Red Star , also known as Hongxing, is a distillery in Beijing best known for its ubiquitous and inexpensive light-aroma-style baijiu. Its signature erguotou baijiu uses a sorghum mash, fermented in stone pits and pots with wheat-bran-based big qu.
Red Star traces its origins back to the Yuan Sheng Hao grain depot, whose proprietors, the Zhao brothers, developed the erguotou style in the late seventeenth century. They discovered that the liquor produced during the second phase of distillation—the second pot head, or erguotou—was of the highest quality. Other distillers followed the Zhaos’ lead, and the style became synonymous with Beijing spirits.
When Red Star was founded in April 1949, it became the first Beijing business licensed for operation in the People’s Republic of China. The government created the distillery by merging a dozen private distilleries into a state-run operation tasked with creating baijiu for the new nation’s inaugural ceremony on October 1, when Chairman Mao famously proclaimed, “The people of China have stood up.” It met the needs of the proletariat then, and it has continued meeting them in the intervening decades. The distillery currently has a production capacity of thirty thousand bottles an hour, most of it priced to give water a run for its money.
See also light-aroma-style baijiu.
Huang Faxin, David Tiande Cai, and Wai-Kit Nip. “Chinese Wines: Jiu.” In Handbook of Food Science, Technology, and Engineering, vol. 4, by Yiu H. Hui, 173-1-52. Boca Raton, FL: CRC, 2005.
Wang Kai 王恺, ed. San Lian Sheng Huo Zhou Kan 三联生活周刊 675. March 26, 2012.
By: Derek Sandhaus