Text | On Yun Xuan
Edit | On Yun Xuan
Presumably everyone has seen such a scene in film and television dramas, one person shouted "Xiao Er, bring the wine", and then began to drink, it was a jar of drinking, and he didn't get drunk even after a few jars.
Such a scene is surprising, if you convert it to the current degree of wine, compared to a jar, people would have been drunk a long time ago, and they would definitely not be so sober.
So, what was wine like in ancient times, why did there be a scene of a thousand glasses not getting drunk, and how many degrees would it be now?
In the long course of history, wine culture has been deeply rooted in our culture and has become an inseparable part of our culture.
There is Li Bai's "I am drunk and sleepy, and the Ming Dynasty intends to hold the qin", reflecting his otherworldly maniac demeanor, and Du Fu's "Chongyang drinks wine in a cup alone, and climbs the river to the stage while sick" The helplessness of the displacement of relatives.
There are also Wu Song who drank more than a dozen jars of wine on Jinggang Mountain, but he was already able to beat the tiger with his bare hands, especially Wu Song's amount of alcohol is admirable, and he still has excellent strength after drinking so much wine.
Such scenes seem to be uncommon, and it is common to see ancient people drinking wine and eating meat, sometimes drinking wine for an afternoon, or even holding a jar and pouring it directly into their mouths.
However, "a thousand cups are not drunk" is just an adjective, not that the ancients were really very capable of drinking, they also abided by a certain wine table culture, and even used it with some hangover food.
In the concept of the ancients, going out to drink is a way to connect with feelings, a little fun in life, and it is not necessary to drink to the extent that you are not drunk and do not return.
And the ancients seemed to have a larger amount of alcohol than modern people, and the reason for this is very simple, that is, the degree of ancient wine is not the same as that of modern wine, and it cannot be compared.
The lowest degree of liquor is 18 degrees, and the highest degree has reached 78 degrees, according to the current standard, liquor is divided into four grades, which are low, medium, high, and extra-high.
The degree of liquor made by the ancients is far lower than that of today's liquor, so if the ancients wanted to get drunk, it means that they need to drink more wine, and the ancient people's winemaking technology has undergone many developments and changes, and the degree of wine is constantly changing.
The main reason why ancient people didn't seem to be drunk is that the degree of ancient wine is not high, at best, it is about the same as the degree of our current fruit wine, which can also be said to be a drink with a slight taste of wine.
Therefore, the degree of such wine is far from being compared with the present, even if it is a better quality wine, at most it is about the same as the current low-alcohol wine, far less than the current degree of ordinary liquor.
The reason for this is because of the lack of wine-making technology, although continental wine appeared very early, the earliest can be traced back to the late Paleolithic to the early Neolithic.
After entering the Xia Dynasty, our ancestors had initially mastered the technology of winemaking, and according to the winemaking technology at that time, they could successfully brew rice wine and turbid wine.
At that time, people had already mastered the method of making sake with koji, which was mainly made from grains, and the koji added was actually a microorganism obtained from the mold of the grain, which could convert the starch in the grain into alcohol.
According to expert analysis, the ancients inadvertently discovered that such a method can make delicious drinks, so on this basis, they continued to experiment and improve, and finally obtained the most suitable koji for sake brewing.
In the Qin and Han dynasties, the technology of using koji to make wine was vigorously developed, and people at that time gradually mastered a variety of methods of making koji, and wine gradually entered the homes of ordinary people.
There is a detailed record in the "Qi Min Yaoshu" how the ancients made koji, which can be said to have made a great contribution to the development of wine after the mainland.
However, this method also has certain shortcomings, that is, it cannot separate the impurities well, so the wine obtained is naturally not clear enough, such wine is called turbid wine or rice wine, and the degree of natural wine is not high, and it is more than 4 degrees.
In modern terms, this kind of wine can't be called wine at all, at most it is just a drink that contains a little alcohol, and such a thing is naturally not easy to get drunk no matter how much you drink.
In the Tang and Song dynasties, liquor had become an indispensable part of people's daily life, so the brewing technology at this time was further developed, and the production of koji was more refined.
So at this time, the degree of better quality wine can reach about ten degrees, and the color of the wine is brighter, but the price of this high-quality wine is naturally more expensive, and ordinary people can't drink it, so there are not many scenes of natural drunkenness.
The Yuan Dynasty is a very important dynasty in the history of mainland wine culture, and the quality of the wine of the Yuan Dynasty has made a qualitative leap, and the degree of wine has also risen.
In the late Tang Dynasty, distillation technology was introduced to the mainland, and the large-scale application of distillation technology to winemaking was still in the Yuan Dynasty.
The liquor made using this technique is also called distilled spirit, and it is very popular among the Mongols because it has a higher alcohol content and is stronger.
At this time, there were also more and better wine-making methods, plus the people of the Yuan Dynasty had learned to use sorghum to make wine, and the taste of the wine was better, so slowly sorghum wine was also recognized by people.
The people of the Ming Dynasty were more fond of fermented wine, so the wine obtained by fermentation using koji returned to the mainstream market, and at this time there were many types of wine on the market, and the taste of good wine was better, and the degree could reach more than 20 degrees.
At this time, people are no longer in a state of "a thousand cups not drunk", even if it is an ordinary wine, there are about ten crosses, but it is naturally not comparable to now.
Although the alcohol content of ancient wine is not too high, this does not mean that the quality of the wine is not good, and there are many wines with different effects, such as chrysanthemum wine and lamb wine.
The main raw material of chrysanthemum wine is made of chrysanthemum and glutinous rice, the taste is slightly sweet, and the effect of removing liver fire is clearly visible, which is deeply loved by everyone, and its degree is only about 8 degrees, which is deeply loved by everyone.
So even if you drink such a wine on a jar, you will not get drunk at all, at most it is just a little top, plus in ancient times, the wine pot was not big, and the utensils used by the ancients to drink wine were small wine cups, so the weight of a pot of wine is not much.
Like in "Water Margin", the wine drunk one after another is generally not high, after all, the price of wine with a high degree is relatively expensive, and the vast majority of it can only be drunk by the rich, and the wine that ordinary people drink is still a relatively low degree of turbid wine.
In addition to the fact that the alcohol content itself is not high, there is also a very important reason, that is, many dynasties in history have issued alcohol bans, and people are not allowed to make wine privately.
Some dynasties are not even allowed to plant grains for winemaking, such as the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered a ban on alcohol, "folk liquor making fees, so the ban on alcohol"
Because it is easy to cause waste by using a large amount of wine, the people are not allowed to make wine privately, so that ordinary people can only buy and drink wine, and the price of wine is naturally high.
In the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, there was also a ban on alcohol, which also caused a lot of turmoil, the reason for the ban on alcohol is that winemaking is a very waste of food, and it is such a ban, but also rare to make Shanxi Fenjiu appear on the fold.
Ordinary people have no extra money to buy alcohol, and it is good to be able to take care of their own family's life, and such a ban has also reduced the occurrence of drunkenness to a certain extent.
There is a big difference between ancient and modern winemaking technology, the degree of fermented wine in ancient times was not high, at the beginning, it was four or five degrees, even if distillation technology was used, the degree of wine could not be compared with the present.
So it seems that the ancients were very good at drinking, which is not surprising, because what they drank was at best a "drink", but it is still a reminder that alcohol hurts the body a lot, and it is better to drink less.