Since the ancients also enjoyed drinking distilled liquor, they tried producing liquor after their sugar production became more established.
“Since Uncle Village Head likes this kind of wine, feel free to drink it. When I run into the wine seller later, I’ll buy you a few more jugs,” Zhao Xian said with a smile.
"Forget it, this wine must be expensive, I can't afford it."
"I'll cover the cost of the liquor, Uncle Village Head, don't worry."
"That won't do either. I'll only drink wine that you produce yourself."
"That's easy. That day I met that wine seller and bought the winemaking recipe. With the recipe, we can produce this wine."
Zhao Xian began to consider brewing wine. The wine produced by the ancients was similar to today's yellow wine or rice wine. As long as these wines were distilled, today's baijiu could be obtained. From a production technology point of view, it should not be difficult.
"Okay, I'll wait for you to produce good wine. Then I'll work for you. I'll be happy just to smell the aroma of the wine every day."
At this time, the craftsmen arrived one after another, and Zhao Xian asked:
"If anyone has extra firewood, sell it to me. I buy it in bulk for ten coins a load. It must be dry firewood."
The crowd gasped in surprise. This price for firewood was already quite high. You have to understand that when the villagers carried a load of firewood to town, they could only sell it for seven or eight coins. It was both time-consuming and laborious to go back and forth.
If the scholar's family could buy firewood regularly, a laborer could easily carry three or four loads of firewood a day, which was better than carrying sacks at the dock, where even working himself to the bone would only earn him thirty coins a day.
"Scholar, I have firewood at home. When I go home for lunch, I'll have my son bring it over."
“I have some too, I’ll bring them over when I have some free time at noon.”
"Scholar, my family doesn't have much firewood. After the workshop is built, I'll go to the mountain to collect firewood. Will you still buy it?" The person who didn't have any firewood felt it was a great pity. If he had known it was like this, he would have asked his family to collect more firewood.
"Don't worry, once the workshop is built, we will be buying firewood in large quantities on a long-term basis."
Now that's great! I can go up the mountain to collect firewood in my spare time, which gives me another way to make money.
Everyone immediately became more enthusiastic and had more energy to work.
The foundation of the workshop has been laid, and the next step is to build the walls. The adobe bricks are large and thick, and as long as there are enough people, the construction speed is very fast. In no time, the walls built are half a person high.
Zhao Xian needs to hurry up and make the filtration and distillation equipment, and install it before the adobe walls are built.
With that in mind, he gave some instructions to the village head and then went to a blacksmith shop.
When the blacksmith saw that it was the scholar, he quickly stopped what he was doing.
Some time ago, Zhao Xian made a waterwheel, which made several carpenters in the village a lot of money. Today, the scholar came to his blacksmith shop, not knowing what he wanted to make.
"Scholar, you've arrived. What can I do for you?" the blacksmith greeted him warmly.
Zhao Xian took out several blueprints and handed them to the blacksmith. These were heating devices for filtration and distillation. The filtration device was relatively simple to make, but the heating device for distillation was much more complicated.
The main principle of this device is to circulate and heat the filtered sugar water. The steam generated during heating then heats the sugar water a second time. In this way, while ensuring continuous distillation of the sugar water, the syrup is prevented from burning.
Because of the circulating heating, a large number of sugar crystals can be produced at once. These crystals are then put into a crushing device for crushing, resulting in finer and higher-quality sugar.
Zhao Xian had another consideration in designing this equipment: by modifying it, it could be used for brewing. The principle of brewing is to distill low-alcohol beverages into high-alcohol spirits.
He can hire two groups of workers to produce sugar during the day and liquor at night, thus making full use of the equipment and reducing costs.
The blacksmith studied the blueprints for a while. Although he didn't know what these iron contraptions were for, for an experienced old blacksmith like him, making these devices was no problem.
"How long do you think it will take to manufacture these devices? I still need to install them," Zhao Xian asked.
The blacksmith thought for a moment and said, "If I were to forge this by myself, with the help of my two apprentices, it would probably take three days. If the scholar is in a hurry, then I will ask someone to help, but it will still take at least a day and a half."
"Okay, that's settled then. You can bring the equipment over tomorrow afternoon and install it for me."
"I don't even know what this equipment is for, so how am I supposed to install it?" The blacksmith was getting a little anxious.
"Don't worry about that. I'll guide you from the side. Just follow my instructions. Installing these devices is hard work, so you'll need to bring a few more people with you."
"Alright, I'll speed things up and try to deliver it by noon tomorrow." The blacksmith breathed a sigh of relief.
"Take a look at how much these cost. Once the equipment is installed, I'll pay you."
The blacksmith calculated carefully for a while, then looked at Zhao Xian.
"Iron is too expensive now. This much iron will cost at least five taels of silver. In addition, I need to ask other blacksmiths in the village to help me. I will also need a lot of charcoal to work with. So you can give me six taels of silver."
Zhao Xian couldn't help but sigh. After deducting the cost, so many people worked for a day and a half, plus another half day for installation, taking a full two days, and they still didn't earn a single tael of silver. It seems that the lives of ancient craftsmen were also very difficult.
"Alright, it'll be six taels of silver as you said. I'll also pay you one tael of silver for installation, making it a total of seven taels of silver."
Zhao Xian felt that paying six taels of silver was indeed a bit too little, so he paid the blacksmith an extra tael of silver under the pretext of paying for installation.
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
