Editor's note: In 1930, Zhou Shaocheng, who came from a family of traditional Chinese medicine, founded the "Drunken Qunfang" winery. On the basis of the ancestral Chinese herbal medicine recipe, he selected more than 100 kinds of Chinese herbal medicines, synthesized "Hundred Flavors", and made special wine koji, and later through repeated comparison and tasting with Huamao, Wang Mao, Lai Mao, etc., he brewed the world-famous wine of "Kaiju Half City Fragrance", which was praised by wine lovers at that time as "An Mao", which is today's "AnJiu". As the underpinnings of "Guizhou's two major historical wines", Anjiu must start from this time.
Until middle age, Zhou Shaocheng will still remember the year when he was 18 years old, he opened a wine shop in the war-torn era.
It was 1930, and the Central Plains had the largest warlord melee in the history of the Republic of China. Guizhou, thousands of miles away from the Central Plains, has also experienced turmoil. Zhou Shaocheng, a teenager from Zunyi, Guizhou Province, was arrested two years ago and placed under the warlords as a soldier.
The world outside the barracks is alternated between old and new, and when the old rules decay, there are things that come to life. Born in a chaotic world, Zhou Shaocheng, like many people, hopes to find stability and tranquility under order.
At the age of 18, he left the battlefield and entered the cellar. At that time, the young Zhou Shaocheng did not expect that he would brew a bottle of world-famous wine.
"Anmao" opens and the fragrance of half the city wafts
In 1930, Zhou Shaocheng left the army and barely survived by running a small tobacco and alcohol shop.
At that time, Guizhou was full of spirited shochu, and many local liquorries were lined up, and the cellars were sealed. Zhou Shaocheng took out all his savings, bought a barbecue and became a winemaker.
Like other wineries, Zhou Shaocheng used the process of fermenting folk koji medicine, but then found that the cost was too high and it was difficult to form a difference. Therefore, Zhou Shaocheng, who came from a family of traditional Chinese medicine, deliberately rushed back to his hometown of Zunyi to find a "new medicine" for the winery.
Zhou Shaocheng, founder of "Anmao" (1912-1963)
At the suggestion of his uncle's elders, he decided to add more than 100 kinds of Chinese herbs such as tianma, eucommia, guizhi, cinnamon, red poria, white poria, dang ginseng, goji berries, sanqi and so on, on the basis of the secret recipe for making koji, to synthesize "Baiwei San", crush it and mix it with wheat bran to make special koji medicine. Zhou Shaocheng's family recalled that when the Zhou family took the initiative to hand over the secret recipe to the state, the name of the Chinese herbal medicine on the secret recipe alone was written on several pages.
After that, Zhou Shaocheng repeatedly tasted Huamao, WangMao, Laimao and other Mao wines and modified the formula.
On the day of the opening of the altar, the aroma of wine spread out of the wine house, and the villagers in various streets and alleys came looking for incense, which can be called "kaiju half a city incense", and Zhou Shaocheng's wine house was greatly famous. And this bottle of wine, known as "Anmao", is on a par with Huamao, Wangmao, and Laimao.
The wine is full of stale tastes, and the rich aroma of the cellar is not only the inheritance of traditional craftsmanship, but also the unique innovation. Between the old and the new, "Anmao" became famous overnight.
"You can't open the cellar and the altar for a moment"
Zhou Shaocheng's winery is famous, but the production capacity has not kept up, and often the brew is not sold. However, Zhou Shaocheng has not relaxed on quality. Zhou Shaocheng set the rules: in the fermentation process, you can't open the cellar for a moment; In the process of aging, the altar cannot be opened for a single moment.
At that time, "Anmao" used the traditional winemaking method of Maojiu, using locally produced grains such as sorghum as raw materials. And the use of local water quality of the best well water, at that time the waterway is inconvenient, the winery people shoulder to shoulder, but also to ensure water quality.
Binocular well
The grain is soaked, washed, filtered, put into the box, steamed until it is cooked thoroughly, opened, fermented for 24 hours, and then mixed well with the bad of the previous cellar and the homemade "Baiwei San" koji medicine, and then waited for more than 100 days to bake the wine, and then aged for a year and a half before being bottled and sold.
At this time, "Anmao" has long been in short supply, but Zhou Shaocheng still follows the law of winemaking. Zhou Shaocheng's descendants recall that at that time, some people also persuaded Zhou Shaocheng not to be so rigid. However, Zhou Shaocheng always insisted that "in the process of aging, you can't open the altar for a single moment." At that time, zhou Shaocheng had more than a dozen workers eating and living together, and in addition to the generous remuneration, Zhou Shaocheng would also slaughter pigs and sheep every week and open meat for the workers. The workers did not worry about eating and drinking, and concentrated on the winemaking process.
In 1948, Zhou Shaocheng also invited several senior winemakers from Zunyi, and increased the number of workers, expanded the production of "Anmao", further launched the name of "Anmao", attracted countless official celebrities, merchants and merchants competed to pick cups.
"Buy wine, a carriage and a carriage"
According to records, Zhou Shaocheng brewed "Anmao" through the cellar wine process, rewriting the history of the local no cellar wine. As a result, major industrial and commercial households have been introduced, sold throughout the province, and sold to Yunnan, Southeast Yi, Taiwan and other places through the Kunming business.
The Gu family in Guizhou, which once had the reputation of "one door and three middle committees, the first in the world", has a special love for "Anmao". The Gu family has three brothers, Gu Zhenglun, Gu Zhenggang, and Gu Zhengding, who served as a government official at the same time in 1935.
The three brothers of the Gu family and Zhou Shaocheng have been neighbors for many years, influenced by their fathers, and they love to drink "Anmao". Therefore, after taking office, Gu Zhenglun also sent someone back to his hometown to purchase "Anmao".
Zhou Shaocheng's family clearly remembers that the older generation once told them that although the three brothers of the Gu family were all in important positions and lived in Guiyang or Nanjing, they never forgot "Anmao". Whether it is self-drinking or banqueting, "Anmao" is the "special wine" on the Gu family's table.
The Gu family of "one door and three middle committees" is particularly fond of "Anmao"
The traces of "Anmao" in history are not only here. In 1942, China's last road to the outside world, the Burma Road, was cut off. Some troops went to the China-Myanmar border to repair the highway.
Because Guizhou is located on the main road of communication from the interior to the Burma Highway, some officers and men of the army are briefly stationed not far from "Anmao". Slowly, they also tasted the "Anmao" of "Kaiju Half City Fragrance", which was particularly favored. According to Zhou Shaocheng's family, their demand for "Anmao" "requires a carriage and a carriage every day."
From the traditional Chinese medicine, soldiers, to winemakers, combined with Chinese herbal medicine to brew the "Anmao" of "Kaiju Half City Fragrance", Zhou Shaocheng and his brewed "Anmao", so that Guizhou Anjiu, one of the "two major historical wines in Guizhou", has a clear historical context and a thick historical accumulation, and guides Guizhou Anjiu to write the legend of the wine industry step by step in the later historical development process.
History is the story of "Anmao" seal carving, which also gives it a new connotation. After the founding of New China, the long-known "Anmao" and the local Limin Distillery jointly operated with the public and private enterprises to establish the state-owned An Distillery. Zhou Shaocheng was entrusted with a heavy responsibility, specializing in the quality control, blending, tasting and other work of the distillery.
At this time, Zhou Shaocheng, who had left the barracks for twenty years, saw not only the prosperity of the winery business, but also the arrival of an era of stability. After all, no matter how the times change, people's pursuit of a stable life is the unchanging theme of the times.