There are five essential elements to the body of high quality baijiu: acids, sweetness, bitterness, spiciness and saltiness.

- Acids include acetic acid, hexanoic acid, lactic acid and other esters. They are the main aromas of baijiu.

- Sweetness is from polyhydric alcohols, which is not sweet like sucrose, but sweet taste when our saliva converts starch into glucose.

- Bitterness is the result of tannin, which is mainly from sorghum.

- Technically spiciness is a sensation caused by aldehydes. Therefore freshly-made distillate must age for a period of time so that aldehydes can volatilize and baijiu becomes smoother.

- Saltiness is the result of esterification between organic acid and ethanol.

During Hawaii International Conference on Food in October 1985, some experts suggested “umami” as one of the five taste modalities (acidity, sweetness, bitterness, saltiness, umami). While spiciness is categorized as an oral sensation.

Each basic taste on its own can be affected by elements like temperature, intensity, menstruum and dietary habit.

Temperature

Normally Huangjiu (literally means yellow liquor) is served warm and beer is served chilled. Guojiao 1573 will reach its optimal palate at 12℃ as well. It turns out temperature can enhance or weaken aromas and sensation in different circumstances . In general, the sense of bitterness, saltiness and spiciness is in direct proportion to temperature, while the sense of sweetness and acidity is inversely proportional to temperature. That is why it gets more and more spicy with the increase of temperature when having hot pot, and sweeter when drinking chilled sugary drinks.

Intensity

The line between good smell and bad smell is quite vague. Essence can be smelling bad when the intensity gets very high, but smelling really good when dilutes to perfume.

Menstruum 

The amino acid solves in water will taste a bit sweet, while it solves in alcohol will taste bitterness. The same material can smell differently when solves in different menstruum.

Dietary habit

Different people from various regions will have a different preference to taste. Some people enjoy Durian a lot but some people think differently. There are always some people who enjoy “smelly food” very much, such as preserved egg and stinky tofu in China, Surstromming in Netherlands or blue cheese. However, these “smelly food” can hardly find a market outside their original region.

So what will happen if we mix these basic tastes together? There are mainly two results, harmony and contrast.

Harmony

Some tastes can enhance others when mix up together. For example, sugary drinks can taste a lot sweeter when added salt. Bitterness can be enhanced by acidity. When mixing sodium glutamate with Sodium Inosinate, umami will be remarkably strengthened.

Contrast

On the other hand, some tastes can weaken the sense of others. If a dish is too salty, we can add some vinegar to balance out the saltiness. Moreover, sweetness can weaken acidity, bitterness and saltiness.

Now that we understand how tastes work, we can take a deeper look at the blending of baijiu.

Blending is one of the most significant process in baijiu making. Some consumers may misunderstand blending as simply adding water or even mixing good and lower quality baijiu. In fact, the blending process is necessary to baijiu industrialization, large scale production and branding.

The baijiu made from different seasons, different workshops, different fermentation pits of various years of usage can be very different. Even from the same fermentation pit, different layers of fermented sorghum are distilled for different batches of baijiu. The similar situation happens when ageing baijiu. Baijiu with different period of ageing will definitely have various characteristics. Therefore, finding two pots of baijiu tasted the same is impossible. However, each bottle from each batch of baijiu must be tasted the same to maintain consistency of the brand. To do that, blending is where magic happens.

Blending different batches of baijiu is not just to maintain consistency, but enhance their tastes and flavors as well. A baijiu blending expert is like an artist, who can craft a masterpiece with his or her taste buds and can not be replaced by precise instruments.

In 1950s, The master distiller of Luzhou Laojiao Mr. Chen qiyu happened to put baijiu from different pots into one pot by accident. The result he got was mind-blowing and he started to  realize the harmony and potential of blending different batches of baijiu.

After the incident, Mr Chen put together a team immediately to do more research on blending of Strong Aroma Baijiu. Luzhou Laojiao became the first enterprise in the baijiu industry to invest on development and application of baijiu blending. It means endless of tasting, blending and more tasting.

In 1970s, with more than 10 years of experience, blending had became a norm in Luzhou Laojiao baijiu making, which generated better quality and more characterful baijiu. Instead of keeping the technique to themselves, Luzhou Laojiao promoted baijiu blending to the whole nation through training courses. More and more people had a better understanding of importance and necessity of blending and even became experts in blending.

What we call “seasoning baijiu” is significant during baijiu blending. Normally “seasoning baijiu” accounts for just 0.01% in the whole batch. They are the baijiu brewed from very old fermentation pit or even our four National Cellars built in 1573, which are very fragrant or aged for a long time. A few drops of “seasoning baijiu” will totally change the style of baijiu.

The selection of “seasoning baijiu” in Luzhou Laojiao is tremendously varied. Some of them have aged for 50 to 100 years. They are the rarity in Chinese baijiu industry. All these various “seasoning baijiu” guarantees the high quality of Luzhou Laojiao baijiu.