As a pharmaceutical sales rep in Beijing, Lu Jia attended many a business dinner at which China’s infamously searing baijiu, aka “white liquor,” was consumed in volumes large enough to drop elephants.
A few weeks ago Jia walked me down the aisles, offering a baijiu tutorial and pointing out other curiosities like lychee and wolfberry wines and a ginseng-infused California-style red. The space in front of the store was still lined with the elaborate floral arrangements sent by friends and well-wishers for the grand opening party a week earlier. Jia’s boss, Jackie O—yes, that’s his name—scurried between the liquor store and his three other stores in the mall, taking calls on his cell phone.
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“Spicy aromatic” may be the most familiar to Westerners, exemplified by the Kweichow Moutai (or Maotai) brand from the southwestern province of Guizhou. This is the stuff Chou En-lai plied Nixon with during his historic 1972 state banquet in China. Distilled from sorghum, wheat, and, according to the bottle, peas, it has a powerful, sweet, almost soy-sauce-like aroma, but at 53 percent ABV it goes down scorchingly hot.
Most of Liquor City’s baijius range from $14.99 (for Heng Shui Lao Bai Gan) to the high $40s (for Maotai or Wuliangye), but a bottle of Shen Zhou, released to commemorate the Chinese space program, is $93.99. And while the most expensive baijiu in the store at the moment is a $450 15-year-old Moutai, O is trying to get his hands on some 60-year-old stuff that will be released to celebrate the diamond anniversary of the People’s Republic. To reserve a bottle he’ll have to put down a $3,000 deposit. “This one is mostly for gift,” says Jia. “Nobody will buy it and drink it. [But] this one is a good investment.”
