不管咱喝不喝酒，酒量大不大，但多多少少都会接触到酒局。 It is inevitable that the wine will be talked about at the wine table, and knowing the knowledge of wine, you will be able to talk about wine. After all, knowledge always exudes charm.
酒的分类
There is a lot of wine in the world, we have drunk beer, rice wine, white wine, red wine, foreign wine and so on.
From the process point of view, it can be divided into:
- 1. Fermented wine
principle:
Yeast ferments substances containing starch and sugar to form alcohol.
peculiarity:
Fermented wines are low-grade wines. Because yeast is not easy to survive in an alcohol level of more than 15 degrees.
For example: beer, rice wine, wine.
- 2. Distilled spirits
principle:
The boiling point of alcohol is lower than that of water, alcohol and other aromatic substances evaporate before water, and the fermented stock solution is heated, vaporized, and cooled, and strong distilled liquor with a higher alcohol content can be obtained.
For example: brandy, whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, Chinese liquor (the world's top six distilled spirits).
- 3. Prepare the wine
Herbs and spices are added to finished sake or edible alcohol to form alcoholic beverages.
For example: bamboo leaf green, jinjiu, wild grid, etc.
中国白酒历史演变
Twelve aromas of wine:
Sauce flavor type, strong flavor type, clear fragrance type, rice flavor type, phoenix flavor type, medicinal flavor type, concurrent fragrance type, special fragrance type, soy sauce type, sesame flavor type, old white dry type, rich tulip type.
Baijiu is not a sudden invention, and the aroma type is not innate, but combines the characteristics of local water and soil, and evolves little by little through the improvement of the process.
Let's take a look at the changes and development of fragrances from a historical perspective.
- Fragrance type
Shanxi is the beginning of modern Chinese liquor, since the Beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Shanxi Liquor has made many innovations and laid the foundation for the development of liquor.
First, sorghum was chosen as a raw material. Second, the innovative burial of clay pots in the ground is a very, very important initiative. Because the ground temperature is more gentle than the room temperature change, it is conducive to the control of fermentation temperature, in the early stage of fermentation, it can limit the temperature rise of wine too quickly, avoid excessive acid amplitude, and the yield is too low. In the later stages of fermentation, it can help reduce the temperature of the wine mash and maintain an extended esterification stage, which is conducive to the formation of aromatic substances. The fragrant liquor was released in Fenyang, Shanxi, with the rise of Jinshang, and quickly spread throughout the network.
- Phoenix-scented type
The use and evolution of the cylinder is an important clue to the evolution of the aroma of liquor. Because the cylinder was very valuable in that period. The Shaanxi people inadvertently discovered that the cylinder could complete the fermentation when it was broken, and eventually replaced the cylinder with a mud cellar. At this point, baijiu has taken a very important step forward, from the tank to the cellar.
But the wine that comes out of this and the fermentation in the tank is compared to the miscellaneous taste, that era did not understand microorganisms, now we know that as long as there is mud where there will be caproic acid bacteria and acetate bacteria, it will produce ethyl caproate and ethyl acetate, these two ingredients are the main aroma of the aromatic wine, but Shaanxi people are still bent on pursuing the flavor of the fragrance type, thinking that the bacteria brought by these soils are very annoying, so the Shaanxi people have come up with a way to destroy the cellar, every year the mud of the cellar is dug up a layer in the addition of new soil to rebuild the cellar, Try to avoid bacteria in it to recuperate and grow the team. This is the technical characteristics of Shaanxi Fengxiang wine. At this point, another large version of liquor followed the Shaanxi people from the tank to the cellar.
- Fragrant type
During the reign of Ming Hongzhi, the salt law was reformed. Some of the large salt merchants, mainly Shanxi merchants, moved to Yangzhou, and some Shaanxi merchants with relatively weak strength signed in to Sichuan. As a result, the evolution of liquor was divided into two routes, which developed into the Lianghuai region and Sichuan respectively.
Go to this branch in the Lianghuai area, because it is a Shanxi person, bring or Shanxi fragrant liquor fermentation tank, so the Jianghuai area until the Qing Dynasty or do fragrant liquor, and later also because of the cost reduction, while improving production efficiency, began to dig a mud cellar to replace the cylinder, and gradually evolved into a strong fragrance type. However, the process and Shanxi's fragrant type are still in the same vein, for example, Shuanggou wine uses the fragrant old Wujiu process, the raw materials are in addition to sorghum, wheat, as well as barley and peas, and Fenjiu is the same.
Let's go to this branch of Sichuan, because it is Shaanxi people who went to bring Shaanxi mud cellars and cellar destruction Dafa, but Sichuan is more warm and humid than Shaanxi, and the sun cannot be seen several times a year, even if you do a cellar destruction Dafa every day, the warm climate still makes the microorganisms breed wildly, and they can't finish digging, and at the same time, the wine also has a richer aroma, it is actually a miscellaneous taste, and slowly Sichuan people get used to drinking, fall in love with this miscellaneous aroma, and then simply do not dig the mud cellar. Over time, the mud cellar has become a valuable asset of Sichuan liquor, and to this day it will be divided into different product grades according to the year of the cellar.
In summary, the strong fragrance type is also divided into two factions, one is the Sichuan school represented by Luzhou Laojiao, Wuliangye, and Jian Nanchun. The other is the Jianghuai faction represented by Shuanggou, Yanghe, and Gujing. Sichuan is warm and moist, resulting in a unique Sichuan wine style, with prominent cellar aroma and thick sauce. In the Jianghuai region of the Huai River Basin, the hills are undulating, the rain is windy, the average annual humidity and temperature difference are much larger than in Sichuan, and the microbial content in the air is less than that in Sichuan, which creates a light and soft taste of wine produced by the Jianghuai school.
- The history of Moutai wine
Let's talk about Moutai wine alone.
Salt merchants in Shaanxi traded from Sichuan to Moutai Town in Guizhou, which was originally just a small fishing village along the Chishui River, just like Hong Kong, but later because of the turnover of salt transportation, it gradually formed the Renhuai Port of Sichuan Salt sold to Guizhou. During the Xianfeng period, the salt merchant surnamed Guo in Qishan County, Fengxiang Province, Shaanxi Province, invited Shanxi technicians to imitate the method of Fenjiu and Xifeng liquor to operate and produce, and in the following 200 years, they received the practice of Southern Xiaoqu Wine, and formed a unique set of process operations.
Guizhou plateau mountainous, known as eight mountains and one water and one field, everywhere is stone, do cellar ponds, digging pits can not find a place, but there is sand by the river, the disadvantage is that the digging collapsed, so Guizhou people use local stones to strengthen the four walls, retain a mud bottom, this is what we see now stone wall mud bottom. In addition, people have not forgotten the tradition of destroying the cellar in Shaanxi, but the stone pool wall cannot be dug up and pasted with another layer, so every year in the cellar pool is burned with charcoal and all the microorganisms are burned to death. There is not enough grain on the local ground, so it is fed twice, first into the sorghum that matures under the mountain, and then again after the sorghum on the mountain is ripe. The local red tassels, thick sorghum skin, not cooked, starch can not be used at one time, just make more than a few times. So I carried out six fermentations without adding new grains, a total of nine times of steaming, eight times of fermentation, seven times of taking wine, and finally there was sauce-flavored liquor. This is the 12987 process of sauce that everyone knows now.
- Other fragrances
In addition to the rice flavor type that develops independently without sorghum, the other eight aroma types of the 12 aroma types of Chinese liquor are all cross-complementary.
To sum up, the aroma development of Chinese liquor is formed by the change of fermentation vessels and the gradual evolution of local terroir characteristics.