You\u2019re not really a drunk until you\u2019ve tried Baijiu. Oh sure, you\u2019ve tasted some peaty scotches and poisonous gins in your time, and you may have taken the occasional pull of 151 from a bottle in a paper bag, but it\u2019s not until the acrid flavor of China\u2019s best export hits your tongue that you really enter lush-hood. This shit tastes like socks with AIDS and will make you want to murder your meth dealer. It will strip paint from the side of your garage. It will turn even the most pickled of imbibers into pale-faced pieces of overripe fruit. This liquor doesn\u2019t get consumed so much as it fucks your throat.<\/p>\n
My first taste of the liquid regret known as Baijiu took place in March of 2008, when my sister and I visited my brother, Quin, in Beijing, where he was living as a reporter. Quin had laid out a spread for us upon arrival\u2014a few hours after landing, I was swilling half a case of reduced-proof Chinese beer and eating the best Kung Pao Chicken I\u2019ve ever had\u2014and part of that spread were multiple bottles of beautiful clear liquor in official-looking bottles, which Quin told us was Erguoto, the most basic form of Baijiu produced en masse by the Red Star company and twice distilled (the word \u2018Erguoto\u2019 means \u201chead of the second pot\u201d). A tall bottle of this 56%-alcohol-by-blahblahblah aperitif goes for about 10 Chinese Yuan, approximately $1.46. In Beijing, it is bought at any corner deli.<\/p>\n
Say what you want about the Chinese government\u2014those motherfuckers know how to keep their people down.<\/p>\n
According to Quin, there are three things you should know about Baijiu: first, don\u2019t smell it before you drink it. It\u2019ll put your stomach off (yeah, now you\u2019re getting it). Second, try not to inhale immediately after drinking, as the fumes from the liquor can make you dizzy and lightheaded. Third, have a chaser. Water is good, but even better is spicy food. Slug some Baijiu and pound some chili-tossed tofu, and the world is yours<\/p>\n
I do not tout myself as a booze connoisseur of any sort; I love strange exotic liquors, but I also love getting bombed on Old Grandad. I find pleasure in both classy and degenerate drunks. But that\u2019s the beauty of Baijiu\u2014it\u2019s both! Yes, you\u2019re drinking from a strangely shaped bottle with a Chinese label, but you\u2019re also getting polluted on liquor that tastes like a mixture of fermented taint sweat and tears shed in a tenement building. Last night, I had my first \u201cnice Baijiu.\u201d I was excited; with some perspective, perhaps I could be a Baijiu snob (making me double-cool!<\/em>). After two sips of Wuliangye (according the Quin, a \u201cBlack Label-level\u201d Baijiu), I realized that it was all a lie. Pricey Baijiu is like Norman Bates\u2014it might be well bred, but it\u2019s still going to fucking kill you.<\/p>\n If you want to experience drunken nirvana, ask for a bottle of Erguoto Baijiu (\u2018AR-gwoah-toe BYE-jyo\u2019) at any liquor store in Chinatown, or look for a green vase-like bottle with a red, white, and blue label. You\u2019ve been warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You\u2019re not really a drunk until you\u2019ve tried Baijiu. Oh sure, you\u2019ve tasted some peaty scotches and poisonous gins in your time, and you may have taken the occasional pull of 151 from a bottle in a paper bag, but it\u2019s not until the acrid flavor of China\u2019s best export hits your tongue that you really enter lush-hood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[37,36,38],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clear-liquor","tag-baijiu","tag-china","tag-fermented-taint-sweat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232,"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boozecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}