Scent of the Story

This was one of China's entries to the 1915 World Exposition at Panama, along with a leg of Yunnan ham. The Xuanwei ham got all the culinary accolades, and the world was introduced to a gold-medal winning Chinese baijiu, to mixed reviews.

Some thought it smelled like the barnyard and tasted like turpentine. Others praised it for its unique fragrance. It went on to win more gold medals, including another at the Paris Expo in 1985.

At a state banquet, when ping-pong diplomacy brought Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to Beijing, Kissinger was supposed to have told Deng Xiaoping this: "If we drink enough maotai, we can solve everything."

Perhaps because of its mellowing influence, maotai is one of the spirits served at state banquets even now, and the labels quickly exploit this, with "state banquet" or "VIP spirits" blatantly used in the advertising. While most baijiu is popular in the north, maotai (or "moutai" as it is commonly misspelled even on the bottle labels) is from the south, in the heavily tribal region of Guizhou province, named after a town there.

In many martial arts movies, especially in the Louis Cha classics, the heroes are often seen tippling generously on white spirits, calling in for frequent refills at the local inns. Sometimes they share their liquor with exotic tribal ladies known to keep pet snakes and scorpions.

In reality, maotai only became popular in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It belongs to the "sauce fragrance" category of white spirits and has become most representative of this category. "Sauce fragrance" is so named because the after-taste of the spirit is reminiscent of soya sauce, another fermented brew.

For that reason, too, maotai is often paired with pickles, as it is believed the soy-sauce soaked vegetables will accentuate the spirit's fragrance.

Maotai is pretty strong, and not for the faint-hearted. It averages about 53 percent by volume in alcohol, although there are milder versions that go down to about 35 percent. Veteran tipplers won't bother with anything less than 50 percent.

Maotai is made from sorghum, and like most baijiu, it first undergoes the fermentation process, and then it is double- or triple-distilled, giving it that deceptively clear color that looks like water but burns its way straight through gullet and guts.

Together with Beijing erguo tou and wuliangye (distilled from a fermented brew of five cereals), maotai is one of the top-selling spirits in China. There are also some claims that it is the third most popular liquor in the world, after whisky and cognac. I can well believe there are enough Chinese drinkers of maotai to give it that boost.

Maotai is a strong spirit that will go well with hearty meat dishes. Think of a whole roast lamb, and you can imagine quite a few bottles of maotai strategically placed nearby.