it into a complete syrup like before. I boiled down two large jars of sugar water to about half a jar and then stopped boiling it.

Then I dipped my finger in the sugar water and tasted it, and it tasted sweet enough. So after turning off the fire, I covered the mouth of the jar with a jackal skin to prevent insects from falling in.

I also made some shallow baskets before. These baskets can be easily fixed with a vase knot and become great tools for holding grapes.

I took two of these baskets, and I also used the wooden stick I used to carry sugarcane as a makeshift carrying pole.

This time it was still the trees on Top, and I neatly stacked the small piles of grapes I had collected below.

There were many wild grapes, and the bunches were quite large. I made quick progress; the monkey filled both baskets with grapes in less than an hour.

…………

I rinsed the grapes lightly with clean water to remove the dirt on their surface. I was very careful not to wash away the white bloom on the grapes, as this is an important fermenting agent used to make wine; without it, wine cannot be made.

The next steps were simple: I put all the cleaned grapes into a gold jar and then smashed them with a pestle as I put them in.

After both baskets of grapes turned into mush, I ended up with a large jar of grape pulp and juice mixture.

Then I slowly added the half-jar of sugarcane juice, which had cooled down and was only slightly warm, into the mixture.

Then I used a wooden stick to stir the mixture in the large pot continuously, so that they could be thoroughly mixed.

Now, only one final step remains in the process of making this wine: sealing the container to allow the anaerobic bacteria inside to consume the sugar and produce ethanol.

So the jackal skin I had hunted while hiking earlier came in handy. I wrapped the jackal skin tightly around the mouth of the container, and then secured it firmly to the jar with thin hemp rope.

That completes the production of a single batch of original wine; now all that's needed is time to set it.

After about half a month, these juices will turn into a full-bodied wine, and the wine will taste even better if left for a longer period of time.

The wine is ready, but many of the grapes that Top and I picked are still on the vine. These wild grapes are ripe and will soon rot without human intervention.

I was thinking that if it were just Top and me doing it, it would probably take a long time to harvest all these grapes, and transporting them back would also be a hassle.

So I plan to process those grapes on the spot, hang them all up to dry and make them into raisins before transporting them back.

However, before doing this, I need to make one more revolutionary change.