Refined techniques and expert tasters produce liquor's distinctive flavor

Why travel for hours for a 30-minute ritual at a distillery hundreds of kilometers from Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou province?

At Kweichow Moutai, China's most recognized liquor producer, the annual worship ceremony that falls at 9 am on the ninth day of September by the lunar calendar is considered paramount.

By honoring the traditions that go back thousands of years, company officials say, one may finally uncover the secret to the enduring fame of this type of baijiu, or white liquor.

On this rainy late October morning in the town, also named Moutai, three rounds of sacrifices were made to liquor-making ancestors. Sorghum and wheat, as well as clean water the basic ingredients of Moutai making were offered. Tall incense sticks were lighted. Orations that promised the ancestors to keep the traditions going were chanted. Finally, 2,000 participants attending the ritual bowed three times to the gods that traditionally are believed to help produce Moutai.

A bottle of 500 milliliter standard Moutai sells for 1,099 yuan ($180; 145 euros). In 2013, 17,000 tons of the liquor was sold, and revenue was 40.2 billion yuan.

And Moutai, also billed as the national liquor of China, has its time-honored craft and history to thank, officials say.

"The production process of Moutai is a living fossil for Chinese liquor making," Ji Keliang, the honorary chairman of Kweichow Moutai Group, says. "It carries the essence of an agricultural civilization."

He was referring not only to the traditional ceremony but also to the series of procedures that he says closely follows the wisdom of the land.

"Picking and plucking the harvest on Dragon Boat Festival, putting in ingredients on the Double Ninth Festival, keeping the heat up in the cellar the old fashion way, " Ji says. "We didn't industrialize all our procedures as others do.

"It's not that we've never experimented, but we just can't produce Moutai in any other way. So we stayed with the old methods."

Those methods, such as the seasonal steps of adding ingredients, involve a lot of manual labor. Sorghum lying in piles is soaked with hot water by hand. Barefoot workers then constantly aerate the piles with shovels, they spend two hours of aeration for every six tons of grain, officials say.

The grains are allowed to rest and then go through this several times until the next stage, where they are put in dungeon-like fermentation pits with wheat-originated yeast and gradually acquire their famous sauce aroma scent.

Subtle scents, from pineapple to preserved plum, are woven into the liquor, and some come out more than others, depending on the taster. But according to Deng Qingqing, a certified baijiu-taster and manager of a workshop at Moutai, the sauce smell cannot be pinned down in scientific terms. It is all about recognizing the integral, complex scent that is Moutai and comparing it with one's own experience, Deng says.

"Where one might detect a whiff of apple fragrance, another may remember it as something else, but both will be able to tell real Moutai from others."

The distilling is done in seven steps, each time separating a batch of base liquor that assumes its own flavor. Three years after aging in clay pots, they are ready for blending. This step, easily the most intriguing part of Moutai production, relies almost entirely on experts' palates.

Each clay pot of base liquor has its own nuanced aroma from individual procedures such as the hand-turning, but blending will merge them to form the signature Moutai fragrance and taste. It is a taste that company officials say has no standardized formula.

"We are still studying the ingredients of Moutai," says Ji, the 76-year-old chairman.

So it is the blenders, relying on their sensitivity and experience, who produce a consistent stream of Moutai despite variations in batches.

That time-honored method is part of the reason why Moutai stands out, officials say, including at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, where it won a gold medal and first made its name abroad.

There are other stories that people at people like to tell.

Like the healing, warming power Moutai had on the Red Army when it passed through Moutai town and took the liquor with them during their arduous mid-1930s Long March, a journey pivotal to the army's survival.

"They used it to cure the wounds, and warm up and boost their spirits in very hard times," says Lin Ying, a guide at the local Museum of the Culture of Chinese Liquor. "Moutai invigorated them."

The drink was on the banquet table on the night of Oct 1, 1949, on the founding of the People's Republic of China. It was taken to New York to the United Nations for the celebratory occasion when China joined the international body in 1971. Late premier Zhou Enlai entertained former US president Richard Nixon with the liquor during the latter's crucial 1972 visit. (A statue of Zhou now stands in the front of Moutai's main building.)

For Ji, Moutai's presence on these occasions alone testifies to its heritage.

Now the company is trying to win over people outside China, too. Moutai, known for its 53 percent alcohol content domestically, is exporting 43 percent liquor for the overseas market. Company officials say the domestic Moutai might be too strong for those used to drinking other types of liquor.

"We adjust and cater to the customer, not the other way around," Ji says. "That's why we have the 43 percent."

Since the drink is produced several years before it reaches the market, "it's very hard to predict what the market will be like," Ji says.

But with what Ji calls Moutai's standout techniques and culture, he says he is as confident as ever.

"I can attest that it's the world's best distilled liquor."

Contact the writers through sunye@chinadaily.com.cn