Traditional Distilling Craftsmanship

Ⅷ-144Traditional CraftsmanshipShehong, 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. Tuopai Qujiu is produced in Shehong County, Sichuan Province, and developed from the spring liquor of the Tang dynasty and the xiejiu of the Ming dynasty. At the end of the Qing dynasty and in the early Republic, the spring liquor brewed by Li Mingfang, owner of the Tai'an Zuofang in Liushu Town, inherited the Ming-dynasty xiejiu technique while introducing qu-liquor production technology, so that it both kept its traditional features and made innovations. In 1951 Tai'an Zuofang was renamed the "Shehong Experimental Distillery", which engaged the Li father and son as consultants, carried on the original craft and technology, and resumed production of Tuopai Qujiu. In 2006 "Tuopai" was granted the title of "China Time-honored Brand" by the Ministry of Commerce, and the Tai'an Zuofang, an important carrier for the transmission of the traditional Tuopai Qujiu brewing technique, was recognized by the National Cultural Heritage Administration as "China Food Cultural Heritage".

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. In the early Qing dynasty the provincial graduate Ma Tianqu was moved to compose the lines "The Tuo spring brews fine liquor, a name honoured for a thousand years", and gave the fine brew the name "Tuopai Qujiu".

The Taian vinegar works and its Chun and Xie wines

The Taian vinegar works in Liushu town kept the Chun and Xie wine methods alive and absorbed outside qu-brewing technique.

The naming of Tuopai wine

The couplet by the scholar Ma Tianqu is taken as the origin of the name Tuopai, joining the river's name to the brand.

See, smell, touch, knead, taste

No instrument governs the process; the brewers judge everything by sight, smell, touch, kneading and tasting.

Artificial pit mud and qu quality standards

Artificial pit mud and standards for qu medicinal materials turned workshop judgement into checkable specification.

The works manager and the old brewers

In 1976 Li Jiashun, as works manager, worked with veteran brewers Yang Jibing and Yue Guangrong to map the whole process.

The 1951 renaming as Shehong Experimental Winery

The old vinegar works became the Shehong Experimental Winery in 1951, with the Li father and son as consultants keeping the old craft alive.

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

In Tuopai Qujiu brewing, from the selection of raw and auxiliary materials to brewing and storage, every stage relies on the brewing technician's "looking, smelling, touching, pinching and tasting" to judge production conditions and carry out operations, and its transmission too is mainly by word of mouth. With a history of more than 1,300 years, the traditional Tuopai Qujiu brewing technique is a typical representative of China's traditional distilled baijiu brewing techniques and has relatively high academic value for research on China's brewing history and the traditional bio-fermentation industry. Li Jiashun (as recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in October 1950, a native of Shehong County, Sichuan Province. A representative inheritor of the traditional distilled-liquor brewing technique (traditional Tuopai Qujiu brewing technique) in the third national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects. A national model worker. In 1976 he became director of the Tuopai Qujiu distillery and, together with veteran technicians Yang Jibing, Yue Guangrong and others, devoted himself to studying the Tuopai Qujiu brewing technique, becoming familiar with and mastering the entire flow, the key links and the important areas of the technique. He was the first in the industry to put forward the idea of ecological management, created the country's first brewing-industry ecological park, and successfully built the Tuopai circular-economy industrial chain, which was listed as a national "Spark Program" project in 2004. He directed or led two national-level and five municipal-level key research projects, among which "Development of a New Process for High-Quality and High-Yield Strong-Aroma Daqu Liquor" won the gold award of the National Science Commission's Spark Science and Technology prize in 1988, and he established "artificial pit mud" and "daqu medicine quality standards", among others.

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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