Extraordinary ambition, extraordinary skills, and extraordinary well water led naturally to extraordinary beginnings. Great Clouds and Rain had no sooner come on the market than it was proclaimed a great success. Blessings and Charm was as busy as a marketplace, with workers and scholars and old hands and petty hooligans beating a path to the door. A poet by the name of Li Sandou -Three-Pint Li – wrote two poems in praise of the qualities of Great Clouds and Rain. Here they are:
Spring has long dwelt in the Temple of the Immortal Matron, Fragrant well water is transformed into puffy clouds. The face of a beautiful woman is a sight to behold, But a great brew has a man in its thrall.
With water for clothing and a cloud as his face, Liu Ling lies naked, drunk as a lord. Having drunk clouds and rain, there’s no need to dream, For it’s better than Song Yu’s romance with a fairy.
Admittedly replete with roughneck airs, the poems succeed admirably in capturing the unique appeal of Great Clouds and Rain.
There in front of the Temple of the Immortal Matron, in Blessings and Charm, with a shop in front and a distillery in the rear, beverage and consumer found it easy to meet. Devout pilgrims could see the large gold placard with its black lettering long before they reached the Temple: elegant yet unconventional, the wildcap handiwork belonged to Hairy Turtle Jin, the nationally renowned calligrapher. The scrolls on either side of the door had been chosen by the eminent scholar, Miss Ma Kuni. They read:
Enter with knitted brows and divided feelings Leave holding a loving heart in cupped hands
The shop was elegantly furnished, the embodiment of gentility. The central scroll, which hung from the main wall, was a colorful painting by one of Liquorland’s foremost artists, Miss Li Mengniang. It depicted the consort Yang Guifei drunk and in a state of dishabille, her buxom body glistening, especially her nipples, which were as red as cherries. Coming to this place to drink brought pleasure both to the mind and to the eye.
The drinking utensils were unique among all the wineshops in Liquorville. Here the goblets were fashioned as shapely women’s legs; they came in one-ounce, three-ounce, and eight-ounce sizes, to suit the customers’ wishes. Holding one of those legs and sampling its liquid contents brought unique pleasures. Beautiful, splendid. Beauteous splendor beyond compare.
Quality liquor, elegant surroundings, and a fine reputation produced an unending supply of strange tales and amusing anecdotes.
Legend has it that on a cold winter night during the Guangxu Reign of the Qing dynasty, as swirling snowflakes covered the ground, the proprietor of Blessings and Charm was about to close up shop when, in the hazy darkness, a man with a lantern, wearing a thick coat of snow, entered the shop and said that his lady guest had asked for some Great Clouds and Rain; he had braved the snowstorm to come for some. As luck would have it, they had sold out that day, and the proprietor could only convey his abject apologies. But the customer refused to leave, so moving the proprietor that he sent his apprentice to the storeroom to fetch more. But when the storeroom door swung open, releasing the fragrance locked up inside, the customer was unable to resist its appeal and ran inside with his lantern. In his attempt to block the customer’s way, the apprentice bumped the lantern, setting fire to its paper cover, which quickly spread to the storeroom itself, resulting in a disastrous conflagration. Flaming, flowing dragons of liquor, burning blue and bright, brought destruction not only to the storeroom and the shop, but to the Temple of the Immortal Matron across the way, reducing it to a pile of ashes. Keep in mind, dear readers, that it snowed heavily that night, turning the ground into rivers of splintered color. The surpassing beauty of blue tongues of fire snaking through the snowy landscape defies description. After the fire was out, its origin and progress took on the airs of mystery and wonder in the telling and retelling, so that when Blessings and Charm was rebuilt, its reputation and fiery demise brought in more business than ever. What had been a disastrous fire was transformed into a magnificent advertisement.
Great Clouds and Rain was not only mellow, sweet, clean, and delicious, it also had an incomparable redolence. One late spring day, one of the distillery workers accidentally dropped a lined basket of new liquor on the ground; as the contents flowed to the street, sending its redolence skyward, tears welled up in the eyes of strolling red-cheeked boys and girls, who began to wobble and weave. Just then, a passing flock of birds lost their bearings and fell out of the sky. Sinking fish and falling swallows [great feminine beauty], bewitching souls and spell-binding spirits. A thousand tender emotions. Ten thousand types of womanizing. As the poem goes:
A cup of Great Clouds and Rain moistens the throat, Ten thousand scenes appear before your eyes. This liquor should exist only in heaven, How often can people taste such a glorious elixir?
Honored guests, friends, I've already laid out the attributes of our Great Clouds and Rain. I need only add the following: My father in law, Professor Yuan Shuangyu of the Liquorland Brewer’s College, is the great-great-great-great-great grandson of Mr Nine Five Yuan, the creator of Great Clouds and Rain! As a professor at the Brewer’s college, he has been generous in demonstrating the amazing skills handed down by his ancestors. Under his leadership, and with the concern and guidance of the Municipal Party Committee and government, we here in Liquorland have ridden the mighty steeds of reform and liberalization. In a mere ten years, building upon the foundation we inherited, we have created at least a dozen new liquors that compare favorably with Great Clouds and Rain, some actually surpassing it in quality. Such brands as Overlapping Green Ants or Red-Maned Stallion or Love at First Sight or Fire Clouds or Ximen Qing or Lin Daiyu Buries Blossoms… but even more inspiring is the fact that my father-in-law, Professor Yuan, went up to White Ape Mountain alone, his hair matted, his face dirty, an old man with a ruddy complexion, making friends with the apes and learning from beasts in the wild, absorbing the apes’ wisdom, continuing his ancestor’s tradition, and drawing lessons from outsiders’ experience, making the past serve the present, foreign things serve China, and apes serve humans, until, at last, success was his and he could take his place as a world leader with his city-toppling ape wine.
Ape wine will be solemnly introduced at the first annual Ape Liquor Festival!
A thousand ounces of gold is easily obtained, a single drop of Ape Liquor cannot be begged!
Friends! Don’t hesitate another second, come to Liquorland, and hurry!
Do not pass up this opportunity!
III
Dear Elder Brother Yidou
Your manuscript arrived safely.
As luck would have it, a publishing friend of mine dropped by, and I showed him ‘Liquorville.’ When he finished, he pounded the table and shouted, This has real potential. He said that if you can expand the story to seventy or eighty thousand words and add some graphics and photographs, you can publish it as a book. His house will assign it a number and assume editorial responsibility. All your city has to do is come up with a subvention and guarantee the purchase of ten thousand copies. He said that since you’ll have to prepare promotional materials for attendees to the first annual Ape Liquor Festival, why not include copies of an illustrated book? It will provide everyone with an accessible, readable history of Liquorland that they can keep for a long time. I think it’s a terrific idea. Talk it over with your mayor. You’ll probably have to give the publisher about 50,000 yuan, a trifling amount for Liquorland, wouldn’t you say? Please let me know as soon as possible, whatever you decide. That friend of mine was so interested in the concept that I gave him your address before he left. He may contact you directly.