China’s premier liquor distiller Kweichow Moutai – a brand that had, over decades, become synonymous with sumptuous feasts – is heeding a renewed mandate for austerity from Beijing, distancing its products from the extravagant hard-drinking lifestyle with which it had been linked in the public consciousness.
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Management at the company, valued at 1.86 trillion yuan (US$258.73 billion), has pledged to comply with strictures stressing thrift – guidelines that have helped to remove Moutai’s expensive baijiu liquor from government banquets and narrowed the firm’s profit margin further.
Senior executives vowed to remain vigilant against the risks of corruption at a company meeting on Tuesday, where Moutai chairman Zhang Deqin invoked classic Chinese texts to argue the liquor must promote culture, health and harmony.
“With the baijiu, rites and traditions are upheld, the aged are nourished and joy is shared,” Zhang said, citing the Book of Rites and the Classic of Poetry, both of which date back centuries.
Moutai’s notoriously strong liquor – around 50 per cent alcohol by volume – has been the drink of choice for China’s officials and executives since the early years of the Communist Party.
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After revolutionary leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai developed a taste for the spirit during their time in the southwestern province of Guizhou, the distinct white bottles have been given as official gifts to visiting dignitaries and become a fixture at lavish dinners.