Spirit
Baijiu
Baijiu is China's national spirit and the world's most-consumed category of hard liquor, a clear grain spirit usually distilled from sorghum and fermented in the solid state with qū, a starter cake teeming with wild moulds, yeasts and bacteria. Bottled between roughly 35 and 60 percent alcohol, it ranges from smooth and delicate to intensely pungent, soy-and-mushroom funky, and is graded above all by its aroma family — strong-aroma, sauce-aroma, light-aroma and rice-aroma.
Dry & cleanSpirit-forward
At a glance
Signature
Pineapple & Soy-sauce
Umami
Strength
Spirit-forward
by taste profile
Baijiu is warming to fiery, dry and intensely aromatic, and its profile swings hard with style: strong-aroma bottlings burst with ripe pineapple, banana and pear and a sweet, jammy ester sweetness, while sauce-aroma spirits such as Moutai are deep and savoury, all soy sauce, mushroom, umami, anise and toasted grain, and light- and rice-aroma styles are cleaner and softer, faintly floral and mild. Common threads are a pungent, fermented, almost cheesy funk and a bracing high-proof heat that reads as challenging to Western palates. The texture is oily and full for a clear spirit, and the finish is long, warming and savoury-sweet, lingering with anise, fermented grain and that distinctive umami depth.
Taste balance
BitternessSmooth
SmoothBitter
StrengthStrong
LightStrong