Kweichow Moutai (sometimes transcribed Maotai) is China’s most revered and expensive brand of baijiu, a clear spirit whose flagship expression is bottled at 53% abv. Kweichow Moutai became the most valuable single brand of spirit in the world in 2011, and in 2017 the publicly-traded, partially state-owned Kweichow Moutai Company passed Diageo to become the most valuable spirits company in the world. Produced in Guizhou province (Guizhou was formerly transliterated as “Kweichow”) in southern China, this spirit has existed in its current state since the Qing dynasty, in the mid-seventeenth century, and is quite possibly very much older than that. See baijiu.
Moutai offers numerous expressions, but its original and most important one is the classic sauce-aroma baijiu, made from wheat qu, sorghum, and water through the process of solid-state fermentation. See sauce-aroma-style baijiu. To form qu, a koji-like starter, wheat is mashed with water from the Chishui river, molded into bricks, and allowed to ferment in a hot, moist chamber for a month or more to propagate cultures of yeast, fungi, and bacteria. See qu. Eventually, the qu is dried, ground, and mixed with water and red sorghum. This solid mash is buried in underground pits and covered to allow the conversion of starches to sugar and sugar to alcohol to occur simultaneously over a month. The mash is then unearthed, strained, and subjected to steam distillation. The resulting spirit is reserved, while the used mash is fortified with fresh grain and buried again. This process is repeated eight times, and the resulting distillates are then blended to achieve a raw spirit of the desired strength and character. The liquor is then aged in large, semiporous earthenware amphorae from three to twenty years or more; these allow some oxidative aging and concentration without the extraction found in barrel maturation. See
Moutai is constantly in high demand, fetching prices in the hundreds of US dollars per 500-ml bottle. This is due to scarcity, because Moutai is a true spirit of terroir, dependent on the particulars of water, airflow, soil, and microbiology present at the Guizhou distillery, located low in a valley along the banks of the Chishui River. Efforts to increase production—even producing the spirit on nearby stretches of the Chishui—have failed to replicate Moutai’s unique flavor, with its pungent redolence of umami-rich foods such as soy sauce and mushrooms, along with fermenting or rotting tropical fruit, as well as savory, herbal, and nutty aromas. All told, over three hundred distinct aromas are recognized in it by Moutai’s technicians.
Moutai’s reputation as China’s premier spirit was solidified in the twentieth century. Famously, it was used by Red Army soldiers to sterilize wounds during the Chinese civil war. It also became known as the “drink of diplomacy” when Richard Nixon toasted with it during his groundbreaking visit in 1972. Traditionally, Maotai is consumed in small 10-ml glasses at meals and accompanying food. Following a toast, the shot is swallowed all at once, and glasses are refilled. Once a new bottle has been opened, the expectation is that it will be finished on the same occasion.
Mileham, Arabella. “Kweichow Moutai Overtakes Diageo as World’s Most Valuable Distiller.” The Drinks Business, April 11, 2017, https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2017/04/kweichow-moutai-overtakes-diageo-as-worlds-most-valuable-distiller/ (accessed February 18, 2021).
Sandhaus, Derek. Baijiu. New York: Viking, 2015.
By: Jordan Mackay