A Beginner’s Guide to Baijiu
The dragon has teeth, so learn to respect it
In recent decades, Westerners have become well-acquainted with the concept of rice wine, particularly sake, a key component of our cultural obsession with Japan. But the Chinese variety — baijiu, literally “white wine” — is far less known. Baijiu is, in some ways, an oddity: By volume it’s the best-selling spirit in the world by a wide margin, yet the export market is all but nonexistent, leaving it little known outside of the country.
Yet there is an ongoing effort to spread baijiu outside of China. Some chic bars in places like London serve it on their standard menu, and there’s even Australian-made baijiu hitting the market. Even so, it’s most likely that one will encounter baijiu in China, and both the product itself and the culture surrounding it may be unfamiliar enough to throw up a wall — and those who venture forth might end up meeting the floor after trying just a little too much.
So here’s a brief primer on baijiu and how to survive a brush with it.
The basics
Let’s get this out of the way first — baijiu has teeth. As it resembles vodka, it’s tempting to assume that it has the same alcohol content as a more familiar spirit — about 40%. The alcohol content can actually range pretty widely. While many…
