Fiery Chinese drink challenges West

Ask any Westerner what they think is the world's most popular spirit and they're unlikely to name -- or even to have heard of -- the lethally strong Chinese grain alcohol, baijiu. But more baijiu is sold worldwide by volume than vodka, whisky or rum, say international drinks firms such as British brewer Diageo, and such is their enthusiasm for the national drink of 1.3 billion Chinese that several firms are trying to market baijiu overseas. There is only one problem: with alcohol content at up to 60 percent and a distinctive smell, baijiu is simply too much for many Western palates. Those who have tasted it tend to react like Hong Kong-based teacher Stewart Brown, 30, from Britain, who says simply: "It's horrid. It's just paint stripper." Shanghai-based British strategy consultant James Sinclair, 37, is married to a Chinese woman but says he has spent his 13 years in China "trying to avoid the stuff". And then, that phrase again: "To me it tastes like paint stripper." The baijiu market leader, Chinese government-owned Wuliangye, has hired one of the screens in New York's Times Square to promote its brand, at a reported cost of $400,000. And Diageo has committed to boosting international sales of the premium baijiu maker Shiu Jing Fang after completing its acquisition of a majority stake in the firm this year. The brand is already on sale in 22 airports and in Singapore stores; Diageo plans to launch it in domestic markets including the United Kingdom and Japan, Lee Harle, general manager for Chinese white spirits at Diageo, told AFP. But are they doomed to fail, with baijiu on the other side of an impenetrable cultural boundary? Baijiu enthusiasts maintain the problem is simply that non-Chinese have little education about the drink. Packaged in small glass bottles and often labelled in lucky red, bajiu is drunk with a meal, never with mixers, and is used in toasts with the exclamation "Ganbei!" ("Bottoms up!"). It is distilled from sorghum, maize or other grains. The "white spirit" is served at formal dinners, where to fail to keep up with the pace of drinking can traditionally cause your host to lose face. Foreigners are often advised to just pretend to be teetotal from the start. Job advertisements in China sometimes specify that applicants must have a good tolerance for baijiu, since treating clients to a baijiu-soaked feast can be a crucial aspect of doing business. Visitors, meanwhile, may fall into the trap of drinking ubiquitous low-grade versions which sell from 25 yuan ($4) and are known for causing horrific hangovers. But baijiu stretches up to premium brands such as the famous Moutai, renowned for its mellow taste, whose flagship "flying Moutai" brand sells for about 1,050 yuan, according to the state-run China Daily. Revolutionary leader Mao Zedong served Moutai to then-US president Richard Nixon on the landmark 1972 visit that repaired Sino-US relations -- though Nixon's aides were reported to have warned him against actually drinking it. High-end baijius are often based on yeast cultures passed down through the centuries, and range in fragrance from light to heavy, with aromas including "rice fragrance" and "sauce fragrance" reminiscent of soy sauce, says Beijing-based drinks expert Paul Mathew. Companies are focusing on the upper end of the $40 billion baijiu market -- both in China, where drinkers are trading up, and abroad. LVMH Moet Hennessy and Pernod Ricard have also taken stakes in Chinese baijiu makers. Diageo and Shui Jing Fang looked to a crossover market with the launch of their Shanghai White, a vodka made with a combination of Russian and Chinese techniques, in Hong Kong. And the British firm recently commissioned Mathew to design a baijiu cocktail, the Shui Jing Fang Grapefruit Sour, which uses fresh lemon juice, pink grapefruit juice, cinnamon syrup and the white of an egg. "A lot of other baijiu cocktails have attempted to mask the flavour. I wanted to bring out the flavours that make baijiu more interesting," said Mathew, who is hoping to launch a baijiu cocktail competition in Beijing. He attributes Westerners' difficulties with baijiu partly to the unfamiliar flavour. "People in China are used to consuming different flavours from western palates -- Chinese flavours, things like 'thousand-year-old eggs' (eggs preserved in a clay mixture), that westerners don't find appealing," he said. "A lot of what westerners don't seem to like about baijiu is the pungent aroma, in the same way that Chinese people find French cheeses and so on unbelievable." Cocktails like Mathew's aim to bridge that gap, but research analyst Tan Heng Hong, of AccessAsia, remains sceptical. "The market for baijiu is quite limited -- some consumers (outside China) will drink it as a novelty drink but in the long run, it will be quite difficult for baijiu to penetrate local markets... The alcohol content is just too high." Within China, steady growth in the baijiu market is down to consumers switching to more expensive brands rather than drinking more, said Tan, as the government campaigns for healthier drinking. Baijiu companies hope the drink's profile abroad will gain from a growing international fascination with China, spurred on by its economic boom. As it launched its Times Square electronic billboard spot in August, Wuliangye issued a statement presenting the move as a bid to heighten awareness of Chinese culture, as much as to encourage Americans to buy the drink itself. "Wuliangye will get the overseas consumers drunk (on) the 5,000 (year old) oriental culture," company president Tang Qiao was quoted as saying, adding that it aimed to project "soft power". Diageo says its revenues from international baijiu sales doubled in the financial year 2011, forming 10 percent of Shui Jing Fang's total sales volume. And Sinclair, the Shanghai-based Briton, said he could imagine more foreigners drinking baijiu if its drinking traditions could be adapted to their own culture. "Whisky is being drunk here (in China) but to make it palatable, everyone mixes it with bottled tea," he said. "I wonder whether to make baijiu palatable to Brits or Americans, they might have to do something similar."