Legend of Huadiao

As the specialty of Shaoxing, Shaoxing Yellow Rice Wine is closely related to the long-standing customs in Shaoxing people's life, featuring simplicity, kindness and purity. These customs cover all aspects of their life, such as wedding, funeral, birthdays, holidays, agriculture, commerce, daily life, temple occasions etc. In all these different customs, wine plays an important role. The best containing vessel for Shaoxing yellow Rice Wine is pottery jar. The common ones of these jars can hold about 23-24kg Shaoxing yellow rice wine, and the largest about 45kg. According to the customs, people need to send their friends and relatives presents on special occasions. What should they send? In Shaoxing, the answer is obvious -- wine, in most cases. For example, if some one is to celebrate his birthday, gift him with wine held in a pottery jar on which a red piece of paper with the character Shou ('longevity') is pasted; on a wedding occasion, in the course of time, people begin to feel this simplistic. What is missing then? In the Qing Dynasty, at Dongpu, Shaoxing, there lived a painter called Agen. With his mother's 80th birthday coming, he wanted to show his love. However, finding those common ways too ordinary and lacking in originality, he suddenly came up with a novel idea: isn't it fascinating to represent such figures in folk legends as the God of Longevity and the Heavenly Girl in the form of clay sculpture on the exteriors of the wine jars? So he thought about it day and night. After numerous experiments, he finally managed to decorate the jar with colored clay sculptures. On a common wine jar, is pasted; on a wedding occasion, the character will be changed to Xi ('happiness' ).

After this kind of decoration became prevalent, people found 'diaohua wine` awkward to pronounce. So they revert the two characters following the style of class1calChinese and change the name into 'Huadiao Wine'. This new name is so pleasant to the ear and so easy to remember that people have omitted `wine' in the name and simply called it Huadiao. However, to be more specific, the author would like to summarize as follows: Jiafan is the original name for Huadiao (because the wine in Huadiao jars remains Shaoxing Jiafan wine), while Huadiao the elegant name.

Up to now, Huadiao has been loved by people. It is believed to represent the traditions of Shaoxing yellow rice wine. Of all the Huadiao producers, Gu Yue Long Shan is the largest and makes the best Huadiao, which has not only been popular on the domestic market, but also exported to over 40 countries and regions.