Wuliangye is a Chinese distillery best known as the inventor of the mixed-grain variety of strong-aroma-style baijiu. The distillery is located in Sichuan Province’s Yibin, a strategic port city along the Yangtze River that has been a winemaking center for more than a thousand years. During the Song dynasty (960–1269), the local Yao clan began brewing alcohols from a complex blend of grains, a secret recipe that was passed down through the generations. Strong-aroma baijiu appeared in Yibin during the Ming dynasty (1366–1644), and Wuliangye still operates sixteen fermentation pits dating from the era. In the early twentieth century, Deng Zijun, proprietor of Yibin’s Lichuanyong Distillery, used the multigrain recipe to develop Wuliangye’s signature baijiu mash, which contains sorghum, long-grain rice, sticky rice, wheat, and maize. The Chinese government established the modern company in 1957 from eight local distilleries as the Yibin Distillery, later renamed Wuliangye (“Five-grain liquid”).
Wuliangye is the prototypical Chinese state-run enterprise, and the Chinese Communist Party does nothing on a small scale. Its base of operations in Yibin is a veritable fortress that spans ten square kilometers. Staffed by some forty thousand workers, it has a stated annual output of 400 million liters. In the 1990s, Wuliangye became the world’s leading baijiu distillery by sales volume, with successful brands at every price point. It became a privately listed company in 1998 and has since acquired a handful of smaller distilleries such as Jinliufu and Liuyanghe. In 2014 Wuliangye entered an agreement with Brown-Forman, the Louisville-based owner of Jack Daniels, to develop new nontraditional products for the emerging Chinese bar scene.
See also strong-aroma-style baijiu.
Wang Guochun 王国春, ed. Bai nian zhui qiu bai nian fen jin 百年追求百年奋进. Chengdu: Wuliangye 五粮液, 2009.
Wang Kai 王恺, ed. San lian sheng huo zhou kan 三联生活周刊 675, March 26, 2012.
Wang Zhuoqiong. “Brown-Forman, Wuliangye Sign Cooperation Deal.” China Daily USA, December 16, 2014.
By: Derek Sandhaus