Premium white alcohol to make its debut this November

Baijiu is a white spirit from China

Last year, an episode of television show NASA's Unexplained Files featured a story on red patches cropping up in China. They would appear in August and disappear soon after. "Interestingly, what the NASA satellites were spotting were sorghum fields!" reveals Rojita Tiwari, spirit expert and co-founder of Agents of Cheer (AoC), India's only curated drinks festival that celebrated its second edition this week. The crop, explains Tiwari, is used to make baijiu, a white spirit from China that had its soft launch at AoC.

Distillation process
Formal distillation of baijiu started around a few hundred years ago, though there is no documentation of the exact time. The harvested sorghum is brought to the distillery where it is sprayed with water, enough to sweat it, after which it is cooked in a high temperature steaming process. The grain is then spread out in open spaces and left to airdry. "This is where the magic happens," explains Tiwari, adding, "They add qu, a brewer's yeast that triggers the fermentation process. Every master distiller guards the qu recipe with his life. Water and qu are the most important aspects of Baijiu production. Depending on the type of baijiu, it is fermented for a few days to weeks."

Rojita Tiwari. Pic/Ashish Raje

The next step is to put it in earthen pits, which is then covered in husk and placed in an airy tarpaulin for a couple of weeks - again depending on how light or strong one wants it. This is followed by the distillation process. Most of the Baijius are distilled in traditional Chinese pot stills. The first or purest output is recognised as heart and above 65 per cent abv (alcohol by volume). The distillate is diluted and sometimes the tail from the distillate goes through re-distillation, and heart is used to make the most premium baijiu. While most of the baijius are matured for six months, the premium ones are aged between three and five years, says Tiwari, who co-founded AoC with Gargi Kothari and Ruchika Agarwal Dsouza.

Taste test
According to international standards, in a baijiu tasting, one must look out for an industrial bouquet, sweetness from phenolics derived from sorghum and a burning sensation in the oesophagus. Unlike smelling wine, where you dip the nose into the glass, in case of smelling spirits, you hold the glass at a distance allowing the alcohol to rise to greet your nasal senses. "I tried my first baijiu in 2015, over a spicy hot pot meal, which is the best pairing for the drink. They pour it in 10 ml shot glasses, and over a meal one could consume 60-90 ml of the alcohol," Tiwari grins. To aid our taste sojourn, Tiwari has a baijiu aroma kit that offers us a road map to determine our palate's predictions - sesame, sauce, light or medicinal to even strong scents.

She pours us a shot, and we smell it, only to be met by a pungent industrial smell, which can be off putting if not for the sweet sorghum aroma that comes with it. We smell rice, jujube, and a hint of savoury fish/oyster sauce. We let it sit on our palate and mingle with the saliva; once swallowed, it burns lightly. Our second tasting is with tonic water and lemon that elevates the baijiu, but ginger ale we conclude might be a better carrier as the tonic water adds an overall bitterness.

Cocktail pairings
Come November, Jiangxiaobai distillery from Chongqing, China will launch an international palate friendly baijiu priced between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000, in Mumbai, Goa and Pune. At the second edition of AoC, visitors tried this baijiu in three different cocktails - baijiu and ginger ale, baijiu mojito and a baijiu princess with lychee syrup, passion fruit syrup, yogurt, lemon juice. "This is a good time to introduce baijiu, as bartenders are looking for new spirits and ingredients for cocktails," says Tiwari, the brand ambassador for Jiangxiaobai.

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