https://zhouyang.dev/drinks/ Recent content in Chinese Drinks on zhouyang — The 25th Frame Hugo zh-CN Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/flip-the-bottle/ Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/flip-the-bottle/ The four digits on the back label tell you what is actually in the bottle. How to read a baijiu standard number, what 100 to 300 yuan really buys, where to shop outside China, and how not to get robbed when the occasion calls for a gift. https://zhouyang.dev/drinks/daughters-wine/ Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/drinks/daughters-wine/ In Shaoxing a family brews a jar of huangjiu the winter a daughter is born and digs it up at her wedding. What eighteen years underground do to the wine, and how to tell an aged bottle from a story with a red box. https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/jade-ice-burn/ Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/jade-ice-burn/ In Foshan they distill rice spirit, drop a slab of pork fat into the jar and wait. Yuk Bing Siu is 29 percent alcohol, faintly savoury, and the only baijiu in China defined by what floats inside it. https://zhouyang.dev/drinks/huangjiu-101/ Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/drinks/huangjiu-101/ Huangjiu is China's oldest alcohol: glutinous rice and wheat qu, fermented and never distilled, served warm in a bowl of hot water. Three thousand years of amber wine, why the great poems were written over it, and why it never crossed the ocean. https://zhouyang.dev/drinks/chinese-alcohol-101/ Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/drinks/chinese-alcohol-101/ Chinese alcohol all begins the same way: grain and qu, a mold starter. Then it splits. Ferment it and you get huangjiu and rice wine; distill it and you get baijiu. A map of the four families, and how to tell which bottle is in your hand. https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/three-glasses/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/three-glasses/ Moutai, Wuliangye and Guojiao 1573 side by side on one table. How to smell baijiu, where the burn comes from, what finish means, and what to eat with it. https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/the-pit-that-never-stopped/ Sun, 20 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/the-pit-that-never-stopped/ Four fermentation pits in Luzhou have been working since 1573. The mud in their walls is the recipe nobody can copy, and the men who tend it cannot be replaced. https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/baijiu-101/ Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/baijiu-101/ Every baijiu bottle is stamped with one of four aroma types. What sauce, strong, light and rice actually mean, how the spirit ferments as solid grain, and how to drink your first glass. https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/moutai-puzzle/ Sun, 28 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://zhouyang.dev/baijiu/moutai-puzzle/ China's most famous spirit — sauce-aroma baijiu from Guizhou's Chishui River, worth more than Diageo.