Joy of Life: The Mei Family's Son Grows Up

Chapter 9 Spicy Rabbit Head and Burping Wine
Just as he placed the two plates on the small coffee table, Su Lishi came in accompanied by Xiaomei.

"Haha, Cheng'an, I heard that you want to treat me to delicious food?"

"Exactly. Please take a seat, teacher."

Mei Cheng'an pulled Xiaomei over and whispered, "I left a plate for the four sisters. It's in the kitchen. I'll show you how to eat it later. Watch carefully and I'll teach the rest of you later."

Xiaomei nodded to show that she understood.

After Sulishi sat down and looked at the rabbit head on the plate, he was stunned. It turned out to be the skull of some animal. How could this be called a delicacy?

However, even though it looked horrible, the fragrance that penetrated his nose still made him swallow his saliva.

"Cheng'an, what is this? If I am not mistaken, it looks like the skull of some animal."

"Teacher, you have a keen eye. This is a rabbit head."

"I see. But I've never heard of anyone eating rabbit heads. Where did you learn this?"

"Teacher, I researched it myself, it smells good!"

Sulishi took a deep breath, and the aroma rushed straight to his lungs, making his mouth water and his stomach start to growl.

"Teacher, do you dare to eat?"

"Why not? I am boasting. I have traveled all over the country in the past few years and have eaten everything. How can a mere rabbit head make me shy away? But how do I eat it?"

"Haha, let me demonstrate it to the teacher."

After that, Mei Cheng'an picked up a rabbit head and explained while operating it.

"First, hold the rabbit's head and teeth to break the upper and lower jaws into two halves, and then nibble on the rabbit's cheek first." He sucked with his lips and licked with his tongue, and the meat on the rabbit's cheek was instantly in his mouth.

"After eating the meat on the cheeks, the next is the rabbit tongue. Just like this, hook it with your hand and the tongue will stick out. You can eat it directly. After eating the rabbit tongue, the mandible part is basically finished."

"Next is the upper jaw and the back of the head. Break it off with your hands like this. Now, this is the rabbit brain. You can eat it directly. It's smooth and tender. Then eat the upper jaw."

"The last part is the rabbit eyes and the meat around the eyes. It depends on your preference. If you don't like eating rabbit eyes, just throw them away. Have you learned it, teacher?"

Seeing how deliciously he was eating, Su Lishi couldn't help himself any longer. He knew the steps well by heart, so he picked up the rabbit head, broke it in two, and started to eat it directly.

In a short while, the rabbit head was completely destroyed, even the rabbit eyes were not spared.

Mei Chengan gave a thumbs up: "Teacher is indeed an expert in food. He has grasped the essence so quickly."

"Hahaha, that's natural."

Su Lishi picked up another rabbit head and was about to eat it, but Mei Chengan stopped him.

"Teacher, wait a minute! Eating rabbit head is more enjoyable when paired with some wine."

"liquor?"

"Teacher, wait a moment!"

Mei Cheng'an got up and ran out. After a while, he came back holding a wooden wine barrel with two wooden wine glasses on top.

Put the wine barrel aside, pick up the wine glass, turn on the faucet on the side of the wine barrel, and a stream of orange-yellow transparent liquid flows out. When the glass is filled, a layer of white foam is revealed on the liquid.

It was beer. If you want to know how Mei Chengan made beer, we have to mention the university he attended in his previous life, Jiangnan University in Wuxi, and the major he studied was called brewing engineering.

After traveling through time, he never thought that his expertise could still be useful. After all, Ye Qingmei even created Wuliangye, so where else could he put his expertise to use? Until he discovered a plant while hunting in Meishan, whose scientific name is Humulus lupulus, also known as hops.

After the two cups were served, Mei Chengan handed the first cup to Teacher Su.

Su Lishi took it and looked at it. The foam on the upper layer was still dissipating, and finally only clear and transparent orange-yellow liquid was left.

"This is?"

"I brewed a wine of my own, I call it burp wine!"

Burp beer, it has a strange name. Sulis put the beer under his nose and sniffed it gently. The rich malt aroma filled his nose, but there was no aroma of alcohol as he had imagined.

"If it's wine, why doesn't it have a scent? Also, why is it called burp wine? And why is your wine glass so huge? Drinking is an elegant thing, isn't it a bit vulgar to use this glass?"

Mei Cheng'an was a little overwhelmed by Su Lishi's questions one after another. It was not that he could not answer them, and the explanation was not difficult. The difficulty lay in changing it into something he could understand, otherwise it would be endless and it was troublesome just thinking about it.

"Teacher, why not try it first."

Su Lishi nodded. It seemed a bit unreasonable that the student invited him to taste the wine with good intentions, but he kept asking questions.

Su Lishi raised the huge wine glass, took a sip, smacked his lips, the taste was sweet and mellow, the faint smell of wine gave him a feeling of being unsatisfied, well, it was not difficult to drink.

"Haha, teacher, the way I drink this wine is a little different. You need to drink it in big gulps to appreciate its true flavor."

It turned out to be the case.

Sulishi took another big sip, and this time the feeling was different. The most intuitive feeling was a chill running down his throat and straight into his lungs. The chill that penetrated his body made him shiver instantly.

Secondly, a gas seemed to be generated in his body, and that gas seemed to enter his lungs along with the wine, which made him feel a little suffocated.

"This wine... burp~"

The clear sound of hiccups startled the servants around, and they all looked towards the person who made the sound.

Su Lishi was also stunned and subconsciously covered his mouth. He really couldn't imagine that he would make such an indecent sound in front of outsiders, but the hiccups after being held in made him feel comfortable all over. How to describe that feeling? Yes, clear!
"Hahahaha, teacher, now you understand why it's called burping wine. Just as the name suggests, you'll burp after drinking it."

"How indecent, how indecent."

"Let's put aside whether it's elegant or not for now, and just ask the teacher, does this wine taste good? Is it refreshing? Is it transparent?"

"Uh..." Su Lishi was speechless for a moment.

"No hurry, teacher, just chew two rabbit heads and think about it slowly."

Su Lishi naturally accepted the advice.

After a few rabbit heads went into his stomach, his mouth felt burning, sweat broke out on his body, and a hissing sound came from his mouth.

At this moment, Sulishi just wanted to drink something to quench the burning sensation in his mouth, so he picked up the wine glass and drank up the burping wine in the glass in gulps.

The burning sensation on his tongue and the cold wine produced a magical chemical reaction. Another loud burp came out, and Sulishi felt himself light and comfortable, as if he was about to ascend to heaven in the next moment.

"Great!" Su Lishi slammed the wine glass heavily on the small table. He was already a little drunk at this time.
The rabbit head had already been eaten, and Mei Cheng'an had no intention of eating the ones he had left for the maids. He had the plates taken away, replaced them with a plate of salted broad beans, and poured another glass of beer for Su Lishi.

"Cheng'an, this wine of yours is wonderful. It tastes good. It really tastes good."

"As long as the teacher likes it."

Mei Chengan was puzzled. He looked at the beer in his hand. Although the alcohol content of this homemade beer was difficult to control, it shouldn't be very high. It shouldn't be so easy to get drunk. The teacher only drank a little over a dozen, and he was already tipsy? How come he was fine after drinking a dozen as well?
A bite of salty broad beans and a sip of beer have a unique flavor.

Sulishi's eyes were hazy and he was shaking his head.

"Its fragrance is so far-reaching that it soars to the sky, and its taste is so quiet that it hides in the body. Good wine, good wine."

A hint of suspicion flashed across Mei Cheng'an's eyes. He felt like he had heard this sentence somewhere before and it sounded so familiar.

I thought about it for a long time but couldn't remember it, so I put it out of my mind. It seems that the teacher has a very high opinion of beer.

Just as he was about to refuse, he heard a bang and Sulishi fell headfirst onto the small table.

Mei Cheng'an was stunned for a moment, then he laughed and ordered his servants to help Su Lishi back to his room.

"Sister Lan."

"Master!"

"Is the pavement ready?"

"Master, we have prepared a shop in the south, north, east and west of the city. They are all the same size and located in the most crowded places as requested by you.

The shopkeeper was hired from Qing Yu Tang and he also served as the accountant. All the servants under him were already prepared and had signed a life contract. A special person was also assigned to be responsible for preparing the secret marinade.

Part of the ingredients used come from our farm, and part come from major butcher shops in the city. They are all unwanted parts, and the purchase price is extremely low. Long-term contracts have been signed, and each shop has a place to raise rabbits in the backyard, with dedicated people responsible for feeding and handling them.

The customized wine glasses have also arrived and have been placed in batches in various stores.

As for the drinks..."

Mei Chengan chuckled.

"Sister Ju, the first batch of burp wine has almost fermented. We can start distributing it. We'll give each household a large barrel. The first batch is not large, so let me think about the price."

Mei Cheng'an tapped the table with his fingers. Each large wooden barrel holds 30 liters, so the first batch brewed 20 barrels, or 600 liters. Each small wooden barrel holds 12 liters, so 60 barrels were brewed. Mei Cheng'an brought back 10 barrels himself, leaving 50 barrels. The total sold was 1,200 liters. A custom-made draft beer cup holds 500 milliliters, or one kilogram. This batch of beer will make up to 2,400 cups, and the next batch will have to wait another month. In other words, they can only sell 80 kilograms a day at most, and if they split the business into four stores, each store can sell 20 kilograms a day at most. If they sell more, they will not be able to supply enough.

Li Bai, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, once said that a dou of clear wine in a golden cup is worth ten thousand. Dou is divided into large dou and small dou. He meant that wine is usually a small dou, which is four catties. One tael of silver is one thousand coins, and ten thousand is ten taels of silver, which means that four catties of wine requires ten taels of silver, and one catty is equal to 2.5 taels.

Of course, this wine is not that wine. The alcohol content is different, and the way of drinking is also different. But we have a small quantity, and things are valuable because they are rare. It is not too much to sell one or two ounces per catty.

"Then let's set it at one tael for now for each cup, one small bucket at one hundred taels, and a large bucket at five hundred taels."

Xiaolan was puzzled.

"Master, this price is not right, shouldn't the more you buy, the better the discount? Why is it that the more wine you buy, the more expensive it is? Can people still buy a whole barrel?"

"What we want is that he won't buy it. We only have so much wine in the first batch, and people bought them all barrel by barrel. How can we promote our burp wine? We set a higher price to make some people think twice. Of course, this can only stop some people. After all, for some people, they won't buy it if you don't charge a high price!"

Xiaolan nodded, not quite understanding.

"Young Master, please decide when to open the business."

"It's better to open today than to wait for a day. Prepare tomorrow and open the business the day after tomorrow."

"Yes!"

"Have you arranged the publicity?"

"We have already found them. They are all servants in the mansion. We have also asked them to memorize the slogans that the young master ordered."

"Well, it always feels like it's not quite there yet."

He took a sip of beer and ate a few broad beans.

"I figured it out, but I'm still missing a gimmick! I've thought about it, and now I have it. Sister Lan, tell all the shopkeepers tomorrow that we're going to hold an event when we open our doors. Anyone who can drink a glass of burping wine without burping will have the wine free and can drink as much as they want. In addition, they'll get a reward of thirty taels of silver."

"Also, tell the foreman tomorrow to have him arrange for patrols to be carried out around the store more often the day after tomorrow. If anyone causes trouble, arrest them immediately."

"I understand, Master!"

Mei Cheng'an went over it again in his mind, making sure there was nothing missing, then began to drink with peace of mind.

"I raise my cup to the bright moon, and my shadow and I become three."

Drink the wine in the glass in one gulp.

"Let's go, I'll help you guys practice!"

(End of this chapter)