Chapter 2137： Glycerin wine

This set of combined tactics is really invincible. The single-headed cannonball smashed a hole in the wooden city gate lightly and without pressure. And Knott's rubber squeezing, relying on the power of more than ten times the black powder, can easily break through the city gate. And the wheelbarrow with the iron top cover, the enemy who has never seen it will definitely be dumbfounded.

In this era, Europe seems to have no stray bullets. The famous grenadiers did not appear until the 17th century. Before that, there were Greek clay pots thrown by hands in the Byzantine Empire. The so-called Greek clay pot is actually similar to the later Molotov cocktail molotov cocktail, and it is estimated that it is also extracted from petroleum. It is said that the Greek fire was brought to Constantinople by a Syrian craftsman, and the oil came from West Asia. Later, the reason why Byzantium failed to stop Turkey was because Turkey first occupied the West Asian part of Byzantium, which cut off the supply of raw oil for the Greek fire. Otherwise, the Turkish fleet will not be able to cross the strait.

What's interesting is that the Byzantine Empire, like Marin, attaches great importance to secrecy. Moreover, it has been kept secret for centuries, which is very powerful. Even after the demise of Byzantium, the secret of Greek fire was lost.

But according to Arab records, the Greek fire looked like a petrol bomb. Therefore, it is not nonsense that Marin called the gasoline barrel he made as a Greek fire. The only thing Marin didn't quite understand was how the Byzantines sprayed Greek fire to a distance of 50 yards. If you master this technology, naval battles will be invincible. Because the ships are all wood, they are sprayed by the Greek fire, and they have no resistance.

It is a pity that it seems that the Greek fire was lost due to the death of Constantine XI, the last emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Probably, this secret is only in the hands of the emperor, and the branch of the royal family that later escaped did not seem to have the secret. Otherwise, with the virtue of the Byzantine emperor Andres Pariologus who was willing to sell the crown and throne, the Greek fire must have been sold early. Moreover, it is certain that the secret recipe of Greek fire must be more popular than the Byzantine crown and the imperial throne. Among other things, if Andres Pariologs really has the secret recipe for Greek fire, especially the secret recipe for firing Greek fire 50 yards away, others don’t know, Marlin would definitely be willing to buy hundreds of thousands of gold coins. . Even millions of gold coins are acceptable. Because, after mastering this secret technique, burning an enemy wooden boat is like playing.

In fact, Marin is not completely ignorant of the flamethrower principle. But it seems that if you use canned liquefied petroleum gas to spray fire, you can spray it up to 10 meters away. Spraying 50 yards, the genius inventor Marin couldn't understand it either. Because this distance has already reached the range of the individual flamethrower of later generations. If you can get this technology, let alone burning ships and playing, burning enemy infantry is easy and simple. Because, the spray distance of 50 yards is almost the same as the distance that the shotgun can aim at. It takes luck to hit the enemy with a musket, and one shot of a flamethrower must be hit. Moreover, with a sweep, not only burned one person, it was much more deadly than a musket. Moreover, facing the fire, the horses of the opposing cavalry would definitely not dared to rush over. After all, animals are instinctive to be afraid of fire.

Originally, Marin planned to let the pair of alchemists and apprentices, Singid and Cruz, help to figure out the flamethrowing technique. But after thinking about it, Marin gave up. After all, he still has to rely on the pair of masters and apprentices to help prepare the digestive dry oil and Knott's squeezed rubber. If it was accidentally killed by gasoline because of the development of the flamethrower, it would be a big loss. Therefore, the flamethrower is free.

Unexpectedly, Cruz, the alchemist apprentice, brought Marin a huge surprise...

…

What surprise did Cruz bring to Marin? It turned out that the clerk accidentally dripped glycerin, the raw material for digestion dry oil, into low-quality wine. As a result, two days later, when I drank the wine again, the astringency of the inferior wine was gone and it became much more delicious.

Upon hearing the news, Malinhuo stood up:

"Wipe, this seems to be Crazy Tang's way of processing fruit wine with glycerin!"

Before traveling in his last life, Marin had read a book called "XX Great Song," in which the protagonist, the chemical male Tang Madman, seemed to use glycerin to remove the bitterness in the fruit wine. According to Tang Madzi's theory, the tannins in fruit wine are the source of bitterness. Using glycerin, it can react with tannins, decompose the tannins in the wine, and remove the bitter taste. Moreover, because of its sweetness, glycerin also makes the liquid taste better, similar to juice.

In fact, in later generations, glycerin is a food additive. At the same time, it is also the main ingredient of important moisturizing cosmetics with a wide range of uses. However, edible glycerin is different from industrial glycerin. Just like the difference between industrial salt and edible salt, industrial glycerin is easily mixed with chemical raw materials, which is harmful to the human body.

But Crazy Tang said that when reacting caustic soda with lard, put a little less caustic soda, and put more lard (or other animal fats) to ensure that the caustic soda is consumed. In this way, the glycerin produced has basically no residues of undesirable substances and can be used as edible glycerin.

In addition, glycerin and digested dry oil are two substances, which are not as dangerous as digested dry oil, nor do they have the drug effect of digesting dry oil to expand blood vessels, so they are relatively safe.

Moreover, in many high-quality wines, glycerin is originally obtained, which enhances the quality of the wine. After all, glycerin can break down tannins, remove bitterness, and increase sweetness.

However, that is something that only premium wines have. Inferior wine is nothing like that. In other words, lack of that stuff.

What Marin didn't know was that many cheap wines and fruit wines in later generations actually added edible glycerin to eliminate bitterness. After all, not every wine can produce enough glycerin on its own. It has to be a top-quality wine to produce enough glycerin on its own.

Moreover, the glycerin produced by the wine itself can improve the taste and quality of the wine more than the added glycerin. The main effect of adding glycerol is to remove the bitterness and astringency, which improves the taste, which is much worse than the self-generated glycerin of wine.

However, that is in accordance with the standards of later generations. For this era, wine has no bitterness, even high-end wine.

The bitterness in wine mainly comes from grape skins and grape seeds. Because of the higher tannin content in the two. However, tannins are also more useful. It reacts with other substances in wine to enhance the complex taste of wine.

To remove the bitterness and astringency, there is only one way for the wine of this age-to remove the grape skins and seeds, and only use grape meat to make wine!

This wine made from only grape meat is actually white wine. Because of the main coloring, the grape skins that make the wine red are discarded. While discarding the bitterness, it also discards the red color.

However, in Europe, the mainstream is still red wine. Because red wine has a religious color, it is called "Holy Blood". In this era of strong religious atmosphere, although white wine tastes better, it is only drunk by a few nobles. The members of the church, because of the "Holy Blood", still drink more red wine. Even many nobles who believe in Catholicism usually drink red wine with a bitter taste.

Of course, the red wines drunk by the nobles must have the lightest bitterness, brewed by masters, and expensive. The price of red wine drunk by ordinary people is cheaper. Of course, the astringency is also very strong. But anyway, even with astringent taste, it tastes much better than rancid, inferior beer in bulk.

Many ordinary people can't even drink inferior bitter wine and can only drink rancid inferior beer.

In this era, a gallon of ordinary Bordeaux wine costs only three or four pfennigs. Local German wines are a bit more expensive, costing 6 to 8 pfennigs.

One gallon is equal to 8 pints, and one pint is approximately equal to 0.5675 liters, which is a little more than half a liter. In a tavern, the volume of a wooden cup is generally a pint, and the price is also calculated according to the cup. Under normal circumstances, the price of ordinary wine is 0.5 pfennig to 1 pfennig.

But this price is still too expensive for ordinary people, because ordinary people's salary is only 2 pfennigs a day. If you add 2 pfennigs as 100 yuan, then 0.5 pfennigs is almost 25 yuan. 25 yuan a glass of wine, in the era of rich materials in later generations, ordinary people can not afford it!

And rancid beer, because of rancidity, the price is very cheap, you can drink two cups of a North Sea country brass coin. And a brass coin is one eighth of a pfennig. In other words, one pfennig can drink 16 glasses of inferior beer. The price difference between the two is about 8 times.

Therefore, wine is not something the poor can afford. Only ordinary people with a little wealth can afford inferior wine. But, don’t worry about bad wine sales. Because it is the "Holy Blood", red wine is very popular in Europe. Even ordinary people drink "Holy Blood" on some religious festivals. Unless the family can't even afford the cheapest wine, there is nothing to say.

…

Let's talk about this high-end red wine, it is generally produced in the Burgundy region, where the climate is good, very suitable for grape growth. Moreover, the master brewers are also very skilled. In addition, it is the Bordeaux region, which is the largest wine producing area in Western Europe.

Of course, for the time being, the quality of Bordeaux wines is still very average. Only Lafite Winery, which Marlin secretly supports, uses oak barrels to make wine, which improves the quality. Oak barrels can absorb tannins, reduce the bitterness of the wine and enhance the taste.

Therefore, in the past two years, Lafite Winery has risen quickly. The Lafite red wine, whose bitterness has been reduced a lot, has also become a high-end wine, becoming a powerful challenger for Burgundy red wine.

…

However, using oak barrels to make wine and absorb tannins, the effect is too slow. Moreover, oak barrels are also more expensive. The quickest way is actually to add a little glycerin to the brewed inferior wine, seal the barrel and react for a while, then unseal...

At this time, perhaps the taste of wine is still not as good as the high-end Burgundy wine and Lafite wine. However, at least the bitterness and astringency are removed.

In this era, Europeans have little knowledge and no bitter taste wines, even high-end wines. Even if it is not the most advanced wine, it can't be compared with the best wine in Burgundy, but it can be compared with Lafite wine.

And what is the price of high-end wine? 5 gold coins in 1 gallon! An average cup (1 pint) is worth 37.5 pfennigs! This price is 75 times that of inferior wine!

Glycerin is used to remove the bitterness and astringency of wines. The most high-end wines are definitely not counted, and there must be a difference in taste. However, it's okay to mix in second gear. And the second wine, the price is about 1 gold coin per gallon, which is 7.5 pfennigs per glass, which is 15 times that of inferior wines!

If Marin imported inferior wines from Bordeaux at the price of three or four pfennigs per gallon, and then sold them at the second-tier price, the profit would be more than ten times that!

Not to mention the second gear, even if it is the third gear and the fourth gear, only a few times the profit is enough to make Marin's heart fascinated!

And most importantly, the sales of wines are big!

The royal salute that Marin had done before was indeed very popular and very profitable. A bottle of wine can be sold for up to 5 gold coins, which makes you very profitable.

Why are the Royal Salutes so expensive? Because it does not have the bitterness and astringency of ordinary wine. And with the addition of maple syrup, it tastes good. Coupled with exquisite packaging and very compelling publicity, the price is naturally going up, and the minimum cost is 1 gold coin a bottle, which is a **** profit.

But the problem is-the royal salute is only popular in the secular world. Moreover, only the great nobles and wealthy merchants can afford it. Therefore, sales are limited.

Moreover, Western Europeans are different from Eastern Europeans and are not addicted to spirits. Therefore, the Royal Salute has limited sales.

But wine is different, because red wine is popular in religious ceremonies, so the consumption is large. In addition, in this era, most priests are rich and are very high-quality consumer groups.

But these wealthy priests only drink red wine and don't consume royal salutes, leaving Marin helpless. UU Reading

Marlin sent a rough survey and found that half of the wealthy people in Germany are middle and high-ranking churches, and they are richer than the nobles. Many aristocrats are actually swollen faces to fill up fat people, in fact, very poor, they need to borrow money to survive.

The church people are really rich. You can collect tithes, you can sell indulgences, and there are donations from believers...and a lot of land income...

In addition, like the temples in ancient China, many churches also lend money. Although it is not as dark as the Chinese balds, the annual interest is still 15% to 30%, which is very profitable.

Therefore, people in the church have a lot of money. Later, so many princes joined the Protestant church, not particularly for Martin Luther, but for the seizure of church property and land!

Ordinary priests may not be willing to drink the highest grade 5 gold coins per gallon of red wine, which is drunk by the bishops. However, the second-grade red wine of 1 gold coin per gallon has no bitterness. There must be many priests who are willing to drink and can afford it.

Marin felt that a golden mountain was rising in front of him, and he could reach it...