The Switch Nobody Dated: How Shaojiu Took China From Huangjiu
For two thousand years the Chinese table ran on fermented yellow wine. Then the still arrived, and a marginal crop called sorghum made the strong stuff cheap enough to win.
阅读全文 →📝 Baijiu
Jade Ice Burn: The Baijiu That Ages With Pork Fat
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.
阅读全文 →Chinese Alcohol 101: Where Baijiu, Huangjiu and Rice Wine Split Apart
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.
阅读全文 →Flip the Bottle: How to Buy Baijiu Without Getting Robbed
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.
阅读全文 →Three Glasses, One Table: How to Actually Drink Baijiu
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.
阅读全文 →The Pit That Never Stopped: 450 Years of Mud, and the Men Who Tend It
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.
阅读全文 →Baijiu 101: The Four Aromas, and Why Chinese Sort Liquor the Way They Sort Tea
Every baijiu bottle is stamped with one of four aroma types. What sauce, strong, light and rice actually mean, how solid-state fermentation works, and how to drink your first glass.
阅读全文 →The Moutai Puzzle: Why a Bottle Costs More Than Your Graphics Card
The Chishui River flows through Guizhou province the color of strong tea — red-brown with iron-rich silt, warm even in December. On both banks, for about fifteen kilometers, sit the distilleries that …
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