Traditional Distilling Craftsmanship

Ⅷ-144Traditional CraftsmanshipChengdu, SichuanBatch 2 (2008)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

In ancient times distilled liquor was called "shaojiu" (burnt liquor) or "chunjiu" (mellow liquor); it evolved originally from low-alcohol rice wine, took shape around the Song dynasty, and has a history of more than eight hundred years. The traditional Shuijingfang brewing technique originated in the Ming and Qing dynasties at the Shuijing Street distillery where the Fu River and the Nan River meet at the east gate of Chengdu, and it has been transmitted down to the present day. Shuijingfang liquor is closely related to "Jinjiang Chun", a famous Shu (Sichuan) liquor brewed on the banks of the Jin River in Chengdu during the Song dynasty.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

In the brewing of distilled liquor, starchy or sugary raw materials such as grains and tubers are first made into fermented mash (unfiltered liquor) or fermented into a cloudy fermented liquid (muddy liquor), which is then distilled into spirits. Distilled liquor is white or slightly yellow and transparent, and is therefore commonly called "baijiu" (white liquor). Its aroma is fragrant and pure, it is smooth, sweet and clean on the palate, and its alcohol content is relatively high, making it a strong liquor. Judged by the raw materials used and the saccharifying and fermenting agents, distilled-liquor brewing involves different techniques using daqu (large qu), xiaoqu (small qu) or fuqu (bran qu). Distilled liquor is made mainly from grain and can be divided into sorghum liquor, maize liquor and other types; sorghum, being high in starch and moderate in protein, is the most suitable for brewing distilled liquor. China's distilled liquor is produced mainly in Sichuan, Guizhou, Henan, Hebei, Shenyang, Jilin, Beijing and other regions, and the formation of its brewing methods is closely related to the local grains (abundant sorghum), climate (cold or humid), water quality and living customs. The traditional Shuijingfang technique has marked characteristics within strong-aroma baijiu brewing: its qu is made mainly from top-grade wheat with sorghum added and roasted, and comes in such varieties as the March "peach-blossom qu" and the midsummer "fuqu" (hot-season qu). In its ingredients it perfectly fuses the features of single-grain and multi-grain liquors; fermentation and distillation use the method of heaping and layering the mash in the original pit; and blending and seasoning bring base liquor stored for many years to a final light strong-aroma style that is "rich but not gaudy, elegant but not weak". Shuijingfang liquor is still brewed today using an ancient pit cluster more than six hundred years old; this is a storehouse of brewing microorganisms, from which the characteristics of brewing microbes and the transformation of brewing techniques can be studied.

Peach-blossom qu and summer qu

Its qu is baked from fine wheat with added sorghum, and it comes in a March peach-blossom variety and a midsummer fu variety, giving the house style its distinction.

Layered stacking in the original pits

Ingredients blend single-grain and multi-grain approaches, while original-pit layered stacking and careful blending give a rich yet restrained light-aroma style.

Working with the six-century-old pit group

Brewing still relies on the pit group over six centuries old, a reservoir of microbes that lets scholars trace both the organisms and the changes in method.

The winery at Shuijing Street

The craft began in the Ming and Qing at a winery where the Fu and Nan rivers meet, and over a millennium the Fushengquan and Quanxingcheng workshops turned out a line of famous wines.

Blending for the restrained style

Blending turns long-aged base wine into a strong-aroma style that is rich yet restrained, even and unostentatious — where years of ageing are as much an ingredient as any.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

By aroma type, distilled liquor can further be divided into sauce-aroma, light-aroma, strong-aroma, rice-aroma, composite-aroma and other types.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Over a thousand years and through generations of transmission, distilleries such as "Fusheng Quan" and "Quanxing Cheng" brought forth new developments and successively brewed famous liquors including Xue Tao liquor, Babai Chun, Quanxing Daqu and Tianhao Chen, of which Shuijingfang liquor is one. Lai Dengyi (as recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1948, a native of Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. A representative inheritor of the traditional distilled-liquor brewing technique (traditional Shuijingfang brewing technique) in the third national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects. As first and second principal researcher he organized and took part in thirteen projects including "Research on the Industrial Production and Application of Esterifying Enzymes — Crude Enzyme Preparations", and he fairly comprehensively summarized the technical characteristics, aroma components and evaluation points of ten aroma types of Chinese liquor. In addition, more than ten industry technical training courses and national vocational-skills assessment courses are held each year, and more than sixteen thousand baijiu technicians have been trained.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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