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International News

some-thing recognizable—Jack Daniel’s. Sales ically starts as a two-phase endeavor. For example,
generated? Close to four million dollars in 2021. in whis-key making, grains are first subject to sac-
Nothing to sneeze at, to be sure, but pretty much charification (another potentially winning Scrabble
chump change compared to Moutai or Wuliangye. entry)—the con-version of starch to sugar. Yeast
is then introduced to convert the sugar to alcohol
One reason China’s national spirit flies under the before being distilled.
radar of most Western hooch lovers is simple:
About 99% of the volume distilled never leaves its In baijiu production, this becomes a one-step
homeland. Another is likely that, to the uninitiat- operation thanks to the use of jiuqu or just qu
ed, baijiu’s aromatic and flavor profile is decidedly (pronounced “chew”). Qu is an interesting little
alien, but we’ll get to that. Also, the stuff isn’t beast. For those who know the ins and outs of sake
cheap, with the most coveted bottles selling for brewing, qu in baijiu making can be likened to koji
hundreds of dollars. A few go for well over 1,000 in sake brewing—both are fermentation starters,
Canadian dollars. and they both result in what is referred to as “sol-
id-state” fermentation. There is plenty of scholarly
In its homeland, baijiu flows like a river through material floating around the internet for those
birthdays, weddings, national celebrations and curious about the process (or are having trouble
even diplomat-ic encounters. It was baijiu, after sleeping). Suffice to say that it incorporates a solid
all, that helped thaw the ice during the somewhat ra-ther than a liquid fermentation catalyst (sol-
tense Sino-American ne-gotiations of the 1970s. id-state fermentation vs. submerged fermentation).
President Richard Nixon raised a glass, possibly The “solid,” in this case, is qu.
two, in an historic toast with Chinese Primier Zhou
Enlai in 1972. Margaret Thatcher was treated to Writer’s note: I should pause a moment here to
a round of it upon conceding Hong Kong back to say that what I’m describing next refers to grain-
China. At one point, baijiu consumption by Chinese based “big qu.” There’s also a rice-based “little qu.”
government officials got so out of hand that in The ingredients differ, but the use of each and the
2012 President Xi Jinping ushered in austerity mea- end results are similar.
sures to prevent copious amounts of public funds
from turning into copious expenditures on baijiu. In Qu typically starts its life as a paste made from
China today, baijiu enjoys a fanbase that runs into clumps of moistened grain. When raised in the
the hundreds of mil-lions who actively consume proper envi-ronment, these clumps attract wild
most of the billions of liters distilled every year, so yeasts, bacteria, and assorted microorganisms
why even bother with an ex-port market? from the air. Fashioned into bricks, the qu—having
The Most Popular Spirit Okay, so it’s historic and popular, and expensive. generated considerable heat (up to 145 degrees
Fahrenheit) during the microbe infestation period—
are cooled for several weeks before sitting in stor-
But what the heck is it, exactly?
age for a few months to maximize flavor. In the bai-
You’ve Never Heard of “Vodka” Pronounced “bye-jeeoh,” baijiu is a clear spirit dis- jiu fermentation process, ground grains are soaked,
and crumbled qu added. The enzymes in the qu
tilled primarily from sorghum, a hearty, drought-re-
By: Tod Stewart sistant grain of African origin. What makes it convert the grain’s starches to sugar. The yeast in
particularly useful in spirit production is its easy the qu then converts the sugar into alcohol. The
gelatinization—a fancy term for the breakdown of fermented grains are then distilled—a process that
starch into a paste when steamed. (It can also be involves forcing steam through the grains and col-
particularly useful in generating triple-word scores lecting the concen-trated alcohol. This process is
in Scrabble). Rice, glutinous rice, wheat, millet, repeated, with each batch stored separately. Aging
peas and corn can also find their way into the mix. typically takes place in clay pots, sometimes bur-
These are not the ingredients most international ied underground (fermentation often takes place
distillers would even contemplate using, with the in underground clay vessels as well). In the final
ex-ception of corn. But if the ingredients seem a bit process, various batches of aged baijiu are married
unconventional, it’s the distillation and aging of the together. In some cases, up to 200 different batch-
spirit that raise the most eyebrows. es make the end product.

The process that most of us are familiar with typ- Okay, so what’s the result of all this toil? Upon

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