Daily life of farming and supporting a family on the ancient Loess Plateau

Ms. Yang shook her head angrily and continued sweeping the floor.

Ji Yongling used the bamboo he had folded back to make a sleeve, filled it with cold water, and planned to connect the wine bottle to the bamboo, seal it with yellow mud, and use it for steam condensation.

Everything is ready; all that's left is the heating vessel.

Ji Yongling wandered around the courtyard and various cave dwellings several times before finally finding a small clay stove made from a broken bowl in the innermost corner of the cave dwelling where Old Master Ji lived. It was used by Yang Shi to warm herself while spinning thread in the winter. The stove didn't look very big, but Ji Yongling found it quite difficult to lift it; it seemed the clay was really heavy.

She moved the mud stove to the entrance of her cave dwelling and then went to the stove in the kitchen to pull out a small pot.

There are three pots on the stove in Lao Ji's house. One is a large iron pot with a diameter of about one meter, which is used for cooking every day. The other is a slightly smaller, shallow pot connected to the stove fire hole, which is mainly used to steam some things while cooking in the large pot.

At the very end, where it connects to the kang (heated brick bed), there is a small pot, about the size of a modern frying pan. This is mainly to make the most of the heat from the large pot and to heat some water for washing dishes.

Everything was ready, so we started messing around.

Ji Yongling sat on the threshold of his cave dwelling, his buttocks sticking out. He lit the small stove, placed the small pot of water on it, and then put the wine bottle with the bamboo sleeve attached into the pot to start heating.

As the water in the pot is heated, the wine in the bottle undergoes two processes: heating and evaporation, and condensation and collection, distilling it into ethanol, which is then slowly dripped into an empty jar.

Since there is no thermometer, one distillation is definitely not enough, so multiple distillations are required. This will yield approximately 90%–95% alcohol. If anhydrous ethanol is desired, then dehydration and filtration may be necessary.

Forget about anhydrous ethanol, let's get 75% alcohol first.

Watching the ethanol drip down, drop by drop, Ji Yongling's eyes lit up with excitement.

Because there is no breathalyzer, it is impossible to know the exact alcohol content of the distillate. However, in principle, the alcohol content obtained by distillation should be at least 80 degrees. Assuming an alcohol concentration of 90%, adding 20 ml of distilled water to 100 ml of distillate would yield 75% alcohol.

Ji Yongling rubbed his hands together, secretly excited.

Just then, Yang, who had finished sweeping the chicken coop, turned around with her broom and saw Ji Yongling setting up a pot in the yard to start a fire. She immediately ran over and shouted, "My goodness! What are you up to? Why are you bringing the pot out here to play with? Oh dear, why did you boil your grandfather's wine!"

Ji Yongling quickly stood up and stopped Yang Shi, who was rushing forward, saying, "Grandma, don't rush, don't rush! I'm making 'miracle water,' it's very useful, don't ruin it!"

With a pained expression, Mrs. Yang stamped her feet and cried out, "My dear child, why do you keep wasting things! This firewood, this water, this wine, and this jar... Oh dear, my heart aches so much—"

Ji Yongling found it somewhat amusing and quickly helped Yang Shi sit on the threshold, saying, "Grandma, listen to me, this thing I made is very useful, no one else can make it. Don't worry, it's not a waste."

Yang frowned and said, "You must be trying to fool this old woman."

"No, no, I'm just a tiny, cowardly creature, how could I dare to lie to you?"

"Hmph, you're as bold as a nit, yet you still manage to fool me! But, can a pharmacy accept this? Can I exchange it for money?"

Ji Yongling squatted down and sat next to Yang Shi on the threshold. Looking at the simple homemade alcohol extraction device, she said, "Grandma, this thing has many uses. Even if the pharmacy wants to buy it, I might not sell it. I'll try to make a medicine with it first, and then I can use it to make more medicines later."

Yang was persuaded and looked away from the clay stove at Ji Yongling, saying, "Is it true that more medicine can be made with wine?"

Ji Yongling nodded confidently and said, "Don't worry, Grandma. When have I ever lied to you? Grandma, think about it, the Huo family must be rich. Her mother only had sores, but she died. If there had been better medicine to cure her sores sooner, then the Huo family wouldn't have lost their mother. Besides, although this stuff is made with wine, it's not called wine, it's called alcohol."

"What spirit?" Ji Manchuan walked into the yard carrying a grass rake (hoe) and casually asked.

He sniffed, looked around the yard, and asked, "Mother, who spilled the wine? Why does it smell like wine?"

Yang sighed and said, "Ask your child, this old woman can't explain it clearly." With that, she got up and went to the kitchen.

Ji Manchuan placed the rake behind the courtyard gate, walked over to Ji Yongling, and asked, "Ling'er, what are you doing again? Did you ruin the wine that Young Master Huo gave to your grandfather?"

Ji Yongling could only explain again that it was alcohol, a medicinal substance.

Ji Manchuan pulled up his trouser legs, squatted down beside the stove, and asked, "Why don't you use a big pot in the kitchen? There's more firewood, the fire is bigger, and you can also heat up some water."

Ji Yongling imagined the scene: before the alcohol was produced, the big pot used for cooking would be blown up.

She shook her head and quickly said, "No, no. This alcohol will cause a fire, and it might even collapse all of our cave dwellings."

Ji Manchuan looked up at the two-meter-thick layer of loess above the cave dwelling, chuckled incredulously, and said, "It can be that mysterious? Even the last time the earth dragon turned over, it didn't have this much force."

Ji Yongling really didn't know how to explain it.

As the adults and children in the family returned from outside one after another, Ji Yongling, like a museum guide, explained and emphasized again and again: "This is alcohol, which is flammable and explosive. You can't drink it, and you can't touch it. It's extracted from wine, so it's very expensive. Don't come over and touch the pots and pans."

Fortunately, although my family members didn't understand much about it, they were very cooperative.

By evening, Ji Yongling had finally finished extracting the alcohol. Since neither the jar nor the bottle had markings, Ji Yongling didn't know the exact volume. She could only estimate it by visual inspection, using the keen eye she had developed from adding reagents in the lab. She estimated it to be about 100ml.

Because there was no precise measurement, Ji Yongling could only visually estimate 20ml of distilled water again and add it to the 100ml of alcohol, producing an alcohol concentration of about 75%, which was not very precise.

The next step is to make the Bai Bu Ding (a type of medicated plaster).

In fact, Ji Yongling really wanted to make povidone-iodine, but since there was no potassium iodide, he had to give up.

Ji Yongling had already ground some of the dried Bai Bu powder with a small stone mill, so now all she needed to do was soak an appropriate amount of Bai Bu powder in 75% alcohol.

Ji Yongning, who had been watching from the sidelines, asked in confusion, "Sister, I heard Erdan say that he and his father used water boiled with *Papuzi* grass to wash their bodies, and not only did their 'rotten head' get better, but they also got rid of the lice on their bodies."

You keep saying you want to use this lice-killing agent, but why don't you just have our milk boil some water? Why bother with all this alcohol? Isn't it a hassle?"