At night, the West Market gradually became quiet, and the store doors were closed. Gan Lei and Li Wenyu stood in front of the table, staring at Guo Song drawing utensils on paper.
What Guo Song drew was a still. As he drew it slowly, he said: "The recipe I gave you is actually the secret recipe of Jiannan Shaochun. Jiannan Shaochun is also brewed using my method. You can make it yourself."
When you make it in the winery, don’t let the waiters see it.”
Gan Lei and Li Wenyu looked at each other, with surprise flashing in their eyes. Jiannan Shaochun was known as the best wine of the Tang Dynasty and was the royal wine of the palace. One hundred and forty stones were paid as tribute to the palace every year. Its characteristic is that the wine is strong and belongs to the imperial court.
Strong liquor, but no one knows how it is purified. It is the secret of Jiannan Shaochun.
There are also two liquor stores in their liquor store that sell Jiannan Shaochun, but the liquor they sell is the same as that in their shop, selling dog meat on sheep's heads.
"Sister, how do you sell wine in the market?" Guo Song asked.
"A dou of wine sells for 400 yuan, and a jug of wine costs about a pound. If it sells for 30 yuan, the wine costs more than three times. A jug of wine costs a hundred cents. We sell it to a restaurant for 200 yuan a dou. We buy
The price is 150 yuan per dou, which means we earn 50 yuan per dou. After deducting rent and wages, our monthly net profit is about 200 yuan."
"Where are the other stores?" Guo Song asked again.
"The best store is the first one on the left, called Luoyang Chun Liquor Store. Its monthly sales are five times ours. Their main customer is the military."
Guo Song stopped writing and said with a smile: "Speaking of customers, I brought five restaurants to the store today. Sun's Restaurant in Pingkangfang, their owner introduced me to two more, and Uncle An also introduced two to me.
, the wine supply is two hundred dan per month, and Sun’s restaurant alone costs 120 dan per month. I will give the post to senior sister later, and senior sister will go over tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to sign the wine supply contract."
Li Wenyu was overjoyed. She did not dare to tell Guo Song that today three restaurants did not want their supply, resulting in a loss of forty dan per month. Unexpectedly, Guo Song would bring good news in the evening.
She quickly said: "I will deliver the goods early tomorrow morning and go to these five restaurants in the afternoon."
Guo Song glared at Gan Lei and said, "Senior brother, you have to help me. I have to do everything for my senior sister. How can you be so embarrassed to be the shopkeeper in such a hot day?"
Gan Lei rolled his eyes and said, "I'm still responsible for purchasing the goods! You're the hands-off shopkeeper and don't care about anything. How dare you blame me?"
Guo Song was furious, "You damn fat man, I used to do all the foraging in Kongtong Mountain, and you just stayed lazy and slept all day long."
"You two, stop arguing, junior brother, hurry up and draw a picture." Li Wenyu quickly smoothed things over.
Guo Song raised his pen angrily and soon drew the still.
He ignored Gan Lei and said to Li Wenyu: "Our wine is actually rather turbid, with more lees and dregs, so it cannot be sold at a high price. Senior sister, what is the price of sake?"
Sake is different from maki-shu. Mazo-liu can be brewed in just a few months, while sake is brewed in winter and matured in summer. It has the longest storage time, has a clear color, is the best among wines, and is also the most expensive.
Li Bai's poem says: "A golden cup of sake is worth ten thousand dollars." That is to say, a cup of wine is sold for ten thousand dollars.
But that was the price during the Tianbao years, what about now?
Li Wenyu was very familiar with the market and immediately said: "There are several types of sake. The old wine in our store is also sake. It belongs to ordinary sake. In fact, it is the sedimentation of muddy wine. A bucket of wine can be sold for two guan. If it is one of the top ten restaurants in Chang'an,
A dou of sake costs twelve guan, which means a jug of wine costs 1 guan."
"Is there such a big difference?"
"There is basically no difference in quality, but this restaurant is one of the top ten restaurants and has a strong brand name!"
Guo Song nodded, pointed to the drawing and continued: "The vessel I drew is called a wine steamer. It is made of iron. In fact, it can also be made of ceramic or wood. When we boil water, the water will evaporate, right?"
Li Wenyu nodded, she knew this.
"We put the wine in to steam it. The key is to pay attention to the heat and ensure that the water cannot boil, but it is not good if it is too cold. The best temperature is when it is almost bubbling at the bottom of the water. At this time, clear liquid will flow out of the tube. That is not water.
But alcohol."
"What is alcohol?" Gan Lei couldn't help but ask.
Guo Song didn't know how to explain. He couldn't help but glared at Gan Lei again. What did this fat man ask?
Seeing that Li Wenyu was also confused, he could only explain roughly: "It is the essence of wine. The wine we taste is very strong. It will turn into steam first. Before the water boils, the alcohol will turn into
Steam is coming out."
Li Wenyu reacted much faster than Gan Lei. She clapped her hands and said with a smile: "I understand, wine means alcohol and water are mixed together. After heating, the alcohol first turns into steam, so the key to this technology is not to let the water boil.
.”
Guo Song immediately looked at her with admiration. This Li Wenyu is very smart! He immediately understood the core of distillation technology. The core of distilled wine technology is temperature control. The boiling point of ethanol is 78 degrees and the boiling point of water is 100 degrees.
, so you cannot boil the water. Eighty or ninety degrees is best.
Guo Song glanced to the side. The fat man was still looking confused. Guo Song suddenly felt like flowers stuck in cow dung.
Guo Song praised: "Senior sister is absolutely right. I feel that the temperature is best when the water is bubbling. This requires trial and error to slowly find the trick. The most important thing is that you must not let others see it."
Li Wenyu was convinced that this alcohol purification technology was really easy to break. If others saw it, the technology would soon spread.
She suddenly thought of a key point and quickly asked: "How much alcohol can be purified from that bucket of wine?"
"I estimate that a measure of wine can purify a pound of wine."
Li Wenyu was stunned and said after a while: "How much does this pound of wine cost?"
Guo Song laughed and said: "I tasted the real Jiannan Shaochun at Uncle An's. It is also sake, but the intensity is only about 50% higher than the turbidity we sell. The alcohol we purified is five times as strong as the turbidity.
, and it is also clear, but alcohol cannot be sold. The next step is to blend it with ordinary sake and spices. The blended wine is stronger than Jiannan shochu and has a mellow taste. A pot of wine costs at least ten guan."
"Ten passes!" the couple exclaimed at the same time.
Li Wenyu asked anxiously: "Who would buy a bottle of wine for ten dollars?"
Guo Song smiled calmly and said: "Uncle An is an imperial businessman and deals with the royal family all day long. With Uncle An as a channel, are you afraid that you won't be able to sell it?"
Li Wenyu and Gan Lei suddenly realized that Guo Song had been making this idea for a long time.
In fact, blending distilled liquor is not as simple as Guo Song said, but this is the Tang Dynasty, and a little technological progress means huge financial resources.
Guo Song wrote down the process flow with a pen and handed it to the two of them: "I have taught you this purification technology. You can figure it out for yourself. If you really don't understand, come and ask me. When you have successfully purified it, I will teach you how to do it."
It operates some of the finest wines in Changan.”
Li Wenyu took the drawings and flow sheets and said to Gan Lei: "Fat man, accompany your junior brother to the backyard and sit for a while, and I will think about it myself."
Guo Song smiled happily and said: "Senior brother, accompany me to the wine cellar. I haven't been there yet!"
"Let's go! I'll take you there."
The two came to the backyard, and Guo Song opened the door and said to Gan Lei: "Senior Sister Li, I really underestimated her before."
"Her flying is my fall!" Gan Lei was silent for a moment and suddenly said a philosophical word.
Guo Song patted his arm and said with a smile: "Don't be so sad. People's fate is unknown. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?"
"You're right, ten days ago I was still worrying about how to deal with debt collectors, but now I own 30% of a store in West Market, which I would never have dreamed of!"
The backyard is not small, at least hundreds of square meters. There are six rooms built along the wall. In one of the rooms, an oil lamp is lit. An old woman is gently rocking the crib. The child has fallen asleep.
"This old grandma's home is right next to the West Market. She will go back later, and we can take care of the children by ourselves at night."
Guo Song saw that there was a small pier outside the backyard door. He looked out and saw that behind him was the Cao River in the West City. There were no boats in the Cao River at this time and it seemed very quiet.
Gan Lei explained: "All the shops in the West City have docks, and goods are usually purchased by water. There don't seem to be many delivery trucks on Chang'an Road. Now I understand that they are all shipped by water."
Guo Song nodded, closed the back door and said, "Let's go to the wine cellar!"
The wine cellar is just below the shop. Every shop has a cellar. Gan Lei went down the steps with an oil lamp, and Guo Song followed behind him. He saw that the cellars were made of bluestone and were very solid. The area of the wine cellar was the same as that of the shop above.
The same, just much lower, Guo Song needs to lower his head.
The wine cellar is full of large wooden wine barrels, densely packed on wooden shelves. There are at least hundreds of them. It can be seen that they are all quite old. Guo Song patted the barrels and asked, "Are these expensive old wines?"
Gan Lei nodded, "A total of three hundred stones and three hundred large wooden barrels. In fact, what my wife said is not entirely correct. I think Mr. Lu is quite kind."
"Why did you say that?"
"Lu Dong is responsible for the calculation of these wooden barrels. The wine tanks are given to us at the price of new wooden barrels. However, these wine barrels are at least fifty years old and are real aging wine barrels. The wine tanks are also old wine tanks. I have asked
Next door, people say that this kind of aging wine barrel is not available in the market. It can only be found in wine shops and wineries. But which wine shop is willing to sell it? You can only get it when you transfer the shop. The wine shop next door is willing to pay five guan for one.
To purchase our aging wine barrels, these three hundred wine barrels cost fifteen hundred guan!
I just said that the lady is biased against people. Mr. Lu could have sold the old wine barrels and replaced them with new ones. We didn’t know, but Mr. Lu still left them to us. He is a kind man."
Guo Song nodded, "You are right, these old wine barrels have fifty years of sedimentation, and they are the foundation of this wine shop."