Liquor Making and Folk Customs in Ancient China 7 Yifang Fang Contents 7.1 Exploring the Origin of Fermented Drinks in Far Antiquity: Archaeological and Anthropological Evidence and Contemporary Technical Analysis ................. 176 7.2 Focusing on Historical Records: Examination of Liquor Making History Materials from a New Perspective ................................................................... 183 7.3 From Agricultural Books to Recipes – Extensive Clustering of Liquor Making to Technological Formation ............................................................... 192 References ....................................................................................... 203 Abstract The ancients worshipped liquor as “heavenly nectar” and “king of medications.” Or in modern languages, the liquor fermentation technique was the same as a cooking technique, extended the digestion process of the human body, expanded the category of food available for choice, optimized the nutrition elements that help absorption and utilization by the human body, and enabled human organs, including digestive organs, to evolve to be healthier and more efficient. This chapter will focus on the stories of our ancestors in the drainage areas of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, including actively learning about mold and yeast; fully processing and using carbohydrates such as paddy, broomcorn millet, and millet; and gradually grasping and improving the liquor making techniques, as well as highlights derived from liquor making in the human history. Keywords Liquor making · Fermented drink · Technical analysis · Agricultural book · Liquor culture · Anthropological evidence Y. Fang (*) School of History and Culture Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 175 X. Jiang (ed.), A New Phase of Systematic Development of Scientific Theories in China, History of Science and Technology in China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7844-1_7 176 Y. Fang We examine the origin and evolution of liquor making in ancient China and the change of relevant folk customs from the perspective of technology history. Such an academic topic is essentially different from the liquor culture people generally talk about. In this paper, we will not repeat the literature, arts, political trickeries, figures, games, and anecdotes related to liquor, but will focus on the stories of our ancestors in the drainage areas of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River actively learning about mold and yeast; fully processing and using carbohydrates such as paddy, broomcorn millet, and millet; and gradually grasping and improv- ing the liquor making techniques, as well as highlights derived from liquor making in the human history. The ancients worshipped liquor as “heavenly nectar” and “king of medications.” Or in modern languages, the liquor fermen- tation technique was the same as a cooking technique, extended the digestion process of the human body, expanded the category of food available for choice, optimized the nutrition elements that help absorption and utilization by the human body, and enabled human organs, including digestive organs, to evolve to be healthier and more efficient. The logic connection between this intensive processing of human food and the development and evolution of the human body has been advocated in the ancient legends of China and confirmed by today’s experimental data in the West. I will start with an analysis of the liquor making technique. 7.1 Exploring the Origin of Fermented Drinks in Far Antiquity: Archaeological and Anthropological Evidence and Contemporary Technical Analysis Just like the birth and evolution of humanity, the emergence of fermented drinks on earth is one of the various achievements of the nature. All lives are created equal. There is no essential difference between the DNAs of humanity, who value them- selves so high, and tiny mold and yeast. They all follow a fundamental principle, which is to maximize the use of natural resources to fully expand their genetic advantages. The alcoholic fermentation process is driven by the need of microor- ganisms for survival and expansion. This secret in biotechnology happened to be discovered by intelligent life under certain historical circumstances. Thence, humans were able to improve the taste and quality of food through the fermentation of microorganisms. Finally, this technique evolved into a major source of invention for various kinds of delicious food. The maturity of the liquor making technique is one of the most typical. An analogy can be made: The use by humans of microor- ganisms to develop primitive biotech such as liquor making, a technique that changes the taste and quality of food, is largely similar to the occurrence and development of agriculture in human society. 1. Alcoholic fermentation is pure nature, and the greatest achievement of humanity is to discover, use, and improve it 7 Liquor Making and Folk Customs in Ancient China 177 As for the origin of fermented drinks, we might as well start with a widely popular foreign fable to unveil a past occurrence of humanity. In autumn, fruits are ripe in the forest, and the monkeys, wild with joy, pluck the fruits in large quantities – so large that they cannot eat them all, and all they can do is to store all the extremely sweet peaches, plums, and pears in a warm, clean rock cave behind the monkey king’s throne. In the days that follow, the monkeys, with their stomachs filled, run around and forget the treasure of the monkey king, until the next year, when food supply does not meet their needs, monkeys with empty stomachs implore the monkey king to do something to fill their stomachs. It is not until then that the monkey king remembers the treasure of sweet fruits behind him, which have turned into a scented liquid. The monkey king sends a little monkey to have a taste. The starving poor thing first sips in fear and eventually devours. At this moment, the monkeys realize it is nectar and jump down to drink it all, until they are drunk and laying around the throne. Through this foreign fable, we can find our ancestors’ understanding of fermented drinks is based on sugar, yeast, and temperature,1 a technique directly derived from the natural environment, which represents the evolution and development of western liquor making techniques, with wine as the main drinks.2 The process is as follows: 1Through archaeological examination of the Dogon tribe in Africa, new evidence for primitive liquor making was found. Women store production materials such as maize in the nature, and the maize will naturally ferment into fine liquor under favorable conditions. The maize is soaked in water to sprout, and the sprout is grinded, cooked and filtered. On the morning of the day they go to the market, yeast is added to turn sugar into alcohol. Around almost 1 PM, the fermented liquor is drinkable, while the alcoholic content is modest. By sunset, most of the liquor will have been consumed, and many villagers return home drunk. However, as long as there is one drop of liquor left, some villagers will linger around the market, passionately participate in increasingly heated discussions and won’t return home until midnight. By Stephen Payne. Translated by Fei Gao: Xi Fei Jia Mian Wu Zhe: Duo Gong Bu Luo (《西非假面舞者:多汞部落》), Huayi Publishing House, 2005, p.160. 2Roman politician, orator, historian and agriculturist Marcus Porcius Cato, a.k.a. Great Cato (234– 149 A.D.) detailed in the work De Agri Cultura the wine making process in Europe in his time, and this technique was confirmed in Chapter 54 of the famous work De Agricultura by another Roman scholar Varro (116–27 A.D.). “(Section 23) It is necessary to make preparations for harvesting grapes. On rainy days, the vessels should be brushed, baskets should be repaired and barrels needed should be coated with naphtha; baskets should be purchased and repaired, flour should be grinded and salt fish is purchased to salt the olive fruit blown off. Hybrid grapes should be timely harvested, and premature grapes picked should be harvested for drinking by the workers. Dry grapes are cleanly and evenly placed in the barrels. When necessary, one quarter of grape juices should be added to new wine, and the grape juices added should be made from grapes that have not been stepped upon, or one and a half pounds of salt are added into a Kuras of wine. If you add marble powder, one pound is added for one Kuras of wine; you should place it in the water pot, mix it with grape juices and place it into the barrel. To add rosin, you need to grind it into pieces, add three pounds for every Kuras of wine, then put it into the basket and hang the basket in the grape juice barrel; keep shaking it to dissolve the rosin. Once heavy wine or marble powder or rosin is added, it should be often stirred in 20 days and squeezed every day. The second grade grape juices squeezed for the second time should be sorted and evenly added to the respective barrels. (Section 24) Greek wine should be made in the following way. Fully mature Apizius grapes are harvested, and two Quadrantols of sea water or one bucket of pure salt is added for each Kuras of grape juices. If pure 178 Y. Fang High glucose fermentation substrate + yeast + external environment ⇨ ethanol However, the above three elements cannot explain China’s liquor making tech- nique, i.e., the technique used by ancient Chinese that relies on non-glucose raw materials such as grains to make fine liquor. A key difference is that ancient Chinese must transform grains such as millet and paddy into yeast substrates with high glucose content and acquire nectar by transforming the glucose into ethanol. This is the so-called two-step fermentation process. According to the latest archaeological evidence, around 8000–9000 years ago, ancient Chinese were beginning to use low-sugar carbohydrates to make fermented drinks.