The World’s Most Consumed Spirit…

Ming River Baijiu.

…is not vodka (or whisk[e]y, or gin), it’s baijiu.

What is baijiu? It would be easy to say, it’s a Chinese liquor distilled from grains. But that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

For starters, there are several main types of baijiu: light aroma, strong aroma, sauce aroma, and rice aroma, but there are also phoenix aroma, strange aroma, mixed aroma, chi aroma…it goes on.

I first encountered baijiu at Tales of the Cocktail, where I attended a class taught by Derek Sandhaus, author of a wonderful book on baijiu (note: I have no affiliation here, nor do I receive any commission). It was co-captained by the amazing David Wondrich, and was eye-opening for me. The aromas and flavors of baijiu are generally unfamiliar in the context of spirits to the Western palate, and unlike the spirits we are familiar with, have a wide range of tastes. While we can generally expect juniper notes in gin, vanilla and caramel in aged whiskey, and a sweetness in rum, baijiu can be light and floral, sweet, savory, spicy, or all of the above. Distilled from grain, baijiu ranges in price from $1.50 per bottle to upwards of thousands for Moutai, China’s most premium baijiu. Taking my first shot (in a seishu glass, the traditional method of consumption) of Kweichow Moutai, I was reminded of my first shot of tequila and how it was akin to jumping into the ocean for the first time. Shocking and novel, it was a reminder to me that the world is large and I am so small.

For the first time baijiu drinker, it can be hard to grasp such a unique spirit. I would recommend trying both as a shot (the seishu glass holds about 0.5 ounces) and in a cocktail, or two.