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Niulanshan Erguotou: Water Creates a Beautiful Spirit

he legend has been passed down from one generation to the next. Ages ago, a sacred buffalo was roaming a mountain in today’s Shunyi District in Beijing when he, by chance, stopped to drink from a rippling creek. The thirsty buffalo (niu) was enjoying drinking the cool and sweet water so much that he wanted to go nowhere. The buffalo, finally, found a cave nearby and settled down for good. In time, the cave became known as Jinniudong (Gold Buffalo Cave), the mountain as Niulan Shan (Buffalo Fence Mountain).

Blessed with ideal water and fecund farmlands, records relate that Niulanshan Township began making liquor (sometimes referred to as ‘wine’) more than 300 years ago, during the late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), said Deputy Secretary Zhang Shufeng of the Beijing Shunxin Agriculture Corporation Limited Niulanshan Distillery. But bronze ware unearthed in 1982 suggests that winemaking may have begun in the area during the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century–771 BC), confirming another local legend.

So even though the Niulanshan Distillery, founded in 1952 with Niulanshan Erguotou as its first product, is a relative newcomer as a Zhongguo laozihao (China Time Honoured Brand), its precedents are long and distinguished. The company is intimately tied to the history of the people of the area; it has grown from a collective of primitive, scattered, small-scale workshops in the early 1950s to become a modern enterprise with 1,800 employees.

Physically, Niulanshan has disappeared; its springs no longer flow, but the area’s Niulanshan Erguotou does; its production has never ceased.

The process—or “second distillation” (erguotou)—of making erguotou gives it its name. To make a Chinese spirit, people used pots filled with cool water to distil fermented grain sorghum. Practice revealed that wine generated using a second pot had the most bouquet (flavour) and the best quality; so the wine yielded at this stage became known as erguotou. 

Exactly when erguotou became popular is unknown, but relatively prosperous times during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) are thought to have stimulated the demand for better liquor, Zhang said. During this time, the liquor industry flourished with 11 shaoguo (Chinese spirit workshops) employing more than 100 people in the Niulanshan area alone. Because of its affordable price and pleasing fragrance, erguotou has been used to lift spirits in Beijing ever since.

While the “blood” of Niulanshan Township’s Erguotou is its superior water, it would be for naught were it not for the area’s—the “grain barn” of Beijing’s—abundant grain supply. The best erguotou is made of a special kind of grain sorghum called yanzhimi (red rouge rice) thanks to its feint pink colour.

Wu Wenxue, grandson of the deputy manager of the Fushuncheng Shaoguo, one of the largest erguotou workshops at that time, said, “Because of its convenient roads and water transportation, the workshops in Niulanshan managed to sell their products to southern cities by boats and to northern and western areas such as Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and the Northeast by camels. Niulanshan Erguotou was so popular that many people in Inner Mongolia didn’t know about Shunyi District but were familiar with the name Niulanshan.”

By the Republican period in China (1912–1949), the 11 shaoguo had been merged into four: Fushuncheng, Kuishenghao, Yixin and Gongli. Many vendors sold erguotou in wholesale lots during bazaars held on the fourth, seventh and ninth of every month on the Lunar Calendar. Residents of Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, and many other provinces came to know and appreciate the famous yet affordable Niulanshan Erguotou.

In 1952, on the basis of the four shaoguo from the Republic of China period, the State-owned Beijing Niulanshan Distillery was founded. Aside from preserving traditional crafts and quality, the company tried new technologies and products to adjust to the changing need of customers. In 1992, the company launched its low potent Beijing-Chun (38 percent alcohol by volume) product, an instant hit, becoming the first low-alcohol spirit-maker in the market. For this it was awarded Gold and Silver Prizes in the 33rd and 34th Brussels International Production Exposition.

After restructuring in 1998, the company was renamed the Beijing Shunxin Agriculture Corporation Limited Niulanshan Distillery, the largest subsidiary of its mother company the Shunxin Group.

Today, with assets valued at 510 million yuan (US$67.8 million) and 1,800 employees, including more than 200 senior engineers or technicians, the Niulanshan Distillery produces 50,000 tons of Chinese spirits including 110 products in four categories. In 1999, it was named a China Time Honoured Brand and a product that originated in China. The company has an agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under which it will provide banquet spirits to Chinese embassies abroad beginning in 2007.