Chapter 123 High-proof Liquor Distillation Technology
"It's smooth and juicy, worthy of being made by the imperial chef in the palace. It's delicious!" Zhong Shidao picked up his chopsticks and praised it repeatedly.
Zhao Huan filled a large glass of wine and handed it to Master Zhong, saying, "Master Zhong, everyone in the army loves to drink. Why don't you try this newly brewed strong liquor in the palace and see how it tastes?"
Zhong Shidao was not pretentious. He took the wine cup handed to him by Zhao Huan and drank it all in one gulp. His generosity was frightening.
“Huha!”
A burning sensation started from the stomach and rushed straight to the top of his head. His dark face quickly turned red at a speed visible to the naked eye. He pursed his lips and stared blankly for a long time. Master Zhong let out a long breath, and the breath he exhaled was full of a strong smell of alcohol.
"Good wine! Spicy and fragrant. It feels like a knife cutting my stomach when I drink it, but it feels comfortable after the cutting. Good..." As he spoke, Zhong Shidao gradually became intoxicated. His tongue curled up and his body swayed. Finally, with a thud, he fell to the ground unconscious as if he had been drugged.
"Stud, stud, we haven't even finished our meal yet? We haven't even talked about work yet, why are you already drunk?"
Zhao Huan picked up the wine cup and took a sip. Yes, that was the taste, 53℃ Erguotou.
The alcohol content of alcohol in the Song Dynasty was very low. Since the Tang Dynasty, a kind of fruit wine introduced from Persia has been popular. This wine can be drunk hot or cold. The hot one is called "Sanle Soup" and the cold one is called "Sanle Jiang".
There is a story in Water Margin about Wu Song not being able to cross the border after three bowls of wine. Zhao Huan was very curious about this and after traveling through time, he tried the Sanlejiang of the Song Dynasty.
The taste is weird, not very good, with a bit of fruity flavor and a faint smell of alcohol. It didn't make me drunk after one glass as I expected, and there was no reaction after I drank it.
Zhao Huan felt that if he could hold his urine, he could drink as much of this so-called "fine wine" as it was, and then go home and sleep after drinking it. With such a low alcohol content, it was not even as good as Rio, a small-time brand in the advertising industry.
Alcohol has always been a profitable business, so Zhao Huan naturally would not miss it. After Zhou Chunfu arrived, Zhao Huan began to work on purifying the high-proof liquor.
In later generations, anyone who has studied junior high school physics knows what distillation and purification are. It is nothing more than a process of mutual transformation between liquid and gaseous states. The professional terms are vaporization and condensation.
It has no real value and is worthless.
Pour the Sanle paste into a large casserole for steaming. Cover the casserole with an even larger iron basin and put ice cubes in the basin to lower the temperature.
The boiling point of alcohol is 78°C, which is lower than the boiling point of water 100°C. This is why alcohol can be purified through evaporation and condensation.
The vapor containing a large amount of alcohol rises and encounters an iron basin with a relatively low temperature, releasing heat and condensing into liquid, which adheres to the bottom of the iron basin. The liquid is then collected through a bamboo tube for purification, thus obtaining a liquor with a higher alcohol content.
Since the alcohol content of Sanlejiang itself is not high and the simple equipment has poor sealing, the air is filled with the aroma of wine during extraction. Therefore, if you want to purify high-proof wine, the consumption of Sanlejiang is also astonishing.
The ratio is about 15 to 1. The price of Sanle juice is barely affordable for ordinary people. If you want to make money, the price must be at least twenty times higher. This will lose 90% of the market in one go.
It was not cost-effective, so Zhao Huan did not promote it on a large scale, but only used it for small-scale entertainment. Scarcity makes things rare, and it also shows the grade and status of the Bianjing Palace.
If you want to make money, you have to brew wine with a higher alcohol content to reduce costs.
The effect of brewing wine from grain is very good, with an alcohol content of about 13°C, but it is too luxurious, so the Song Dynasty strictly limited the annual amount of wine brewed from grain.
Zhao Huan must not take the lead in breaking the rules. Food is the most important thing for people, and wine is not a necessity, it can only be regarded as a change.
Craving for alcohol? Don't we still have Sanlejiang?
Three bowls of wine can make you write a hundred poems, it sounds quite impressive, it's nice to drink some Sanlejiang and brag a lot.
There are two crops with relatively high alcohol content that are brewed directly without purification: sorghum and potatoes.
Vodka is brewed from potatoes. It sounds incredible, but it is true. Zhao Huan even brewed several jars of wine himself and stored them in a winery in Russia.
At this time, in 1127, it would still be several hundred years before Columbus discovered the New World and found the crop potato.
Going to the sea is a must. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, corn, rubber, and cinchona trees are all huge treasures. It has to be said that the American continent is truly blessed by God and is rich in resources.
Many people may not know about the cinchona tree. A drug called quinine can be extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree. This is an effective medicine for treating malaria and can cure the disease immediately.
In the future, the Song Dynasty expanded to the underdeveloped southern region. In the Lingnan area, the weather was hot and humid, and there were many poisonous insects and poisons. The accumulated fallen leaves over the years formed a thick miasma.
Foreigners who are not able to adapt to the local climate may easily suffer from acclimatization problems and may easily develop large-scale infectious diseases, especially malaria. There is no cure for this disease and we can only wait for everyone to die. This disease is hundreds of times more severe than the new coronavirus.
As the saying goes, there is always a nemesis for everything. The nemesis of malaria is quinine, which is the sacred tree that will help the Song Dynasty expand to the south in the future.
With strong liquor, a series of products such as toilet water, perfume, and disinfectant alcohol can be produced. Potatoes are not available for the time being, so Zhao Huan has arranged for the Ministry of Industry to build suitable equipment and create standardized production lines to lay a solid foundation for the future.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
