A wisp of wine recalls the past.
Text: Li Junwu.
I remember that my grandfather liked to drink and loved to eat meat. Perhaps due to genetic influence, my father and several of my uncles were also fond of drinking and drinking a lot.
I was born in the 70s, when people's living standards were generally not high, and many families had difficulty solving the problem of food and clothing. In that era when we relied on earning work to eat, there were many children in the family, there was little labor, and at the end of the year, there was naturally not much food distributed from the production team, so life would be more difficult.
My father loved to drink, but he was reluctant to drink alone at home. Most of them are building houses for other people's families, or doing other farm work to help, and the owner drinks a meal when they entertain everyone. A group of people sat together, guessing the boxing order, shouting five and drinking, all of them were red-faced and red-eared, and they were very happy.
Another opportunity to drink is a guest at home, or a "coachman" who drives a carriage in the production team to plow the land and pull crops, and accompany the wine in order to entertain others. It's a treat, but it's not a nice appetizer. Cabbage mixed with dried tofu was the most frequent appetizer in most families at that time. Families with better conditions will fry a few firewood eggs from old hens, and the yellow aroma is fragrant. Under the delicious **, there are often a few more drinks.
At that time, the wine was authentic pure grain wine. Niu Dazhuang Distillery is the largest winery in Wei County. At a distance from the brewery, you can smell a strong smell of sake lees, with a strong aroma of sake and a slightly sour taste after fermentation. Ulju liquor is produced here. People usually drink alcohol, and they are reluctant to buy bottled liquor, so they use corn or sorghum and go to the village store to exchange it for bulk liquor. There is also a kind of liquor produced by Zhangjiakou Great Wall Brewing Company, a "Lao Longtan" brand Shacheng liquor, because the label pattern is black, people popularly call it "big black face". This wine is also willing to be bought and put on the table when entertaining guests.
My brother-in-law doesn't know how to drink, but every time I take my sister back to her parents' house, my mother always goes to the village store to buy a bottle of "little champagne" to entertain her son-in-law. "Petite Champagne" should be a mixed drink, which is a sparkling wine prepared with wine or fruit juice, sugared water, spices, coloring, carbon dioxide and other materials, without fermentation. It has a light color, a light aroma and a 4-degree liquor. When you open the cap, you will take a few breaths like opening a beer, and it will be sweet with bubbles. After the brother-in-law drank a bottle, his face was flushed like Guan Gong, and even his neck and arms were stained with an intoxicating flush. This sweet "little champagne" is the most delicious nostalgia of many generations.
I remember that at that time, there was a small plastic pot of liquor in the shape of an old birthday star, and we all called it "Qiao Egg Pot". This kind of wine has a capacity of 100 ml, two taels of wine, because it is small and portable, so it is also a favorite of children to taste the aroma of wine. Open the lid, put it in your mouth and squeeze the bottle hard, and "squeak" a few bites will be down in an instant. At that time, this kind of wine was the highest sales in the countryside when the big market was rushed, and the people who rushed to the market were tired and sat in front of the "dumpling" stall, and came to a bowl of steaming, floating oil dumplings, and a bottle of "Qiao Egg Pot", which should be the most delicious enjoyment.
If I was one of the first to drink alcohol, it would have been when I was four or five years old. At that time, entertaining guests at home to eat and drink, according to the Xi of the hometown, children and women were not allowed to serve at the table. My father and the guests were drinking at the kang table, and I took a small bowl and sat in the corner of the big kang to eat the food that my mother had served me. When my father saw that I had been staring at his glass, he dipped his chopsticks in the glass a few times and fed it to my mouth. A spicy and pungent taste hit me, and I couldn't help coughing and squirting out all the rice. Seeing this, the mother scolded angrily: "You old beggar child, look at my baby spicy"!My father said with a smile: "Drinking must be cultivated from an early age, and the tradition of drinking in our old Li family must be passed on." After saying that, he dipped his chopsticks in the wine again, and pushed them into my mouth despite my resistance from the left and right. When the guests saw my funny appearance, they couldn't help but laugh. The experience of being fed alcohol as a child may have been experienced by a considerable number of people of the same age who were born in the seventies.
As I became an adult, I gradually learned to drink. The first time I got drunk was when I helped my neighbor's second grandmother with a happy event. At that time, I was young and vigorous, and I always felt that seven were dissatisfied with eight and eight were not angry. At the end of the day, I and the neighbor's little "Jianjun" finally became idle. The second grandmother said, "You are both tired today, hurry up and sit down to eat and drink some wine to rest." So the two of us began to fight together, neither of us was convinced, and one drank more than one bottle of liquor, until he fell asleep on the table. I also feel like the world is spinning, and I feel like I'm stepping on clouds.
Later, my mother helped me home, and I threw up all the time. While cleaning up for me, my mother said angrily: "This stupid child, why do you drink so much wine, look how uncomfortable it is, hey"!My mother washed my feet in hot water, wiped my hands and face with a hot towel, and finally put it on my forehead. Then he looked at me quietly and guarded me, his eyes full of strong maternal love and tenderness. I couldn't eat anything because I drank too much, so my mother bought me my favorite canned oranges and spooned them into my mouth. I know that in my mother's eyes, no matter how old I am, I will always be the treasure she loves the most. To this day, I still love canned oranges in sugar water, not only because I like to enjoy its deliciousness, but also because it is a warm memory, a deep nostalgia ......for that strong maternal love
In our rural area, there is a saying that "father and son do not eat at the same table, and uncle and nephew do not drink". I don't know what that means, but I didn't drink much with my father. The only time I drank with my father was during the first Chinese New Year after my mother passed away. Somehow that day, my father suddenly got interested and wanted to have a drink with me. In order not to disappoint my father's pleasure, I drank with him. My father and I were drinking and talking, and we were saying things that I found strange and incomprehensible. I was so impatient that I couldn't remember what my father had said.
On the 28th day of the first lunar month, my father took me to the station, and I embarked on a journey to work. The day after I arrived in Beijing, I received a telegram that my father had died. This bad news was like a thunderbolt, and it completely broke me. As everyone knows, my father and I drank for the first time, but it was also the last time to drink. As soon as I drank it, it became a pain in my heart that I can never forget.
The second time I got drunk was during the Chinese New Year after my father died. My mother and father were separated by less than five months, and they left me one after another, leaving me alone to live. The Spring Festival is here again, and every household is filled with the happiness of family reunion. I sat in the room by myself, looking at the spiritual seat of my parents on the table, and my heart was like a knife, and tears were raining down. I took out a bottle of wine, sat down in front of my parents' shrine, drank cup after glass, muttered to myself, and told my parents how much I missed them. I don't know when I was drunk and fell asleep.
In later life, sometimes for entertainment or drinking between friends, I also got drunk several times. And as I get older, drinking is no longer as youthful and frivolous as it once was. When I was young, I drank alcohol, but now I drink alcohol because of my feelings and state of mind. Students get together, toast together, and reminisce about the good campus time and friendship with classmatesSend little old friends to meet, get drunk together, and tell each other interesting stories about childhood childhood;Relatives reunited, drink a few glasses, reminisce about the past, think of parents, talk about family affection, as if returning to the once warm family.
In fact, there are different opinions about the effect of alcohol on the body. But I think that if you drink too much, it's definitely not good for your health. People often say: It makes sense to drink a little and hurt your body. When relatives are reunited and friends get together, laughter and laughter, mutual complaints, toasts and celebrations, and slightly drunk and happy spring and autumn. "I was also a young man when I was a child, and my sideburns were frosted in an instant;Raise a glass to talk about the past, and a wisp of wine recalls the past"!Isn't that beautiful......