Social drinker: Raise a glass of baijiu for the Chinese Year of the Tiger

Expand

Moutai Flying Fairy

"Moutai, the brand leader, is the biggest drinks company in the world by a considerable margin"

Moutai Flying Fairy

Tom Molloy

January 30 2022 02:30 AM

In the coming days, thousands of Chinese people living in Ireland will be celebrating the Year of the Tiger, which officially starts on February 1. Chinese New Year is celebrated on the second new moon following the winter solstice and generally involves a lot of fireworks, food and endless consumption of a pungent spirit called baijiu, which tastes completely unlike anything you have ever tasted before.

Chinese legend says that anybody born in the next 12 months will be extremely competitive, courageous and ambitious with a big dollop of generosity thrown in.

Typically, Chinese revellers toast each other with baijiu (pronounced “bye-joe”), which is served in tiny glasses but packs a punch. Judging by prices here, you’d want to be generous and ambitious to stand a round — baijiu is as expensive as it is rare here.

The sorghum-based liquor is mostly produced in China’s south-western Guizhou province and has played a key role in China’s drinking culture since the Ming dynasty. Made with yeasts, fungi and other micro-organisms, it is almost impossible to describe. All the usual terms we use in this part of the world simply don’t apply but, if pushed, I can come up with nothing better than it tastes savoury and fermented but without the kick that high-alcohol spirits typically have in the West.

The Chinese knock back this stuff in massive quantities with the result that the baijiu company that makes Moutai, the brand leader, is the biggest drinks company in the world by a considerable margin. These days, Moutai’s holding company is valued at more than three times that of Guinness-owner Diageo, which is the world’s third biggest drinks company after Moutai and another company that also makes baijiu.

Moutai Flying Fairy

A bottle of Moutai is not impossible to find in Ireland if you are prepared to spend eye-watering amounts. I found a bottle in the cigar sellers James J Fox on Grafton Street in Dublin, but there are a few other places around the country stocking it.

At around €320 for a 50cl bottle of the premium Moutai Flying Fairy, or €65 for the rather less expensive Moutai Prince, you need to be immensely curious to try baijiu, but there is something wonderfully different about this drink, which is so exotic to our palate despite being the most popular spirit in the world.