Chapter 80: Dragon Boat Festival Mashing of the Quarters

As dusk settled over Erlang Beach, the long-silent He family distillery blazed to life with firelight.

The three brothers of the Su family divided the grain mash into bamboo baskets and carried it into the steaming room of the distillery.

Inside stood the heart of the brewery: a large black-glazed steaming cauldron.

In the firebox beneath it, firewood crackled and burst, and the rising heat left a film of dew upon the rafters.

Holding a long-handled wooden ladle, Su Tai spread the grain mash layer by layer into the cauldron, smoothing each layer lightly with a bamboo rake. When the cauldron was filled to about four-fifths, Su Man and Su Lu joined hands to lower the heavy wooden lid, then carefully stuffed the rim’s seams with strips of cotton cloth soaked in water, leaving only the copper steam pipe at the top, slanting toward the cooling vat beside it.

Of course, that was Su Lu’s way of naming things. Su Tai called the steam pipe the dragon’s passage, and the cooling vat the tin kettle. The spout where the liquor flowed out was called the tin kettle’s bull’s nose. Aptly named, indeed.

As the name suggested, the cooling vat was a tin basin half-buried in the ground, filled to the brim with the cold well water just drawn up. The long dragon’s passage coiled through it in a spiral, submerged in the water.

When the water inside the steaming cauldron began to gurgle and boil, steam rushed into the narrow dragon’s passage, trying to flee to freedom. But as it passed through the cold water in the tin vat, it condensed into tiny beads that finally dripped down the bull’s nose into a porcelain bowl.

At first, the liquid that dripped out was cloudy and whitish, and Su Man and Su Lu, being complete amateurs, could not help breaking into a cold sweat, wondering whether the steaming had failed.

But little by little, the liquid flowing from the bull’s nose grew clear and transparent.

Only then did Su Tai carry away the porcelain bowl and pour it out, replacing it with a wine jar to catch the flow.

By then, all three brothers had smelled the fragrance of the wine—far more forceful and heady than when the vat was first opened. Before long, the whole steaming room was thick with rich alcohol fumes.

Brother Chun had a poor tolerance for liquor, and merely smelling it had already reddened his face.

About an hour later, the stream of liquor began to thin. Su Tai caught a little in a bowl, tasted it, and called out, “The tail end is coming out. Stop the fire and remove the steaming vessel!”

~~~

After cleaning up the mess, the three of them carried the jar of collected liquor back to the main hall.

Su Tai first poured out two small cups and placed them before the ancestral tablets of the He brothers.

Then he poured half a bowl of wine.

The three brothers, each holding a pine torch, looked at the new liquor in the black ceramic bowl. Fine bubbles floated on its surface, and in the firelight it looked especially clear and bright.

“Hurry and taste it,” Su Man and Su Lu urged Su Tai.

The two of them could not drink, and neither could drink; only he could be trusted to test the poison.

Su Tai lifted the bowl, smelled it, tasted it, and said nothing for a long while.

“Come on, tell us what it tastes like,” urged the dregs-and-minor pair.

“Savory aroma and charred fragrance are both there. The astringency and sourness are relatively pronounced, and the aftertaste is bitter,” Su Tai said after a long breath. “But that’s how the first distillation usually is.”

“And the liquor flavor?” Su Lu was nearly frantic, almost wishing he could taste it himself.

“Very good,” Su Tai said with a broad smile. “Full on the tongue. It’s proper strong liquor!”

Su Lu slapped his thigh in delight. “Then that settles it!”

“Yes, we did it!” Su Tai nodded hard, his grin so wide it could not be held down even by a millstone.

All they needed was proof that using the broken-sand method, a single fermentation could yield high-proof spirit. As for the taste, whether it needed a second distillation or a further round of fermentation, that was no longer their concern...

“How am I supposed to believe that?” Brother Chun, prideful all his life, could hardly accept such a thing that challenged all his common sense.

He took the bowl and tasted a mouthful, immediately coughing hard from the burn. But there was no doubt at all: it was liquor, and very strong liquor at that...

“Believe it now, believe it now!” the two Su brothers cried excitedly, clasping hands and hopping around the bowl, dragging Brother Chun into their jubilant circle as well.

The next day was the Dragon Boat Festival, and also the day the distillery made its yeast bricks.

The brewing of Kunsa liquor followed the seasons: making yeast bricks on the Dragon Boat Festival and adding the grain on the Double Ninth were the two most important turning points in the process.

As on the Double Ninth, the distillery held a grain-offering ceremony that day as well.

It was the same platform as last year, the same band of flag-bearing youths, only Su Lu and Su Dan were no longer among them.

When the auspicious hour arrived, the band struck up their suona horns, and the elderly clan head, now a year older, and the chief brewer, who looked older by more than ten years, stepped onto the stage with unsteady steps.

Four academy students in white round-collared robes, each wearing a mugwort sachet at the waist and holding a wooden fan painted with ears of grain, followed behind with measured composure.

Su Lu and Su Dan were among the four, taking the places of the two senior students who had already left school.

Once on stage, the four of them began their warm-up dance—well, the "calyx-and-fan dance."

Last year Su Lu had laughed at Brother Chun and the others for dancing poorly; he had not expected it to be his turn this year. And he danced no better than they had, repeating the same few movements over and over, stiff and mechanical as a corpse...

But that did not stop him from feeling rather exalted about it; in fact, he found it almost sacred. When the music changed, he joined the clan elders in singing:

"On the Dragon Boat Festival, at the lucky hour, the field is full of the scent of grain.
With reverence we offer to heaven and earth, and to the ancestral hall.
In white robes we present the ears, in old wine we pour the cup.
We pray for the brewing work, that blessings may endure long."

"Present the wheat! Offer the wheat!" Su Youpeng and the supporting cast cried out.

Then the younger men of the clan came forward carrying six loads of freshly harvested wheat.

Amid the crackle and roar of firecrackers, the clan head and the chief brewer presented the offerings, burned incense, and prayed, leading the crowd in kneeling before heaven and earth.

But this time there was no fat pig, only a dried pig’s head, which looked far more miserly.

When everyone had risen, Su Youpeng once again led the meat-horn group in shouting, "Crush the yeast!"

"The fine essence of grain is condensed, and the marks of the foot cradle spirit. Bare feet match the form, and the spring embryo holds the finest grain." Su Lu and the others sang again.

The laborers crushed the wheat with a stone mill. The women poured the broken but not pulverized kernels into wooden boxes, added water and starter yeast, and mixed them together.

At last they washed their feet clean with clear water, stood barefoot upon the boxes, and kept trampling them over and over. They had to tread for a very long time, until the mass became proper yeast bricks, which could then be wrapped in reed straw and put into storage...

The clan watched for a while, found nothing new in it, and gradually dispersed.

Su Lu, meanwhile, followed the three "dance students" to the chief brewer’s room to receive their reward—less than two catties of cured meat apiece, freshly cut from the dried pig’s head.

"Why is it so little this time?" one of the senior students could not help complaining. "It used to be five catties of fresh pork."

"It is a bit less," the chief brewer, Su Daji, said with a wry smile. "How many catties of meat do you think there are in one dried pig’s head? Make do with it."

"Seventh Uncle, why didn’t we kill a pig this year?" Su Dan asked as well. He was the most frustrated of all; it had only just been his turn to dance, and the pig was already gone.

"Ah, and why else? The distillery has no money," Su Daji said with a sigh. "Your brother and the others still haven’t received wages for the new year. We must save wherever we can."

"All right, then." The students were easy enough to dismiss. After hearing the explanation, they took their dried pork and took their leave, but Su Lu remained behind.

"What is it, Brother Qiu?" Su Daji remained very courteous toward Su Lu. His grandson was still counting on Su Lu to tutor him so he could pass the academy entrance exams.

"Is the distillery in very bad shape?" Su Lu asked softly.

"Yes," Su Daji nodded. "Wine grows harder to sell year by year. How could things be good?"

"Can’t you sell it cheaper?" Su Lu said. "Lower profit, higher turnover. Only by getting the goods moving can you get out of trouble."

"Alas, you don’t understand." Su Daji handed Su Lu a areca nut.

Su Lu waved it away politely.

"Our Phoenix Yeast Method liquor, from the moment we add the grain on the Double Ninth, must go through two rounds of feeding, nine steamings, eight fermentations, and seven extractions of wine. It takes a full year. Then it must be stored in the cellar for another year before it can be sold," Su Daji said, chewing by himself as he sighed. "Do you know how much labor and time that costs? We are already selling at a loss. How much cheaper could we possibly make it?"

"Can’t the cost be reduced?" Su Lu asked again.

"Of course not. Every step is indispensable, or else it would no longer be Phoenix Yeast Method liquor." Su Daji shook his head, losing all interest in the conversation. "If you have nothing else, go back. Study hard, pass the civil service examination, and reclaim the Bright Spring Well. That would be the proper course."

"And if I pass the civil service examination, will our distillery still be there?" Su Lu asked quietly.

"..." Su Daji seemed struck rigid. After a long pause, he said, "Who knows?"

"I have a way to save our distillery," Su Lu said, revealing his hand at last. "I just don’t know whether Seventh Uncle is willing to save it."

"Nonsense!" Su Daji finally showed some life, glaring as he snapped, "I’ve been an apprentice here since I was thirteen. I’m sixty-three this year—that’s a full fifty years! Do you think I don’t want to save it?"

His voice even caught with emotion as he went on, "I dream of bringing our distillery back to life! If anyone could save it, I’d hand over the chief brewer’s post in a heartbeat! I’d be willing to work like an ox and a horse for him!"

"Since that’s so, Seventh Uncle, go speak with my foster mother," Su Lu said.

In a place as tiny as Erlang Beach, the matter of Su Lu taking a foster mother had long since spread everywhere. The clansmen could not help muttering about what exactly was going on with the Sixth Branch—why was it growing ever more entangled with the Cheng family?

Of course, taking a foster mother was nowhere near the same as marrying, so people only grumbled about it behind their backs.

"Mrs. He Cheng, the proprietress of the He Family Distillery, the daughter of Scholar Cheng?" Su Daji frowned slightly. "What would I talk to her about?"

"She has the secret recipe for Erlang liquor," Su Lu said lightly.

"Erlang liquor?" A flash of lightning crossed his heart, and Su Daji’s cloudy eyes instantly became much clearer.

The events of the previous year were still vivid in his mind. He had always held the liquor devised by the He brothers in high regard, and had even once considered making a partnership with the He family.

It was a pity that the elder He had become Scholar Cheng’s son-in-law and would never have cooperated with the Su family. He had not gone looking for humiliation...

Only later had the two He brothers met disaster at sea and died, and no one was left who knew how to brew Erlang liquor.

When Su Daji learned the awful news, he lamented it deeply and regretted not trying to negotiate at the time. If the other side had agreed to cooperate, they could have used the distribution channels the Su family had built over decades, and the two brothers would never have needed to go out and fight for the market themselves. Then the tragedy would never have happened.

But what he regretted most was that the Su family had completely lost its chance to escape its troubles with the help of Erlang liquor: a drink cheap to make, yet still decent in taste.

And now Su Lu was telling him that the proprietress had the secret recipe for Erlang liquor!

How could this not fill him with astonishment and delight?