Camper English's Blog, page 51

A Visit to the Luzhou Laojiao Baijiu Distillery in China

I lied in the title of this post. It should be called "A Visit to One of the Luzhou Laojiao Baijiu Distilleries," because they operate 36 of them! If you haven't been following along on my series of posts about baijiu, here are the ones I've done so far: 

Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits

Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production

Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation

Baijiu Backgrounder: A Brief History Lesson

Repetitive and Continuous Fermentation and Distillation in Baijiu

The last post was the first real introduction to "strong aroma" baijiu, which is the specialty of Luzhou Laojiao. I'll touch on it again on this one. 

Luzhou Laojiao makes the flagship 1573 baijiu, aka National Cellar 1573.  They also make the new product Ming River Baijiu that was developed for the export market. I visited the distillery on behalf of Ming River. 

Luzhou, the city, is located along the Yangtze River in the Sichuan Province. 

 

We flew in from Beijing, passing over the most magnificent dramatic mountain scenery. I took about 100 photos on the plane ride over the three or so hours. It looked like the below photo for about 80% of the flight. Majestic.  

 

The first distillery we visited, which is the one open to the public, has been operating since 1573. They say the city grew up around the distillery and I can definitely see that - the facility seemed tucked around a corner in the heart of the city with a highway nearly running over it, yet somewhere on-site they had additional workshops (distilleries) and an aging cave cut into the hillside.

 

This is the visitor's center and cafe.  The highway is to the top left. 

The part of the facility open to tours is a huge warehouse. Tours walk around two sides of it, watching production below through glass windows. In this facility, everything is done by hand. With 36 distilleries to choose from, naturally the company allows tours only of the oldest - more modern machinery is used at others. 

As you can see in the below pictures, the room is covered with mud mounds and central pot stills. The mud mounds are all actually square pits dug into the ground. They're filled with grains and qu (yeast, mold, and bacteria) and ferment as solids in the pits. They're filled to overflowing so that they look like mounds, then covered with a layer of mud to seal them. 

The mud on top of the pits is sprinkled with some distillate (probably tails) to keep it moist, and thus sealed against oxygen so that the fermenting grains don't turn into vinegar. As mentioned in a previous post, when fermentation is completed in 3-4 months (most of the year, but can be up to 6 months in winter), the grains partially collapse and the top of the pits sag. Then it's time to dig them up and distill them. 

 

All of the pits on site are at least 200 years old, with 4 of them dating to 1573. (Some but not all distillate in the 1573 brand is made in these pits.) They've been in continuous operation all that time, since that's the unique aspect of strong aroma baijiu. The Luzhou Laojiao company owns over 10,000 fermentation pits(!) in 36 "workshops" (distilleries). 1619 of their pits are over 100 years old. 

Unlike other spirits where the bragging rights are on the length of time the spirit spends aging, in strong aroma baijiu the bragging rights are on the age of the fermentation pits. 

 

Distilling

The stills here hold 1000 kg of grains per load, which produces 50 liters of baijiu at 68%, which is then watered down before bottling (not sure about before aging).   

Our group was super lucky and was able to see a second distillery on the same site, not open to tourists. We don't have permission to share pictures from that distillery, which is a real shame because it was incredible and we were able to walk among the pits and speak with the distiller. Not sure how long we were supposed to be in there but we lingered more than an hour and we saw an entire distillation cycle. 

In this second, smaller facility, there were 21 pits and just one still in the room. They told us that each pit holds enough fermenting grain to make 14 distillation runs - so they dig up a pit that's finished fermenting, and it takes them 14 distillation cycles to process it all before the grains are put back into the same pit with some new grains to ferment again. 

In strong aroma baijiu, there is a single distillation. The distiller said the heads cuts are at about 72% and the heart is 68% - same as in the public distillery. 

Here you can see that the distiller is using a pitchfork to pull the grains out of the still after distillation, and loading them onto a wheelbarrow. It's all done by hand at this distillery. 

In the foreground is the top of the still temporarily off the still base so that it can be unloaded and reloaded. The four pits in the back are the ones dating to the year 1573.

 

Each distillation cycle takes only about 1 hour, but the distiller said that it's really only 10-15 minutes of distillation (!) to extract the alcohol. After that's done, they toss buckets of water onto the grains in the still and the remaining time is for the gelatinization of the unfermented grains that were mixed in with the fermented grains. [see the previous post to learn about the continuous fermentation process.]

So if they ran continuously, each pit would take about 14 hours to distill, plus time to shovel the grains in and out of the still, which is done by hand.  

 

Aging facility 

We also visited one of the aging facilities. This one was a series of tunnels dug into the base of a mountain. The tunnels were once the homes of bandits, then they were used as bomb shelters in the war with Japan, then they became food storage facilities. They've been used to age baijiu for more than 50 years now. 

We weren't able to take pictures inside the caves due to dangers of explosion- in fact we had to touch a static electricity removal machine on the way in. This mountain is located near the convergence of two rivers and the rocks are porous, allowing for a stable temperature and humidity conditions year-round inside.

The entrance to the aging tunnels in the mountain. 

The entrance to the tunnels. Smaller, older aging vessels are at the front. You can see the ones on the right are shaggy with mold. The pipes are used to move liquids in and out.  

Zooming in on the entrance, you can see the larger vessels begin after the arch. The tunnels go wayyyy back. 

 

In these caves were stored many thousands of large terracotta vessels that are about 5 feet tall. Each one of the standard size vessels inside holds 1000 liters (about $500,000 worth of baijiu). These tunnels were three pots wide and seemed to go far into the mountain - we walked into one tunnel then took an interior loop and back out the same entrance. Luzhou Laojiao has about 7 km of tunnels held in three different aging caves. One of them is located on the site of the distillery we visited earlier.

The vessels were covered in black flaky mold that looks like peeling paint. The dripping ceilings in the interior of the tunnels washes away some of the mold. The vessels are covered at the top with a paper that is waterproof so that the alcohol inside won't become diluted with drops from the ceiling, but it is breathable to let alcoholic vapors evaporate. 

The vessels visible at the front of the tunnel are aging baijiu for the longest amount of time, some 50 to 60 years. They have thicker mold on the outside than the interior vessels. 

The vessels are not moved to empty and fill them, but baijiu is pumped into them. 

According to Derek Sandhaus, three things are happening during aging:

Oxidation of aldehydes

Evaporation of higher alcohols 

Concentration of flavor via the angel's share, which is only about .8 to 1 percent ethanol and about .5% total volume per year. 

I forgot to ask if the baijiu is diluted at all before aging. 

 

Blending

After aging in terracotta containers, the baijiu is blended. We headed to another facility that looked like corporate offices and meeting center to have a session with the master blender of Ming River Baijiu. She is the next in line to be master blender of all of Luzhou Laojiao. 

 

 

We did a little blending exercise where we added a base of younger baijiu with mere drops of baijiu aged up to 50 years (out of the syringes). It was dramatic what a tiny bit of long-aged baijiu could provide -deep, farm/barn earthy musty base notes. 

At the blending exercise they told us about the legacy of master blenders at Luzhou Laojiao. They consider the first to be the creator of "big qu" baijiu in the 1300s, and a later one to be the inventor of the pit fermentation method/strong aroma baijiu in the 1400s. A later blender was the founder of the pits at the distillery dating to 1573. 

One final note about filtration: According to our hosts, baijiu isn't chill filtered or charcoal filtered (at least Ming River is not); only a particle filter is used. 

 

Stay tuned for more baijiu content, I'm not done yet! 

 

Repetitive and Continuous Fermentation and Distillation in Baijiu

Okay, so far in baijiu we've talked about: 

Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits

Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production

Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation

Baijiu Backgrounder: A Brief History Lesson

As mentioned in the qu and fermentation post, one unique aspect of baijiu is that it uses qu to saccharify and ferment grains at the same time. Another is that they distilling solids in a still that works like a bamboo steamer, rather than liquids.

(One thing I'll mention in case I forget later: Most baijiu is distilled just one time in a pot still, yet it reaches 70% ABV. This is achieved because the grain solids in the still act like tiny rectification plates as the alcohol passes through the solid mass!)

Now we're going to talk another unique aspect of baijiu: repeat cycles of fermentation and distillation. 

 

 

Region of Origin

Grains

Fermentation

Qu

Distillation

Aging





Strong Aroma

Sichuan

Single (sorghum) or Mixed Grains

Earthen pits, continuous fermentation

Big qu, Wheat-based

Pot stills

Ceramic or sometimes stainless steel





Light Aroma

Northern China + Taiwan

Sorghum + rice husks

Stone jars

Big qu, barley + peas

Post stills, Erguotou second pot head, or Fenjiu (twice fermented/distilled)

 





Sauce Aroma

Southern Sichuan/Moutai

Sorghum

Stone brick-lined pits, 8 cycles of fermentation and distillation, also piled

Wheat

8 cycles of fermentation and distillation 

Ceramic urns, 3 years minimum





Rice Aroma

Southeastern China

Rice + glutinous rice

Stone jars

Small rice qu, with optional medicinal herbs

Sometimes in continuous stills

Limestone caves, in ceramic jars, sometimes infused

 

The grains to be fermented are first steamed to gelatinize them - to break the cell walls so that they're ready for saccharification (breaking down complex carbs into smaller fermentable sugars) and fermentation by qu. What tool do baijiu distilleries have to use as a steamer? The same steamer-style stills they use for distillation. 

Okay this is tough to wrap your head around, but here goes: 

If everything were operating in a clear linear path it would look like this:

New grains steamed in pot still --> Grains fermented in pits/jars --> Fermented grains distilled in pot still

But that would be far too simple for baijiu!  What they do, for certain styles of baijiu, is throw some of the new, unfermented grains into the still with the previous distillation run. This way, alcohol is being distilled out at the same time as some new, unfermented grains are being gelatinized. Our distillation is accomplishing two separate tasks on fermented vs unfermented grains.

So after distillation you have your alcohol that you distilled off, with leftover solids in the still that are a combination of grains that had already been fermented/distilled and some that have not yet been fermented. What do you do with those solids? Add more qu and ferment the whole thing again. 

New unfermented grains steamed in pot still along with fermented grains to be distilled --> Both previously distilled grains and previously-unfermented grains fermented in pits/jars --> Repeat distillation, adding more new unfermented grains to the fermented grains

 

This cycle could go on forever, and that's just what happens in the category of strong aroma baijiu. Keep reading.

 

In this picture I took at the Luzhou Laojiao distillery, we can see sealed fermentation pits with the wet mud on top of them, and piles of what appear to be new grains, previously distilled grains, and previously distilled grains with qu sprinkled on top. The round bamboo steamer-looking thing is the pot still. 

 

 

Let's go through the four main styles of baijiu to see how each style approaches this differently (this information is my interpretation of what I've learned from Baijiu: The Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits by Derek Sandhaus):

Rice Aroma Baijiu: Rice is steamed, fermented, and distilled in either pot or now in continuous stills. This is closest to other spirits without the repeat fermentation described above.

 

Light Aroma Baijiu: There are two types of light aroma baijiu. In the simplest, erguotou, the sorghum grains are steamed, fermented, and distilled just once. For fenjiu, new rice husks are added to the pot still along with fermented sorghum grains. After the first distillation the fermented/distilled grains and new rice husks are fermented again (fresh qu is added) to extract more alcohol from the mash.  Each of the distillation runs are stored (and probably aged) separately.

(note: I don't think rice husks themselves actually ferment or add anything much to the distillation except for volume. Rice husks are used in various parts of baijiu production as filler, sealer, to demarcate layers in fermentation, etc.)

 

Sauce Aroma Baijiu: We're talking about Moutai here. For sauce aroma baijiu there are 8 cycles of fermentation and distillation, but only a few of the cycles get new grains added.

Sorghum is first steamed,  then fermented in mud-sealed pits for a month. After fermentation, equal parts fermented sorghum and new unfermented sorghum are distilled, and then the solids are refermented. This is then distilled a second time with fresh grains added to the still. From this point on the mash continues to be refermented after distillation with additional qu, but no new grains are added. The same mash is being fermented and distilled over and over. (The Australian website for Moutai describes the process as, "9 distillation sessions, 8 filtration sessions, 7 fermentation sessions and numerous maturation and blending traditions" so I'm not exactly sure how the math works.)

 The whole production cycle takes one year to complete- and then the spirit is aged (each distillation run separately) and blended. Compare that to say vodka, which ferments a couple days then can be distilled and bottled and the whole thing done within a week. 

Strong Aroma Baijiu: In strong aroma baijiu, there is no production cycle that ends at a certain point, as in the other baijiu categories mentioned above - it is endless. At each distillation, new grains (sorghum alone or a mixture of other grains) is added to the still along with fermented grains. After distillation, the grains are taken out of the still, put back into the fermentation pits with more qu (I believe that they always go back into the same pit they came out of), and refermented. Then it's redistilled with some fresh grains, refermented, and on and on.

In fact, the goal is to have the fermentation pits that have been in continuous use the longest. As the qu contains bacteria along with the yeast and mold, the pit linings and the mud covering the pit builds up these microorganisms, supposedly leading to a fuller, deeper, more complex flavor in the resulting alcohol after aging. (Rum nerds will see the connection to muck pits here.) "Old pits" are a minimum of 30 years in continuous use.

Luzhou Laojiao, the distillery I visited, has a total of 1619 fermentation pits that have been in continuous operation for more than 100 years. 

Four of those pits have been in continuous operation since 1573, as in 446 years. 

Kind of a big deal. 

The still is in the foreground with the top off. In the back center we can see four small squarish mud-covered pits. Those are the ones in use since 1573. 

 

 

Baijiu Backgrounder: A Brief History Lesson

In previous posts, we've covered Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits,  Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production, and  Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation.

I realized I should take a step back and talk briefly about how baijiu developed and where it stands today. This information was gathered from the book Baijiu: The Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits by Derek Sandhaus and from my trip to the Luzhou Laojiao distillery in Luzhou where Ming River Baijiu is produced. 

One interesting (but honestly not super relevant to the rest of this post) fact that stood out to me (as I'm doing some global drink history research) is that in other ancient cultures, people drank alcohol (beer, wine, and later spirits mixed into water) because drinking water was generally unsafe. I just finished the book Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol and it's full of hilarious insults directed at "water drinkers." In China, however, there was less of a need for the disinfecting power of alcohol because people drank boiled water and tea. 

In more relevant information, the development of qu, the cluster of grains inoculated with yeast, bacteria, and mold I wrote about in my last post, dates back to the Han Dynasty of 206BC-220AD. Alcohol made from qu is called jiu and grain beer made with qu is called huangjiu ('yellow alcohol'). Until baijiu was modernized, huangjiu was considered a more premier beverage. Today you can still purchase huangjiu in China.

Distillation technology was probably imported to China from the Middle East or the Mongols (anywhere from 960 to 1368), and the word 'baijiu' simply means 'white alcohol' (distilled alcohol). 

Many thousands of small distilleries existed (and apparently more than 10,000 still exist!) in China, making spirits with regional grains. When the communists took power beginning in 1949, they nationalized, industrialized, and upgraded the technology in the industry: proper techniques were codified (having been mostly house secrets at each distillery previous) and quality control was upgraded. Individual distilleries were formed into large collective companies. 

In the 1960s, the distillers at Luzhou Laojiao (the company that I visited) trained many other distillers how to make their style of baijiu - strong aroma baijiu. Today this style accounts for about 75% of baijiu sales. (Kweichow Moutai, the top-selling and most famous baijiu brand, is not strong aroma but 'sauce aroma' baijiu.)

Later into the 1970s with new economic policies, more distilleries opened up, new brands were created, and baijiu was no longer a regional beverage but one imported between the various provinces of China. The styles of baijiu were also made official - there are more than 12 official baijiu styles, though the big four that I'll write about later make up approximately 90% of all baijiu sold. 

So what we have now are some huge companies/brands that own many of the original small distilleries. The Luzhou Laojiao company, for example, currently consists of 36 "workshops" (distilleries), plus combined aging facilities. Their various brands are made up of blends from their various workshops. 

 

Map of Luzhou Laojiao workshops.

 

Today, according to a report in November 2018 by Brand Finance Spirits as discussed in The Spirits Business, four of the five "world's most valuable spirits" were baijiu. Moutai is #1 and Luzhou Laojiao is #5. The only non-Chinese spirit in the top five is Johnnie Walker, coming in at #4.

 

 

Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation

Back to baijiu! We began the discussion with with Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits then Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production. 

Now it's time to talk about some production parameters. Like whiskey, baijiu is distilled fermented grains. The grains include more standard whiskey ones like barley and wheat, plus rice and sorghum. Sorghum is the most popular, followed by rice, sticky rice, then other grains. 

As should be clear from the chart below, the grains can be mixed together or used alone. The vessels in which fermentation takes place can be stone jars or in pitts that may be earthen or lined with bricks.

The fermentation is accomplished not with yeast alone, but with qu. 

 

 

Region of Origin

Grains

Fermentation

Qu

Distillation

Aging





Strong Aroma

Sichuan

Single (sorghum) or Mixed Grains

Earthen pits, continuous fermentation

Big qu, Wheat-based

Pot stills

Ceramic or sometimes stainless steel





Light Aroma

Northern China + Taiwan

Sorghum + rice husks

Stone jars

Big qu, barley + peas

Post stills, Erguotou second pot head, or Fenjiu (twice fermented/distilled)

 





Sauce Aroma

Southern Sichuan/Moutai

Sorghum

Stone brick-lined pits, 8 cycles of fermentation and distillation, also piled

Wheat

8 cycles of fermentation and distillation 

Ceramic urns, 3 years minimum





Rice Aroma

Southeastern China

Rice + glutinous rice

Stone jars

Small rice qu, with optional medicinal herbs

Sometimes in continuous stills

Limestone caves, in ceramic jars, sometimes infused

 

Qu is a combination of mold, yeast, and bacteria. It is used not only for baijiu production but also for undistilled Chinese beverages. 

The mold we could say is similar to koji used in sake and shochu production. It helps break the starches in the grains down into fermentable sugars (saccharification). In whiskey, this is accomplished by adding malted barley and/or enzymes to the grains. 

The yeast makes alcohol, as it does in other spirits.

The bacteria helps in flavor development of the alcohol.

Qu is made from clumps of grains that collect the yeast, mold, and bacteria.  It is crushed up and mixed with damp grains to ferment them. There are different types of qu to ferment different styles of baijiu - "big qu" is made in large bricks of usually wheat, sometimes with peas added. Small qu, which is made to ferment rice-based baijiu, is itself made from rice. Sometimes medicinal herbs are added to small qu to imbue the baijiu with medicinal properties. 

As you'd expect, the recipe/incubating conditions/location for each distillery's qu is their closely-guarded secret. I don't know if each distillery produces multiple kinds of qu for their various brands. 

The Wikipedia entry for qu contains a great deal more information. The image of bricks of qu to the right is from the Luzhou Laojiao website.

Fermentation

Beyond than the use of qu, one of the other things that's pretty unique to baijiu is "solid state" fermentation. Rather than fermenting a sugary liquid (as in scotch and rum) or a slurry of liquids and solids mixed together (as in bourbon), in baijiu it's moistened grain solids that ferment. The only other spirit I can think of that's fermented from a solid is grappa.

Grains are steamed, mixed with qu, covered, and then put into the fermentation pit/pot. Fermentation can a long time. For strong aroma and sauce aroma baijiu, I am not sure what the shortest fermentation time is, but I don't think I heard anyone mention less than a month - and at the 1573 brand's distillery (Luzhou Laojiao) they mentioned it was 3-4 months normally and could be up to six months in the winter.  

For 'rice aroma' baijiu, things go much faster - fermentation is only 5-6 days and in modern facilities it is distilled in closer to liquid form in continuous stills. For 'light aroma' baijiu, it can be from 4 days to 4 weeks, depending on the style.

I'll write more about the particular distillery I visited and the production method for strong aroma baijiu in another post, but one quick factoid: At this distillery they bury the moistened grains and qu in earthen pits to let them ferment. The pits are filled to overflowing, piled above the floor level with grains, and  then covered with wet mud which seals it and keeps out oxygen. After the qu does its work, the grains compact a bit and that's how they know fermentation has finished. 

You can see in the picture how the pits in the front right are lower than the rest- those are nearing the end of their fermentation. 

Pretty cool right? That's not even the craziest part. Stay tuned. 

 

Two New Books on Booze and the Law

Two books came out at the end of last year looking at alcohol and the law in the United States in different ways. 

While Glass and Gavel covers all alcohol and considerations by the US Supreme Court, Bourbon Justice looks at all sorts of laws and lawsuits as they apply to bourbon specifically and how those shaped America generally. 

 

Below are descriptions from the publishers.

 

Glass and Gavel: The U.S. Supreme Court and Alcohol by Nancy Maveety

In Glass and Gavel, noted legal expert Nancy Maveety has written the first book devoted to alcohol in the nation’s highest court of law, the United States Supreme Court.

Combining an examination of the justices’ participation in the social use of alcohol across the Court’s history with a survey of the Court’s decisions on alcohol regulation, Maveety illustrates the ways in which the Court has helped to construct the changing culture of alcohol. “Intoxicating liquor” is one of the few things so plainly material to explicitly merit mention, not once, but twice, in the amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Maveety shows how much of our constitutional law—Supreme Court rulings on the powers of government and the rights of individuals—has been shaped by our American love/hate relationship with the bottle and the barroom.

From the tavern as a judicial meeting space, to the bootlegger as both pariah and patriot, to the individual freedom issue of the sobriety checkpoint—there is the Supreme Court, adjudicating but also partaking in the temper(ance) of the times. In an entertaining and accessible style, Maveety shows that what the justices say and do with respect to alcohol provides important lessons about their times, our times, and our “constitutional cocktail” of limited governmental power and individual rights.

 

 

Bourbon Justice: How Whiskey Law Shaped America by Brian F. Haara 

Bourbon whiskey has made a surprising contribution to American legal history. Tracking the history of bourbon and bourbon law illuminates the development of the United States as a nation, from conquering the wild frontier to rugged individualism to fostering the entrepreneurial spirit to solidifying itself as a nation of laws. Bourbon is responsible for the growth and maturation of many substantive areas of the law, such as trademark, breach of contract, fraud, governmental regulation and taxation, and consumer protection. In Bourbon Justice Brian Haara delves into the legal history behind one of America’s most treasured spirits to uncover a past fraught with lawsuits whose outcome, surprisingly perhaps, helped define a nation.

Approaching the history of bourbon from a legal standpoint, Haara tells the history of America through the development of commercial laws that guided our nation from an often reckless laissez-faire mentality, through the growing pains of industrialization, and past the overcorrection of Prohibition. More than just true bourbon history, this is part of the American story.

 

 

Tonic, Tree Water, Fermented Everything and Other Fancy Food Show Beverage Trends

Every year, San Francisco plays host the the Winter Fancy Food Show, an enormous show where "specialty food" brands show off their wares in the hopes of being picked up by retailers. It's a  lot of international cheese and olive oil, fancy crackers, and gourmet pasta. But of course, I just go for the drinks. 

A few brief notes:

Tonic:

American tonic water is finally branching out. Dry Sodas launched one that was pretty great, very dry as you'd imagine.

Fentiman's has expanded to include a Botanical Tonic (really good) with a Connoisseur Tonic (meh) coming shortly as well.

I also enjoyed a whole-bark tonic from 1821 Bitters - it comes out brown from the can. 

 

 

 

Bitters and Bitterness:

Tonic wasn't the only thing bitter on offer. Hella bitters, a brand that has been around a while, has rebranded and the line is looking great. They have a lot of mixers now that I didn't try, a Founders Collection of bitters (the eucalyptus is really quite green and sappy!), and forthcoming canned bitters & soda. 

There were other bitters companies represented like 1821 and Raft but generally speaking, the Fancy Food Show is a place for basic cocktail mixers like Moscow Mule Mix and the like. 

I saw bitterness creeping into other beverage products - I think it's the power of the Negroni. For example, Herb & Lou's Infused Cubes, which are a clever repackaging of mixers into ice cube for shaking format, now has a Negroni flavor. 

 

 

Shrubs!: 

I was *not* expecting to see a bunch of bottled shrubs (drinking fruit vinegars), so I was happy with the change since my last FFS visit. I saw at least 4 brands. There was also tons of kombucha, as expected, including one brand available by the keg. 

 

 

More Vinegar Madness (Mostly in Pickle Form):

Along with shrubs, vinegar showed up in the form of pickles and pickle juice all over the place. Not just cucumbers, but pickled/brined vegetables and kimchi of all kinds. 

 

Whiskey Barrel Foods:

In the cocktail world we know the barrel-aging-everything obsession, and now it seems to be crossing over in a larger way into the general consumer market. At the show were Pappy & Co, which partners with makers to age products in ex-Pappy Van Winkle barrels, along with Jack Daniel's whiskey cake mix (WHAT). 

 

Upcycled Beverages: 

Whey-sweetened mixers and drinks from Render

Tree Water - leftovers from the maple syrup concentration process

I'm looking forward to seeing what else enters the cocktail space in coming years! 

 

Weird Water:

Four years ago there were tons of brands of alkaline water; this year I only saw a couple. At least one is "volcanic water" filtered through volcanic rock. 

Tree Water as mentioned above. I've also tried "maple water" previously which still contains some of the maple so it's a slightly sweet water. 

Wine water - red wine antioxidant infused flavored water

 

 

A Few Food Trends

It's not my specialty, but I saw a lot of: 

Plant substitutes and alternatives - mushroom and other vegan jerky, cauliflower crust/tortillas/crackers/everything

Castoff Snacks and Upcycled Foods - coconut sugar, seaweed snacks

Turmeric, Matcha, Aloe. 

 

A Favorite Find:

Lemoncocco, where have you been all my life? Apparently a thing in Rome, this is water flavored with lemon and coconut. Super creamy, yogurty almost. It reminded me of Calpico, which I tried to purchase recently but found was all sweetened with HFCS. Lemoncocco is not. I need to find this stuff in local stores.

 

 

 

Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production

I'm probably going to refer to this table I made about baijiu a lot over several posts, so don't worry too much about taking it all in today. The table lists the properties of the four main styles of baijiu (strong, light, sauce, and rice). There are more styles than this, but they're mostly combinations of these four. 

These properties are not legally binding,  but general and historical properties based on the major producers of each region as described in the book Baijiu: The Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits by Derek Sandhaus . I'll be covering a lot of categories individually here on Alcademics, but should you want to skip ahead, check out DrinkBaijiu.com. 

Today I just want to mention the regions of origin of each of the four main styles, highlighted in pink:

 

 

Region of Origin

Grains

Fermentation

Qu

Distillation

Aging





Strong Aroma

Sichuan

Single (sorghum) or Mixed

Earthen pits, continuous fermentation

Big qu, Wheat-based

Pot stills

Ceramic or sometimes stainless steel





Light Aroma

Northern China + Taiwan

Sorghum + rice husks

Stone jars

Big qu, barley + peas

Post stills, Erguotou second pot head, or Fenjiu

 





Sauce Aroma

Southern Sichuan/Moutai

 

Stone brick-lined pits, 8 cycles of fermentation and distillation, also piled

Wheat

8 cycles of fermentation and distillation 

Ceramic urns, 3 years minimum





Rice Aroma

Southeastern China

Rice + glutinous rice

Stone jars

Small rice qu, with optional medicinal herbs

Sometimes in continuous stills

Limestone caves, in ceramic jars, sometimes infused

 

So that corresponds (very) roughly to:

Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits

I spent last week in China learning about baijiu, the world's top-selling spirit, with the brand Ming River Baijiu produced at the Luzhou Laojiao in Luzhou. 

Americans and other non-Chinese drinkers tend to view baijiu as a completely foreign spirit, indescribable in relation to other spirits except to say that it's strong and stinky. Well I'm here to tell you that though it is quite different, there are plenty of parallels to other spirits. 

Baijiu Is: 

Made from fermented and distilled grains, like whiskey. [in baijiu the top grains are sorghum and rice, though corn, barley, wheat, and other grains are used]

Saccharified (complex carbohydrates of the grain broken down into simpler, fermentable sugars) with mold, like sake. [in baijiu the mold is mixed up with yeast and bacteria in bricks called qu so that saccharification and fermentation take place at the same time]

Fermented as a solid mass rather than a liquid, like grappa. [in strong aroma baijiu, steamed grains are buried in a pit with qu for several months to ferment]

Fermented with some of the remainders of the previous distillation (stillage), like sour mash whiskey or Jamaican rum that uses muck pits. This was tremendously exciting to learn. [in baijiu rather than stillage added to just the next batch of fermentation, most of the previous batch is refermented and redistilled with a small portion of new grains]

Usually distilled in pot stills, like many spirits. [some rice aroma baijius are apparently distilled in continuous stills]

Aged in ceramic vessels, like traditional pisco and some wines. [the vessels are non-reactive but breathable, so they allow for oxidation but probably do not impart any of their own flavor to the spirit like wood barrels do]

Blended between batches of different distillations and ages after aging to create the specific brand, like most spirits that are barrel-aged. [in baijiu, a single fermentation pit is divided into different small distillations and these are aged separately]

See, totally relatable. 

I'll have a lot more baijiu content going forward, but this is a start. 

 

All the Cocktail and Spirits Books Released in 2018, In Consideration for Gifting or Reading

It's the annual Alcademics drink book round-up! These are all the cocktails and spirits books that I know about published in 2018, with a couple of wine and beer books thrown in for good measure. It's over 60 books in total. Read them yourself or give 'em as gifts. 

This year there appear to be less overall history books, and more women-centric books, whether history or not. Cocktail recipe books are all quite specific, with several that focus on theory and technique; and these overlap with books designed with the professional bartender in mind.

Get to reading.  

 

Cocktail/Recipe Books

Julep: Southern Cocktails Refashioned by Alba Huerta and Marah Stets 

The One-Bottle Cocktail: More than 80 Recipes with Fresh Ingredients and a Single Spirit by Maggie Hoffman

Tequila Beyond Sunrise: Over 40 tequila and mezcal-based cocktails from around the world by Jesse Estes

Finding Mezcal: A Journey into the Liquid Soul of Mexico, with 40 Cocktails by Ron Cooper and Chantal Martineau

Wild Mocktails and Healthy Cocktails: Home-grown and foraged low-sugar recipes from the Midnight Apothecary by Lottie Muir

Infused Booze: Over 60 Batched Spririts and Liqueurs to Make at Home by Kathy Kordalis

Session Cocktails: Low-Alcohol Drinks for Any Occasion by Drew Lazor and Editors of PUNCH

The Cocktail Garden: Botanical Cocktails for Every Season by Ed Loveday and Adriana Picker

Booze & Vinyl: A Spirited Guide to Great Music and Mixed Drinks by André Darlington and Tenaya Darlington

Doctor's Orders: Over 50 inventive cocktails to cure, revive & enliven by Chris Edwards and Dave Tregenza

Cocktail Italiano: The Definitive Guide to Aperitivo: Drinks, Nibbles, and Tales of the Italian Riviera by Annette Joseph

Clean + Dirty Drinking: 100+ Recipes for Making Delicious Elixirs, With or Without Booze by Gabriella Mlynarczyk

Are You There God? It's Me, Margarita: More Cocktails with a Literary Twist (A Tequila Mockingbird Book)  by Tim Federle 

The Art & Craft of Coffee Cocktails: Over 80 recipes for mixing coffee and liquor by Jason Clark

Aperitif: A Spirited Guide to the Drinks, History and Culture of the Aperitif by Kate Hawkings

The Joy of Mixology, Revised and Updated Edition: The Consummate Guide to the Bartender's Craft by Gary Regan

The Dead Rabbit Mixology & Mayhem: The Story of John Morrissey and the World’s Best Cocktail Menu by Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry

Nightcap: More than 40 Cocktails to Close Out Any Evening by Kara Newman

Be Your Own Bartender: A Surefire Guide to Finding (and Making) Your Perfect Cocktail by Carey Jones and John McCarthy

Cocktail Codex: Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions by Alex Day and Nick Fauchald

Winter Drinks: 70 Essential Cold-Weather Cocktails by Editors of PUNCH

Tequila: Shake, Muddle, Stir: Over 40 of the Best Cocktails for Tequila and Mezcal Lovers by Dan Jones

Pickle Juice: A Revolutionary Approach to Making Better Tasting Cocktails and Drinks by Florence Cherruault

The Mini Bar: 100 Essential Cocktail Recipes; 8 Notebook Set by Editors of PUNCH

The Curious Bartender Volume II: The New Testament of Cocktails by Tristan Stephenson 

Glamorous Cocktails: Fashionable mixes from iconic London bars  by William Yeoward 

Prosecco Made Me Do It: 60 Seriously Sparkling Cocktails by Amy Zavatto 

Rock Cocktails: 50 rock 'n' roll drinks recipes―from Gin Lizzy to Guns 'n' Rosés

Northern Hospitality with The Portland Hunt + Alpine Club: A Celebration of Cocktails, Cooking, and Coming Together by Andrew Volk and Briana Volk

The Aviary Cocktail Book by Grant Achatz, Micah Melton, Nick Kokonas, Allen and Sarah Hemberger.

The Cocktail Companion: A Guide to Cocktail History, Culture, Trivia and Favorite Drinks by Cheryl Charming

Drink London (London Guides)  by Euan Ferguson

Beachbum Berry's Sippin' Safari: Tenth Anniversary Expanded Edition by Jeff Beachbum Berry

 

 

Wine Books 

Wild Winemaking: Easy & Adventurous Recipes Going Beyond Grapes, Including Apple Champagne, Ginger–Green Tea Sake, Key Lime–Cayenne Wine, and 142 More by Richard W. Bender

Ten Grapes to Know: The Ten and Done Wine Guide by Catherine Fallis

Wine Food: New Adventures in Drinking and Cooking by Dana Frank and Andrea Slonecker

The Sommelier's Atlas of Taste: A Field Guide to the Great Wines of Europe by Rajat Parr and Jordan Mackay 

Prosecco Made Me Do It: 60 Seriously Sparkling Cocktails by Amy Zavatto

 

Spirit Books, Misc.

The Connoisseur’s Guide to Worldwide Spirits: Selecting and Savoring Whiskey, Vodka, Scotch, Rum, Tequila . . . and Everything Else (An Expert’s Guide ... and Savoring Every Spirit in the World) by Richard Carleton Hacker

 Tabletop Distilling: How to Make Spirits, Essences, and Essential Oils with Small Stills by Kai Möller

The Gin Dictionary by David T. Smith

The Book of Vermouth: A Bartender and a Winemaker Celebrate the World's Greatest Aperitif by Shaun Byrne and Gilles Lapalus

The Curious Bartender's Guide to Gin: How to appreciate gin from still to serve by Tristan Stephenson 

 

Women-Centric Drink Books

Craft Cocktails by Val: Drinks Inspired by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Drinking Like Ladies: 75 modern cocktails from the world's leading female bartenders; Includes toasts to extraordinary women in history by Misty Kalkofen and Kirsten Amann

Liberated Spirits: Two Women Who Battled Over Prohibition by Hugh Ambrose and John Schuttler

A Woman's Drink: Bold Recipes for Bold Women by Natalka Burian 

Movers and Shakers: Women Making Waves in Spirits, Beer & Wine by Hope Ewing

 

 History Books

A Short History of Drunkenness: How, Why, Where, and When Humankind Has Gotten Merry from the Stone Age to the Present by Mark Forsyth 

A Thousand Thirsty Beaches: Smuggling Alcohol from Cuba to the South during Prohibition by Lisa Lindquist Dorr

Moonshine: A Celebration of America's Original Rebel Spirit by John Schlimm

A Drinkable Feast: A Cocktail Companion to 1920s Paris  by Philip Greene 

 

Beer, Mead , Cider

Mead: The Libations, Legends, and Lore of History's Oldest Drink by Fred Minnick 

Will Travel for Beer: 101 Remarkable Journeys Every Beer Lover Should Experience by Stephen Beaumont 

Beer: 150 Awesome Facts About Your Favorite Brew by Caroline West

Ciderology: From History and Heritage to the Craft Cider Revolution by Gabe Cook

The Craft Beer Dictionary: An A-Z of craft beer, from hop to glass by Richard Croasdale

Kitchen Brewing: A New, Easier and Quicker Way to Home Brew by Jakob Nielsen and Mikael Zetterberg

 

Bar, Drinking Culture, and Professional Books 

Bars, Taverns, and Dives New Yorkers Love: Where to Go, What to Drink by John Tebeau

Drinking Distilled: A User's Manual by Jeffrey Morgenthaler

I'm Just Here for the Drinks: A Guide to Spirits, Drinking and More Than 100 Extraordinary Cocktails by Sother Teague

Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

Allergen Awareness: A Chef's Perspective by Myron Keith Norman

Batched & Bottled by Max Venning 

 

Whiskey Books

From Dram to Manhattan: Around the world in 40 whisky cocktails from Scotch to Bourbon by Jesse Estes

Hacking Whiskey: Smoking, Blending, Fat Washing, and Other Whiskey Experiments by Aaron Goldfarb 

The Bourbon Bible by Eric Zandona 

Whiskey America  by Dominic Roskrow 

Single Malt: A Guide to the Whiskies of Scotland: Includes Profiles, Ratings, and Tasting Notes for More Than 330 Expressions by Clay Risen

World's Best Whiskies:750 Unmissable Drams from Tain to Tokyo by Dominic Roskrow  

 

 

 

Not enough books for you? Check out:

All the drink books that came out in 2017

All the Cocktails and Spirits Books Published in 2016 for Reading or Gifting

All the Cocktails & Spirits Books Published in 2015, For Reading or Gifting

More Than 40 Drink Books Published in 2014 for Reading or Gifting

 

What to Try When Directional Freezing Doesn't Produce Clear Ice

If you're trying directional freezing and still not getting clear ice, here are a few considerations. 

 

Know What's Reasonable.

Directional Freezing doesn't get rid of any cloudiness in ice, it just moves it toward one end of your cube/block. You will always have about 15-30 percent cloudy ice as the last part of the ice freezes (if you allow it to freeze all the way). 

Motion or Vibration. 

While your ice is freezing are you moving the container around? Does your freezer shake and vibrate? Are you opening and slamming the door shut a lot? Any sort of motion tends to knock air bubbles together, and they float up and stick to the bottom of ice as it's freezing downwards, often leading to little bubble trails and starburst-shaped groups of bubbles. The more vibration, the more bubbles/cloudy bits form.

Super Cold Freezers.

A friend of mine couldn't get his ice balls all the way clear using the thermos method. After much back and forth, we realized that he has a super fancy freezer set to super duper cold. The ice ball froze so quickly from all sides that it didn't have a chance to push the cloudy parts out the bottom of the ice ball mold into the thermos. 

In general, the warmer your freezer (but still below freezing, obviously), the clearer the ice - but you still want to be food safe (below 0 Fahrenheit or -18 Celsius). As far as I know, the Igloo cooler method should still work in a very cold freezer, but some thinner vessels will freeze from the outside-in rather than in one direction. 

Some Tips to Improve Clarity. 

If your ice is pretty clear but you've become obsessed with making it ridiculously clear and minimizing the cloudy part at the end of the block (it happens), a few things you can try are:

Unscrew the aerator off your sink faucet (and put it back on after; it saves water waste). 

Run it through a water filter. Even though direction freezing acts as a filter, pushing minerals and other impurities into the last part of the ice to freeze, you can reduce the mineral/impurity content by using water from the pitcher. 

The reason I run my water through a filter is to remove chlorine/chloramine tastes in the water. I don't care about the minute improvement, if any, in clarity, but I find that if I use unfiltered water when I pop the block out of the cooler there's a big release of chlorine smell. Blech. 

Boil the water. In my opinion, this isn't worth the effort or energy waste, but it can improve clarity ever so slightly. Boiling water should reduce trapped air.

These tips shouldn't make radical, but small, improvements in your ice's clarity. 

 

To read all the ice posts here on Alcademics, check out the Index of Ice Experiments.