Chapter 21: Distilled Wine

"Your Highness, what is this?"

In the old sleeping quarters of the Prince's mansion's middle courtyard, Feng'er and Luan'er stared curiously at the clay jar with a bamboo tube inserted into it.

This place had already been abandoned, and the things inside had been moved to the East Courtyard.

According to Zhao Xu's plan, he would live in the East Courtyard from now on.

Because the East Courtyard had exquisite scenery, complete with gardens, bamboo, and rockeries, it was very suitable for living.

The middle courtyard and the West Courtyard, however, were relatively monotonous.

The West Courtyard would be used mainly as a storage room.

The middle courtyard would have a more significant role, serving as the place for testing every one of his advanced technologies.

"This is called a Distiller."

Zhao Xu said with a smile.

After spending day and night together these past few days, the two of them had become much closer to him.

When Zhao Xu was at leisure, they would attend to him by his side.

After all, Zhao Xu had been insane for three years, and during those three years, he had almost no communication with them.

Now that he had returned to normal and understood many strange and curious things, they found him even more interesting.

And as for the two delicate little maids, Zhao Xu was also very satisfied in his heart.

Even when Zhao Xu was insane, the two of them had been able to maintain their original intentions and had always taken care of the Ninth Prince.

This was enough to show their character.

Furthermore, he was a newcomer, and there were few entertainment activities in ancient times.

Chang Wei was a straightforward man; he would kill a conversation in two or three sentences.

Liu Fu was a sycophant who always said whatever he thought was right, so there was no way to chat with him either.

He could only tease and play with the two of them; they were a feast for the eyes.

"A Distiller?" Feng'er had never heard of it, and she and Luan'er wore expressions of confusion.

Zhao Xu did not explain much, "Just watch from the side, and you will understand in a moment."

Feng'er nodded, while Luan'er obediently went to fetch a chair for Zhao Xu to sit on.

Her eyes remained fixed on Zhao Xu the entire time.

Now, besides being grateful that Zhao Xu had recovered to normal.

She also held an additional feeling of admiration for Zhao Xu.

She and Feng'er had been palace maids in the palace before and were both literate.

They also had some understanding of places like Yanzhou and Yan Commandery.

After arriving in Yan Commandery three months ago, she had lost heart.

In her view, even if the Yan Wang were a normal person, it would be a great fortune to keep his life in a place like Yan Commandery.

Controlling Yan Commandery was almost impossible.

And within a few years, the entire Yanzhou might even fall into the hands of the Northern Di people.

At that time, they and the Yan Wang would just die in this place.

But she had not expected that Zhao Xu would have endless brilliant plans after waking up.

Not only did he first earn a large amount of money and grain, but the Prince's Personal Army had also been established.

This gave her hope, so now, no matter what Zhao Xu did, she was full of anticipation.

"Your Highness, the wine is here." Two servants walked over carrying a Wine Jar.

Seeing this, Zhao Xu stood up and walked over, lifting the oilcloth on the Wine Jar.

"Green Ant Wine." Zhao Xu curled his lips.

The wine brought by the servants could be called the typical White Wine of ancient times.

As the poem says: Green Ant newly brewed wine, red clay small stove.

Because this kind of wine was brewed from grain, the foam formed by the floating impurities was low in alcohol content.

But this was the most commonly drunk wine among the common people of the Great Song.

This time, he was going to distill this Green Ant Wine to obtain a purer, higher-proof White Wine.

After all, he was introducing distillation technology; there was no need to brew the wine himself.

That would be a waste of manpower, material resources, and time.

And after the wine was distilled, the consumer group would mainly be the Rich Clan and the powerful of the Great Song.

The common people of the Great Song were poor and could not afford this kind of wine.

Furthermore, his goal was originally to earn the Silver of the wealthy.

Using the Silver earned from the wealthy to build up his fief and make the lives of the poor better.

"Pour the wine into the clay jar." Zhao Xu instructed personally.

From now on, the task of brewing wine would be the responsibility of these two servants.

However, the corresponding price was that these two servants would lose their freedom and could no longer wander around Yan Commandery at will, lest they leak the technology.

Upon hearing this, the two servants did as they were told.

Then Zhao Xu had them prepare another clay jar and connect the bamboo tube into this jar.

Finally, he lit a fire to heat the bottom of the jar containing the Green Ant Wine.

Because the boiling point of alcohol is 78 degrees, and the boiling point of water is 100 degrees.

So when heated, the alcohol would evaporate first and enter the second jar through the bamboo tube to cool down.

In this way, one could obtain high-proof, pure White Wine.

Half an hour later, when only one-third of the Wine remained in the first jar, Zhao Xu called a halt.

By this time, the alcohol had basically all entered the second cooling jar.

Lifting the lid of the cooling jar, sure enough, a rich fragrance of Wine sprayed out.

"So fragrant..." Feng'er wrinkled her nose and sniffed the air.

The two manservants wore equally infatuated expressions.

Because ancient times lacked entertainment activities, Wine occupied an important function in entertainment.

In the contemporary novel *Dream of the Red Chamber*, there was no one in the Jia household, man or woman, young or old, who did not drink Wine.

Not to mention drinking at banquets, they drank while composing poetry, and even drank to add to the fun while admiring flowers.

In the Great Song, customs were quite similar; everyone knew Wine.

"Do you want to taste it?" Zhao Xu used a wooden ladle to scoop out some White Wine and placed it in front of Luan'er.

Feng'er had the temperament of someone who would climb onto the roof if given a ladder; she didn't need to be invited, she invited herself.

Luan'er was much more docile, so sometimes Zhao Xu would tease her more.

Luan'er shook her head gently, "Your Highness, this servant gets drunk at the slightest touch of Wine; better let Sister Feng drink it, her tolerance for Wine is something even men cannot match."

Zhao Xu looked at Feng'er; this girl was currently licking her lips.

Her delicate little face was full of expectation.

Zhao Xu smiled; in ancient times, women drinking Wine would not be mocked.

Therefore, he did not think of her as a delinquent girl just because Feng'er could drink Wine.

"Feng'er, do you want to drink?" Zhao Xu placed the wooden ladle in front of Feng'er again.

Feng'er had a bold and unconstrained personality and was not shy; she smiled at Zhao Xu and took a small sip.

After savoring it in her mouth for a while, her eyes slowly widened, "The taste of this Wine is truly intense; compared to this Wine, the Wine this servant drank before was nothing but water."

"Really?" Luan'er had been watching Feng'er's expression.

Hearing Feng'er say this, she was both surprised and delighted, and once again looked at Zhao Xu with newfound respect.

Unable to resist her curiosity, she ignored the fact that she could not hold her liquor and took the wooden ladle to have a sip.

"Ah, so spicy, truly good Wine," Luan'er exclaimed in admiration.

The two manservants were also swallowing hard, drooling with craving.

Zhao Xu said, "You two taste it as well, let yourselves have a treat."

"Thank you, Your Highness." The manservants hurriedly grabbed a new wooden ladle to scoop up some Wine to drink.

Following this, two exclamations of praise rang out in succession.

"Your Highness, even the famous Wine from Jingshi, Little Drunken Immortal, is not as pure as this Wine, let alone as intense," the manservant exclaimed in astonishment.

Zhao Xu nodded slightly.

He also tasted a mouthful of the distilled Wine.

The aged rice wine was extremely fragrant and intense after distillation, not losing out to contemporary White Wine in the slightest.

He believed that once this distilled Wine was introduced to the world, it would definitely cause a sensation.

But before that, he had to cause a sensation in Yan Commandery first, and then rake in a fortune from the Rich Clans.

Thinking of this, he told the manservants not to be idle and to continue distilling.

Luan'er had wanted to continue accompanying him.

But as expected, she got drunk at the slightest touch of Wine, so she had no choice but to return to the side room of the East Courtyard with Feng'er.

In one afternoon, the manservants distilled a jar of Wine.

He immediately had people carry it to Dong Shi to let people taste it for free.

He was not being generous, but doing it for publicity; after all, free things are the most attractive, a truth that remains unchanged from ancient times to the present.