On September 12, the third autumn brewing ceremony of Linshui Yuquan for full year cave storage liquor was held in Linshui Distillery in Anhui. Having waited patiently for 160 days with awe and observance of rules, Linshui Liquor opened 117 ancient pits that can be dated back to the Ming and Qing dynasties!

The best liquor brewed in autumn revealed the quality secret of Linshui

Autumn is a good harvest season. Autumn wakes up the brewing production line that has been dormant for a whole summer.

Under the leadership of Zhang Yunhe, general manager of Linshui Liquor, other leaders and brewers carried out a worship ceremony. With the command of “Time for brewing” heard, the autumn brewing was officially begun. The rich aroma of distillers’ grains filled the noses and mouths of those present instantly after a summer’s deep sleep.

Good liquor has to be “waited”. Liquor making is a series of processes of microbial fermentation. To make high-quality liquor is a process of allowing microorganisms to have good activities. Temperatures influence the growth and development of microorganisms and enzymatic reactions. With high temperatures in summer, microorganisms reproduce very fast, resulting in sour liquor. Therefore, most distilleries generally stop working in June, July, and August.

Accordingly, the liquor made after the unfavorable seasons pass will have a relatively rich flavor. Therefore, some distilleries adhering to traditional processes will start a new production cycle from September. This is especially true for Linshui Liquor, a company that has always believed in the philosophy of “slowness”. They extend the storage time of liquor in the cellar to 160 days.

When the time was up, brewers dug out the fermented grains with shovels and cooked them in steamers. The hand-brewing skills of the old craftsmen in Linshui have been passed down as an intangible heritage for hundreds of years. Great attention was given to “gentleness, looseness, uniformity, thinness, precision, and flatness”. In fact, the seemingly simple operation of throwing every shovel of fermented grains into the steamers required perfect coordination of eyes, hands, waist, and legs. Dozens of standardized movements must be done at one stretch, but with great variations in depths and speed. “Here comes the liquor!” Steamer filling and steaming were the steps to take after the cellar was opened. The precious base liquor of Linshui Yuquan finally flowed out as everyone was expecting it. The very best liquor produced by Linshui Yuquan in the autumn of 2021 gradually came to light.

Not all raw liquor can be made into the best liquor in autumn. Experienced brewers will use a small amount of fermented grains from somewhere in the middle or lower part of the pit that is 10-20cm from and without touching the bottom because that’s where microorganisms gather and fermentation gives off fragrant smell. Moreover, when the liquor is distilled, only a small quantity of the liquor that is close to the middle and front part of the pot is extracted because only such liquor in “a small quantity” is the best liquor that Linshui Yuquan wants to produce. 

This is what’s special about the best liquor of Linshui Yuquan - best of the best.  

Stay True to the Original Aspiration and Holds on to the “True” Craftsmanship of Cave Storage  

“How do we differentiate from our competitors? We either refuse to produce products that are similar to those of our competitors or produce them less, but we try to produce something different more.” In Zhang Yunhe’s view, quality matters in liquor making. Since everyone is making liquor, Linshui must try to “make something different”. Compared with other Moutai-Luzhou-flavor liquor, Linshui Yuquan is more strategically different in that it adds to quality the craftsmanship of “Cave Storage”.

Zhang Yunhe expects Linshui Yuquan to be “different”, so he requires that “cave storage be treated as a brewing process”. Behind this “true craftsmanship of cave storage” are unremitting round trips of more than 300,000km every year between the distillery and the cave, and these trips have been made for 13 consecutive years, or 4,757 days and nights.

Linshui Winery started to make cave storage liquor and opened the first cave in 2008. So far, it has opened 3 cave storehouses in Dabie Mountain. The total storage capacity of these caves exceeds 10,000t. For the enterprise, its storage capacity of high-quality base liquor far exceeds its sales volume and is ranked the first in East China.

The commitment to quality has made Linshui Liquor a winner of numerous awards in international spirits competitions in recent years.

As insiders put it, consumers can perceive the good craftsmanship behind good liquor products. The cave storage Moutai-Luzhou-flavor liquor, which has been made carefully for more than 70 years and stored for 13 years without interruption, has made Linshui Yuquan a synonym for “true good liquor”. It is also the main reason why the core products of Linshui Liquor can be elevated to the sub-high-end and high-end ranks in terms of price. They will be further accepted and recognized over time.