Moutai Liquor Brewing Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
More than two thousand years ago, in the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, the area around Maotai could already brew liquor; it was known in historical records as goujiang wine.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Guizhou Moutai Distillery is located in Maotai Town, six kilometers northwest of Renhuai City, on the eastern bank of the Chishui River, below Hanpoling and on the slope of Ma'anshan, backed by mountains and facing water, at an elevation of 450 meters. The distillery area is built on the upper reaches of the Chishui River; the water quality is good, hardness is low, trace element content is rich, and there is no pollution. The slightly acidic purplish-red soil of the canyon belt, and the special climate — warm in winter, hot in summer, little rain and little wind, high temperature and high humidity — together with a thousand-year-old brewing environment, fill the air with a rich and unique microbial community. Moutai is a daqu sauce-aroma-type baijiu; its production process divides into six stages: starter making, liquor making, storage, blending, inspection and packaging. The whole production cycle is one year: starter is trodden at the Dragon Boat Festival and grain is charged at the Double Ninth Festival; during brewing there are nine steamings, eight fermentations and seven liquor extractions; after storage by type and blending storage, it is packaged and shipped five years later. Moutai brewing is characterized by two grain charges, solid-state fermentation, high-temperature starter making, high-temperature stacking and high-temperature liquor extraction, which together give it its unique brewing style. Moutai is the representative and originator of China's daqu sauce-aroma type, with a long history. Among the cultural relics unearthed in the production area, a considerable proportion are drinking vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, showing that liquor already existed at that time. By the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the technique of using daqu in saccharification, fermentation and distillation to extract liquor was becoming increasingly mature. Over the centuries, the Moutai brewing technique has been continuously refined through inheritance and development, and is still applied intact today. Experts in the baijiu industry call it "the most unique daqu sauce-aroma brewing technique, and a model of humanity's application of microorganisms to the field of brewing".
The valley's microflora
The upper Chishui gives soft, low-mineral, uncontaminated water, and the warm, humid, windless gorge air breeds a distinctive microflora.
Qingdu qu, Chongyang sha
The cycle is fixed to the calendar — qu trodden at the Dragon Boat festival, sha charged at Chongyang — with one year to a batch and blending by layer.
Why the town is named Moutai
The town sits where the river narrows between facing ranges, its name recorded in old gazetteers and waystation stones of the salt and post roads.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The brewing of Moutai is concentrated in Maotai Town, Renhuai City, Guizhou Province. The distillery is located in Maotai Town, six kilometers northwest of Renhuai City, on the eastern bank of the Chishui River, below Hanpoling and on the slope of Ma'anshan, backed by mountains and facing water, at an elevation of 450 meters; its technique has been passed down from generation to generation by the brewing workshops of Maotai Town, and more than ten distilleries of varying scale still operate at the same site today. China Kweichow Moutai Distillery (Group) Co., Ltd. is the project's protecting unit.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
As a precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation, the Moutai brewing technique has been well protected, inherited and carried forward, and occupies an extremely important position in Chinese liquor culture. Ji Keliang (record from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1939, from Renhuai City, Guizhou. Representative inheritor of the Moutai brewing technique, a third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. Researcher; expert enjoying the special government allowance of the State Council. In 1964 he graduated from the food fermentation major of Wuxi Institute of Light Industry and was assigned to work and study at the Moutai Distillery, where he grasped the true essence of the Moutai brewing technique and became a third-generation inheritor. After decades of exploration, he proposed ten major production-technique characteristics, including high-temperature stacking, high-temperature starter making, high-temperature liquor collection, low-moisture pit entry, low saccharification rate and low liquor yield; he systematically summarized the theory of Chinese baijiu blending, and the Moutai blending technique has become one of the classic techniques of traditional Chinese baijiu. National model worker; provincial-managed expert with outstanding contributions to Guizhou and core expert, as announced by the Guizhou Provincial Talent Work Leading Group Office. He has published papers including "Ten Measures for Improving the Quality of Sauce-Aroma Liquor", "Nine Points of Experience in Improving the Quality of Moutai" and "Engineered Brewing Yeast Strains and Their Application". He has taken on more than ten apprentices.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Ji Keliang 03-1325
- Yan Gang
- Ren Jinsu
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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