Pubs and wine in old Beijing

Historically, Beijing was not a place where liquor was produced on a large scale, and there were no famous wines, but there were many liquor-making workshops. The "Erguotou", "South Road Shaojiu" and "West Road Shaojiu" sold in old Beijing were all produced in Beijing, and the Beijingers called it "burning knives".

After the broadcast of the TV series Little Women under Zhengyangmen, people have some memories of Beijing pubs. "Little Women under Zhengyangmen" is a literary creation, not a history, and the creator's imagination can be freely used in the play. However, because the play involves pubs, people are interested in the anecdotes and historical allusions of Beijing, especially the old Beijing pubs ...

Pubs and wine shops

In the old Beijing era, pubs in Beijing were graded, and they served different drinkers respectively. Large pubs are called "big wine jars", medium pubs and small wine shops. Large wine jars are opened in the streets, while small wine shops are mostly opened in hutongs. Some large vats usually have dishes and meals, such as Daoxiao Noodles, noodles and jiaozi, and some large vats are integrated with the so-called "Erhunpu" and other restaurants. Because most of the small wine shops are located in hutongs, there are not many mobile drinkers, and most of them are good drinkers in their neighbors. Therefore, there are only simple side dishes to accompany wine, such as fried broad beans, peanuts and dried bean curd. As for the "smoked fish" (pig's head meat) and other meat dishes, the small wine shops are not prepared. If the drinkers need it, they can bring their own or ask the waiter to buy it.

There are also medium-sized pubs in Beijing, such as Xianheng Hotel, where Kong Yiji often drinks, and the joint venture between Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun, which are among the pubs with high cultural taste, so there are beautiful legends and tragic stories. But it didn't happen in Beijing. The pubs in old Beijing, such as Liuquanju and Liubiju, later changed their business contents, and Liuquanju sold dishes and became a restaurant. Liubiju was changed to a pickles monopoly, and their pub status was forgotten. According to Aisingiorro Duncheng's Collection of Four Songting in Qing Dynasty, Dunmin and Duncheng had a good relationship with Cao Xueqin. Their brothers lived near Taiping Lake in Xuanwu Gate, and there was a "Huai Garden" in their home. One autumn, Cao Xueqin visited friends in the city from Xiangshan, a western suburb, and happened to meet the Dunmin brothers. On this day, the weather was bad, and it was bleak and bleak everywhere. After the three met, they drank in a pub to catch up with the past, and the "Snow Qin wine was thirsty like crazy" with the momentum of "three cups and two lamps, and Mo Wen's future was bumpy". Three people in the bitter autumn night yelling, talk freely about ancient and modern, express the sense of * * *, all night, "Xue Qin Huan Long song" heroic nature shows the generous spirit of "Yanshi drinker". There were several pubs for literati in Beijing in Qing Dynasty, and they spread to the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Jin Shoushen, a scholar, introduced Siyixing Hotel in his book "Old Beijing with a Happy Taste", and Siyixing is a pub. It is said in the book that Siyixing is the collective name of four Yixing hotels in the east, west, south and north. Among them, Beiyixing in the north of the city, "when it was in Ganjia, the business was very good. Because it was adjacent to the married palace (today's Alcohol Palace) and Chengzi was a famous calligrapher who enjoyed poetry and wine, he often took a small drink to Beiyixing and wrote a book in Jiaqing for six years."

With the changes of the times, medium-sized pubs, which are well managed, are merged into large wine vats or two meat shops, while those which are poorly managed are reduced to small wine shops. Most of the people who run small wine shops in old Beijing are from Huangxian County, Shandong Province (now Longkou City). They work hard on the principle of small profits but quick turnover, because the people who come here for consumption will not be literati and dignitaries, and the drinkers are mostly pawns of peddlers, such as rickshaw pullers, masons and coolies. The partners of the shops are not allowed to drink on weekdays, so they can't be seen. Small wine shops are small everywhere, usually a frontispiece. There are at most two or three tables and several benches in the room. People who drink here have a lot of alcohol but poor spending power, usually only two or three taels. Slightly wealthy drinkers may want a plate of frozen skin or fried broad beans, and those who are short of money may bring a bag of peanuts or a cucumber to accompany the wine. As for those who can buy wine on credit by knowing the shopkeeper of the wine shop, they don't want any food, and they just drink two glasses of wine as soon as they turn their necks back, because they have to work hard for "chewing the valley" and won't sit in the wine shop and talk about the tower and the mountain, and then talk about Xidan in Beihai for a whole day.

Small wine shops are full of fun, grounded and full of ordinary people's life atmosphere. In the past, there was a small wine shop in the south of Dongsi Zhushi Street. The owner's surname was Hao, and everyone called him Lao Hao. He was a serious Shandong businessman. His small wine shop is more leisure in the morning, and there are many people after lunch, and all four small tables are full of people. People sit here to kill time by chatting rather than drinking. The wine to drink here is mainly Shandong yellow rice wine, and some of the wine from the jar is a kind of white wine called burning knife. There are few people who are "drunk" and crazy in small wine shops. When I was a child, my family was poor, but my father still had a hobby of drinking two ounces of wine, and sometimes he was short of money, so he often asked me to buy wine on credit ... Fortunately, Lao Hao is a small business, and there are not a few people who come here to drink wine on credit. Besides, people are honest-oriented, and they pay off their debts as soon as they have money, and there are absolutely no deadbeats. At that time, you could smell the faint scent of wine far away from the small wine shop, especially in winter nights, when it was freezing outside, while the inside of the small wine shop was warm as spring, filled with the smell of alcohol, water vapor and inferior cigarettes, and the life was full. Everyone sat around the stove, drank a small wine and baked a fire, forgetting the troubles and fatigue of the day and killing the winter time, which was very comfortable.

The modest pubs in Beijing are also called "Yellow Pub". As the "Dream of China in Beijing" published in 1935 said: "Most of the Huangpubs are run by Shandong people. Fifty years ago, there were yellow pubs outside the customs house in Beijing. The situation was not big, but very elegant. " In the yellow pub, "drinkers can drink enough, and they can call out if they want to eat." They measured the wine by half a bowl. Although it is half a bowl, it actually falls into a wine bowl, which is still full. " In winter, people have the habit of drinking warm wine, so Huangtavern "scalds it in a hot pot and then pours it into a wine bowl". However, Huangpubs "gradually declined around the middle of Guangxu". "The yellow tavern in the city is also decreasing day by day. Today, the only remaining ones are Liuquanju in the north of Xisi Pailou and Baijing Building in the Coal Market Bridge outside Zhengyangmen, but both of them were pure yellow taverns at the beginning, but they have all changed recently. "

Meng Hua Lu in Beijing was written by Mu Rugai (1884—1961), a descendant of the flag bearer of Jianrui Camp in Xiangshan. He was an expert in drinking tea and was a librarian of Beijing Literature and History Research Institute after liberation in 1949. He has a lot of research and experience on pubs and wines in Beijing, and the account of Huangpubs in the book is reliable first-hand material.

big wine jar

Old Beijingers call big pubs big wine jars. As the name implies, this pub is closely related to the wine jar. In  Hongnian's Scenery of Beiping, there is a clear description of the big wine jar. He said, "The big wine jar is a business of selling wine, but there is no table in the house. No matter the size of the place, the house is full of' big wine jars' buried in the soil." On the top of the jar, there is a wooden cylinder cover with red paint, and four or five stools are placed around it. This wine jar is a table. In the book Beiping Taste, there is also a description of a large wine jar. According to the author, "Almost every street or bustling alley in the inner and outer cities of Beijing has a large wine jar".

the way of selling wine in a vat is also different from today. They talk about "one" when selling wine. One is one cup, and one cup is two taels. "The wine glasses are all made of tin, and then they were changed into porcelain cups. Drink one and have another. When you leave, settle accounts by glass. " In the past, the big wine jar didn't sell hot dishes, let alone rice, so it was a place for "pure drinking". People have to eat enough after drinking enough, so "the big wine jars in the 49 cities are in front of it, one on the left and one on the right, no matter whether they are fixed shops or carts, they sell anything to eat." Just shout, "What to eat, what to have", which is very convenient.

at first, the liquor sold in big vats only sold white dry, that is, sorghum liquor. Later, the big wine jar "sold Shanxi Huang, Shandong Huang and Liangxiang wines, as well as wormwood, lotus white and rose dew", and there were more varieties of wines and more customers. At that time, people had feelings for the big wine jar, and many intellectuals left a good impression on the big wine jar. Someone wrote: "On a snowy day in winter, or when the yellow sand blows on your face and the wires are whistled by the northwest wind, you shrink your neck in the street, walk with your hands in your pockets, lift the thick blue cotton curtain hanging from the big wine jar, and walk in. You can occupy a seat in any corner, and ask it to dry for two or three bowls in vain. Tell the waiter to cut a few cents' worth of sheep's face on the cabinet selling sheep's head meat at the door, and use an old newspaper to hold it. The meat slices are as big as paper, sprinkled with fine salt, and eaten by hand, without a dagger, and three bowls are swallowed, and the cold is expelled. "

With the development of the times, big wine jars have also changed. Some big wine jars have changed their business mode of selling wine as the main business, and sold meals. Among them, many big wine jars operated by Shanxi people have added staple foods such as Daoxiao Noodles and Maoerduo in their hometown. Hengheqing, located in the west of Dongsipailou South Road a few decades ago, was a well-known big wine jar. It not only sold Shanxi Fenjiu and Zhuyeqing, but also sold various kinds of wines such as beer, and also sold Shanxi pasta, which became a restaurant with Shanxi flavor. At one time, its business was booming and it was closed behind the Cultural Revolution.

Tea can be nourishing, and wine can be chaotic. Beijing is an ancient cultural city, which stresses ethics. In old Beijing, pubs, wine shops, yellow pubs, vats, etc. will not be managed by women, even "little women under Zhengyangmen" are not allowed, and there will be no women drinking in pubs. Therefore, the folk customs of the ancient city are simple and lasting.

Liquor in Beijing

Historically, Beijing was not a place where liquor was produced on a large scale, and there were no famous liquors, but there were many liquor-making workshops. The "Erguotou", "South Road Shaojiu" and "West Road Shaojiu" sold in old Beijing were all produced in Beijing, and the Beijingers called it "burning knives". The wine workshop is small in scale but has a long history, which appeared at least in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the Qing Dynasty, there was a "Good Brewing Department" in Guanglu Temple, which was specialized in wine ceremony. Today, there used to be liquor workshops in Shaojiu Hutong in the north of Wangfujing Street and Shaojiu Hutong in Chaoyangmen. The former was a Guanglu Temple liquor workshop in the Ming Dynasty, and the latter was a folk liquor workshop. Before the mid-Qing Dynasty, the distillery run by the upright officials was brewed with Yuquanshan spring water, and the brewed wine was as pure as jade, so it was called "yuquan wine". When Britain and France invaded Beijing, they burned down three mountains and five gardens. yuquan wine's workshop was doomed, razed to the ground by foreigners, and people never saw yuquan wine again. Therefore, many years ago, Mr. Pu Jie was in Ceng Yun, and there was no wine shop in the Qing Dynasty, so there would be no royal wine. The "Qing Palace Royal Wine" and "Aisingiorro Wine" bought and sold in the society were all fake works, which had nothing to do with the Qing Dynasty, and the Aisingiorro family never made wine. Pu Jie, once a "royal brother", said that history is true and there can be no mistakes.

Besides Erguotou liquor, Lotus White Liquor is the most famous liquor in Beijing. It is said that it is Cixi's favorite liquor. Lotus White is made from the core of lotus. The liquor is sweet and fragrant, and it was best made by Haidian Renhe Liquor Store in that year. There were five kinds of yellow wine in old Beijing in that year, including South Yellow Wine, Inner Yellow Wine, Huangjing Wine, Imitation Yellow Wine and Western Yellow Wine. South yellow rice wine is Shaoxing yellow rice wine in Zhejiang, which Kong Yiji likes to drink; Beijing yellow rice wine is Shaoxing yellow rice wine copied in Beijing; Western yellow rice wine is produced in Shanxi, and it and Fenjiu are the main wines in large wine jars opened by Shanxi people. Neihuang wine, which is related to the Qing Dynasty Palace, is called "Neifu yellow wine", which may not be produced locally, but may be a tribute wine from Shaoxing, and this yellow wine "disappeared after the abdication of the Qing Dynasty Palace". According to the statistics in 194, the wines in the Peiping market during the Japanese puppet regime were divided into cooking wine, sake, carved flowers and Ligustrum lucidum. Because of Japan's invasion of China, Japanese sake took advantage of it, but Beijing people were not interested in it, thinking it was just white wine with too much water. Only sold in the "izakaya" opened by Japanese ronin and Koreans.

In recent years, the workshops that produce Erguotou liquor in Beijing have become wineries, with at least three or four, and brands such as Niulanshan and Hongxing have added a lot of color to Beijing liquor.

There is a tobacco and alcohol monopoly system in old Beijing. There are two kinds of liquor: official liquor and private liquor. Private wine is naturally without official permission, but it is a rogue, and it is trafficked privately, in order to profit from it. " "Although official wine is expensive, the quality is reliable, and private wine is not perfect." According to historical data, before the Republic of China, bootleggers bound their wine in pig urine bubbles and climbed the city wall into the city at night, so some people would be injured or disabled because of this. At that time, there were a lot of "cooking pots" for making bootleg liquor outside Guangqumen. Wine dealers sold wine into the city from here and climbed the Chongwenmen wall, and incidents of falling and killing wine dealers occurred frequently here.

Businessmen in old Beijing know the rules, so in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, they set up trade organizations related to wine trading, which not only exercised self-discipline, but also played a certain role in maintaining the safety of the wine market. According to statistics in 1919, there were seven big shops in Beijing Liquor Chamber of Commerce and 191 shops in Beijing Oil, Wine and Vinegar Sauce Chamber of Commerce. As for the oil, salt and non-staple food grocery store that sells wine, it has not been counted. In history, foreign wine in Beijing was neglected, and people called it "devil's wine". In 1919, there were only two foreign firms selling foreign wine in Beijing, one was Dafeng Foreign Firm, which was opened by the French, and the other was Willy Gouna Foreign Firm, which was opened by the Italians to specialize in smuggled foreign wine. The store was located in Dongjiaomin Lane and was not bound by the law of tobacco and alcohol monopoly in China. The history of beer entering Beijing is only over 1 years. In that year, old Beijing called beer "horse urine". After the opening of Shuanghesheng five-star beer run by Shandong people in 1914, Beijing people drank beer. Drinking foreign wine and beer was a new thing more than 1 years ago. Nowadays, foreign wine is everywhere, there are many kinds of beer and many bars, and the "bar street" in Shichahai and Sanlitun has also been formed, but the Beijing-style pub does not exist. Although pubs and pubs are nowhere to be found in Beijing, it is also interesting for good drinkers to recall the old pubs and Beijing wines.

epic adventure: Timu? Baodi? The good worker < P > was dissatisfied with the use of the portrait and name, and the host Ma Dong was compensated.