Ideals are full, but reality is skinny.
Liu Tan thought that fruit wine could be made by simply blending it, but in fact the taste of the wine after blending was terrible. It was neither sweet nor sour, with a bitter taste and the taste of white wine.
Liu Tan was almost certain that if he offered this thing to Chen Ajiao, she would probably go berserk on the spot and push his head into the wine.
No, no, this absolutely won't work.
This time Liu Tan finally found something to do. He had to make the fruit wine before going back, otherwise... he would rather offer a lower-proof liquor than this semi-finished product.
Liu Tan thought carefully about every step of the blending process to make sure that there was no corruption in the pear juice that would affect the taste. He even took a sip before blending to make sure that there was no problem with the taste of the pear juice before blending.
However, the taste was still not good enough, so he began to try various blending ratios, and finally found that the taste was slightly better at three to one or four to one.
But the taste was still a bit strange, and Liu Tan wondered, could it be related to the variety of pear?
He had tried various kinds of liquor mixed with fruit juice before, and the taste was pretty good. Why didn't it work here?
Is there anything about fruit wine that is not suitable for local climate?
Liu Tan sat there confused for a long time, and began to think about what was different.
First of all, when he blended it, it seemed that there was no sourness or astringency. Some fruit juices would be slightly sour, sour and sweet, but there was absolutely no astringency.
Wait, sour and sweet…sweet!
Liu Tan slapped his thigh. He finally knew where the problem lay. It was the sweetness. The pears of this era were not as sweet as those of later generations.
After all, the variety has not been improved and is a bit sour, so the juice squeezed out is naturally the same. It’s just that you don’t feel anything special when you drink it simply. Liu Tan even likes this taste.
But when blended with liquor, neither can dominate the other's flavor, and there is no priority. Although the taste is also rich, this richness... let's forget it.
Liu Tan immediately ordered someone to bring sugar and prepare to remix the mixture. Miao Rui then cautiously asked, "Your Highness, would you like malt, honey, or Xiji rock honey?"
After hearing this, Liu Tan’s first reaction was, what else could it be? Of course it is... Hey, there was no white sugar in the Han Dynasty!
In those days, not to mention the lack of white sugar, even the appearance of sucrose was during the time of Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang. Before that, there were only two sweet flavors: malt sugar and honey.
Only nobles could afford both of these. Honey required beekeeping, while malt sugar was more difficult to make and required grain.
Grain production is already low these days. On a per capita basis, it is hard to say whether that amount of grain can feed the entire nation. Malt sugar is made from grain, and the starch in the grain is converted into sugar. Naturally, it is much more precious. Ordinary people naturally cannot afford sugar.
As for Xiji Rock Honey, it is actually cane sugar, the same kind of ancient brown sugar sold in blocks online in later generations.
Liu Tan felt a headache. None of these three kinds of candy was colorless!
Although freshly squeezed pear juice is not purely transparent, it is translucent. After multiple filtering steps, it can barely reach a relatively transparent state.
The most important thing is that when blending white wine, you don’t need to add too much pear juice. Liu Tan just wanted a more fruity taste so that it wouldn’t be so bitter and spicy.
For those who have never tried high-purity liquor, the first sip will taste bitter and spicy.
A little juice and sugar can balance it out nicely.
So the blended product is actually in a transparent state that looks pretty good.
Among these types of sugar, only honey can barely reach a transparent state.
Liu Tan asked someone to bring honey and tried to mix it, but if he added too little honey, it wasn't sweet enough, and if he added too much, it had a sour taste.
However, honey itself actually has a little sour taste, after all, it contains a lot of acids.
After trying for a long time to find a balance point, Liu Tan felt a little dizzy.
He put down his wine cup angrily and turned to Miao Rui, saying, "Go get me some yellow mud water."
After saying that, he went back to his room and fell asleep, leaving Miao Rui and Bigao looking at each other in bewilderment.
Something like yellow mud water... let alone the nobles, even the two of them haven't seen it for many years. What does His Highness want yellow mud water for?
Is this because he drank too much and went crazy?
After a long silence, Miao Rui asked, "So...are you ready?"
Bi Gao said seriously, "Get ready."
No matter whether His Highness is drunk or not, they have to obey as long as the order comes down.
But they won't take the initiative to mention this matter until His Highness wakes up. If His Highness just said it casually when he was drunk, they will definitely not take the initiative to look for him.
If they brought it up, it would only embarrass the Fifth Prince.
If it is really useful, the Fifth Prince will take the initiative to find it.
After Liu Tan woke up, he realized how poorly this body could drink. He was drinking fruit wine, which had been diluted a lot by adding a little distilled water and fruit juice for taste. But he passed out after tasting it.
The total amount of wine was only half a cup.
It seems that Lu Xuan is considered to be a person with a good alcohol tolerance in this era.
Fortunately, he didn't drink much alcohol, so he didn't have a headache yet.
You must remember that when offering salvation to Liu Che and Chen Ajiao, you must remind them that they can easily get drunk if they drink too much!
Liu Tan got up, washed up, and ate something before asking, "Is the muddy water ready?"
Miao Rui quickly said, "It's ready. I wonder what Your Highness wants to do with it?"
Liu Tan said in a deep voice: "Make candy!"
Miao Rui and Bigo were full of questions, but they didn't ask them because of their strong professional qualities.
Liu Tan asked people to prepare a large amount of Xiji rock honey, and then prepared a jar and a tile chute, which is what later generations often called a funnel. After everything was ready, he asked people to put the Xiji rock honey on the tile chute.
Because Xiji Rock Honey is a processed product, Liu Tan doesn't have to wait for it to crystallize, and he can directly sprinkle the Xiji Rock Honey with yellow mud water.
This time Liu Tan did not do it himself. Instead, he stayed away from it to avoid the yellow mud water splashing out during the watering process from dirtying his clothes.
Liu Tan was cautious, so he only found a mute slave this time, and left no one else with him except Miao Rui and Bigo.
Whether it is distilled liquor or white sugar, both methods are very simple. Although the principles here actually require the development of science and technology to be gradually explored, is it necessary to figure out the principles when imitating something that makes money?
The mute slave present was fine, he didn't have any thoughts and didn't think anything of his master's sudden whim of ruining things.
There are many nobles who live more extravagantly and wastefully these days, so this one is considered good by comparison.
Miao Rui and Bigo were full of curiosity.
So far, everything Liu Tan has made is quite magical, except for the grape seedlings whose life and death are uncertain. I don’t know what he will come up with this time.
Then they witnessed something even more magical with their own eyes - the originally dark and red Xiji Rock Honey actually turned into pure white little by little!
After the yellow mud water was poured, there was a white object nearly five inches in size on the tile drain, with a granular texture like sand.
Liu Tan had all the sugar on top collected and put in a small ceramic jar.
Liu Tan asked someone to bring a silver spoon and tasted a little bit. Hmm, it tasted not bad.
Although the white sugar was a little different from the pure white he had imagined, with a slight hint of yellow, he was already very satisfied with the result.
Liu Tan asked people to get more white sugar, while he took the sugar and prepared to continue fighting with the fruit wine.
After struggling for a long time, he finally made pear wine that tasted and looked good. Then he continued his efforts and asked someone to get some pomegranates - he had to thank Zhang Qian for bringing the pomegranates.
However, Liu Che did not force people to plant pomegranate trees, so as to prevent another person from being threatened with castration.
Compared with pear wine, pomegranate wine can be said to have more color, aroma and taste, and its transparent red color is indeed very pleasing to the eye.
Liu Tan also wanted to make other fruit wines, but unfortunately the fruit storage technology these days was not advanced enough and there were not so many varieties. In addition, there was not much contact with the south, so many southern fruits were not brought over.
In the end, he had no choice but to give up. After thinking about it, he realized that since he had already made the white sugar, why not make some rock sugar?
Rock sugar can be made with granulated sugar. The only thing needed is alum solution, which is extracted from alum stone.
Of course, alum had already appeared in the Han Dynasty, so there was no need for him to go to great lengths to extract it.
But when he was about to boil the sugar liquid, he felt a little confused. What was he doing?
He was clearly just researching how to grow grape seedlings in order to save Li Xi, so how did he end up with so many things?
Liquor, blended fruit wine, white sugar and rock sugar... Is he an ambassador sent by the foodie country to spread the culture of food?
Although Liu Tan wondered how he did it, he continued to make rock sugar.
Anyway, he had nothing to do, so he wanted to wait until the grape seedlings were completely fine before going back.
Although he knew what to use for rock sugar, he still didn't know the ratio. In the end, he could only experiment a little bit at a time. In fact, the main thing was to figure out the ratio of sugar water and alum solution.
After wasting a lot of sugar water and seeing Miao Rui and Bigo's mouths twitching, he came to the conclusion that the ratio of white sugar to alum solution was close to ten to one.
The rock sugar that came out this time was very beautiful. Its transparency looked even more clear and beautiful than some crystals with poor texture.
Miao Rui and Bigo couldn't help but open their mouths wide when they saw the finished product.
In the eyes of these two people, everything Liu Tan did seemed like magic.
Liu Tan didn't think there was anything wrong with it, but he just thought that if he did this, would he have an explanation when he returned?
He even had people make wooden molds, which were later called moulds, in all kinds of shapes and appearances. Some of them were animal images that seemed very distorted to later generations, and there were even dragon and tiger molds.
Liu Tan gradually rediscovered the pleasure of handcrafting in the past. He poured the prepared sugar liquid into the mold. This time he did not forget to brush oil on the mold to facilitate demolding.
It’s a pity that there was no vegetable oil back then, only animal oil. It might have some odor, but it shouldn’t have much of an impact.
There is no vegetable oil... Liu Tan thought about it for only two turns before he stopped thinking.
No, it's too dangerous. If this goes on, he can no longer be a prince or a cook!
After he finished making sugar figures of the twelve zodiac animals and a set of sugar figures of the dragon and tiger, he finally got good news - the grafted grape seedlings had begun to grow smoothly and there were signs of new leaves poking out.
After hearing this, Liu Tan immediately rushed to the greenhouse. He lay there and looked carefully for a long time before he could see the not-so-obvious new buds.
In his joy, Liu Tan rewarded all the mute slaves, then said with full energy, "Let's go back to the palace!"
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