Shaoxing: Joe and a Local Distiller

Another visitor, a pre-Road friend this time, is here in Shaoxing.

Joe Waldman arrived the week after our first Shanghai visit.  He is here to help Sara Beth on site and train Tom Langel (whom we now refer to as Xiao Tom).

Joe and Xiao Tom

Joe started on the road a few months before SB, and we hung out a lot with his wife Lindsey and him while living in the Chicago suburbs.  They were regulars at board game nights, and true to his gaming reputation, Joe travels with a cadre of board and card games.  He has seven games organized in a Carcassonne box he modified using a Fibre One box.

Joe's travel game box

Most nights, Joe, Xiao Tom, and us meet in our room to play games and drink tea.  Joe received a nice tea set from a previous site and is adept at proper Chinese tea preparation.  The three games we play the most are Seven Wonders, Munchkin, and Wizard.  Joe and SB usually dominate, but Xiao Tom and I eek some wins.

Joe's only been here one weekend, and we took advantage of the great weather that weekend to explore.

The owner outside his local distillery

While walking through an ancient district, we stumbled upon a distillery.  Joe pushed us inside to look at a few decorated jugs of bai jiu and huang jiu.

Bai jiu is an infamous (yes, I used the proper word) alcohol in China that usually has an alcohol content of 54% ABV.  When ingested, it vaporizes in the drinker's esophagus and sits in the stomach like a murky cloud of despair until it's either sweat or crapped out.

Huang jiu, on the other hand, is much milder and sweeter in taste.  It's a specialty of Shaoxing and commonly called Shaoxing Wine.

While we perused the jugs, the shop owner started talking to us about the content of the jugs and the distilling process.  He took us in back to see the stills and fermenters.

It was a simple operation compared to other distilleries I've visited.  The distillers had two wooden tubs with bamboo tubes snaking into clay pots.  A low fire burned under one of the stills.  Clear liquid dripped from each, and it smelled like sugar and not like traditional bai jiu or huang jiu.

The owner took us to each station and tried to convey the purpose of each apparatus, but my Mandarin wasn't up to snuff to understand.  He took us to where they aged the alcohol and gave us a tasting.

The owner and me next to his jars of aged huang jiu

Xiao Tom likes bai jiu, so he was eager to drink our new friend's craft.  Joe and I, on the other hand, don't enjoy bai ju and were nervous to show distaste at the cost of the owner's hospitality.  We grabbed small cups and tasted.  It was delicious!

Our new friend's bai jiu and huang jiu were sweet and didn't immediately vaporize in the chest.  The bai jiu still maintains the rice flavors without the burn.  Xiao Tom observed that the huang jiu tasted like Apple Pie alcohol without all the sugar.  We were impressed.

Before we left the distillery, we bought four plastic water bottles of the jius, two bai jiu and two huang jiu.  Joe asked the owner about the alcohol content of each liquor, and he wrote down that the bai jiu was about 45% ABV and the huang jiu 15% ABV, which are less than most store-bought jius.  The alcohol content has to suffer for the better taste, but it's worth it.

Bottle of the local huang jiu

The distillery will be our new source of all bai and huang jiu we drink, unless Xiao Tom has a craving for the dreaded Red Star bai jiu.