Get Ready to "Go Beyond Ganbei" With the Third Annual World Baijiu Day, Aug 9

The perfect occasion to raise a glass and toast China's most famous spirit is nearly upon us. On August 9, nightlife blogger and longtime baijiu enthusiast Jim Boyce will host his third annual event dedicated of the notoriously strong (and divisive) Chinese liquor.

This year's World Baijiu Day participants include Capital Spirits, Pop-Up Beijing, Q Bar, Schoolhouse at Mutianyu, and Tiki Bungalow, with more happenings likely to be added to the docket when it's all said and done. Details are still being finalized, but Boyce recently posted on his blog about Q Bar's World Baijiu Day specifics, which will include not only domestic varieties of the spirit but also a flight of burgeoning international brands like Taizi from New Zealand.

The baijiu that will be served that night at Q Bar and at some of the other participating venues will be served in flights because, according to Boyce: "when we do drink baijiu straight, it tends to be in flights, so we can compare and contrast different baijius."

While Boyce is passionate about exploring the spirit's many facets, he more than understands the trepidation some foreigners may have when it comes to a drink that Chinese friends and colleagues have used to ganbei many of us under the table. To that end, he explains his nuanced thinking behind this annual event, telling the Beijinger during a recent interview: "I didn't create World Baijiu Day to make people love baijiu. Frankly, I have my own love-hate relationship with this booze. I created it because baijiu is the planet's most-consumed spirit and people should try it. Being an alcohol aficionado and never trying baijiu is like being a noodle fan and never trying spaghetti or ramen."

In keeping with the preceding World Baijiu Days, this year's iteration finds Boyce not only planning Beijing events but also coordinating with baijiu purveyors and restaurateurs the world over. Venues from 21 different cities  from Sydney to Melbourne, London to LA and more  will host various tasting events and food pairings, and you can read the entire breakdown here. Newbie locales include Buenos Aires, Chengdu and Shenzhen, and more may very well be added considering there's still three week to go before the big day.

Though many a foreigner has experienced rough nights after one too many shots of baijiu – its fiery flavor and potency making it one of the hardest drink-specific culture shocks to swallow  Boyce has long gone against the grain as an expat proponent of the spirit, going as far as penning a blog for the Beijinger in 2014 that offered fellow foreigners a "how-to guide" to better enjoy knocking little glassfuls of it back.

On the eve of the inaugural World Baijiu Day in 2015, Boyce told fellow spirit enthusiast and blogger Derek Sandhaus that he saw Chinese "grape wine go from being widely dismissed by most people to gaining some respectability over the past decade, and I figured something like World Baijiu Day might help baijiu on its own path to wider visibility and acceptance." He added that "I thought it would be fun to work with bars and restaurants on creative ideas, whether for cocktails or infusions or food pairings or even the deep-fried baijiu we tested here in Beijing, and learn more about this spirit myself."

The "fried baijiu" that Boyce mentions in that Q&A was something that he describes fondly to the Beijinger today as, "One of the coolest projects" that was ever part of World Baijiu Day because it saw former Windy City "Chef Dustin Merrett deep-fry baijiu in the Jing-A kitchen. You soak angel's food cake in baijiu, deep-fry it, then roll in icing sugar. It was good, although deep-fried bourbon and tequila were better. Other tasty experiments included the "drunken shrimp pizza" with seafood sauteed in baijiu, invented by Josh Lally at Gung Ho, and the Maotai mocha coffee made by the late Sam Cornthwaite of Good Works, along with lots more."

Another key aspect World Baijiu Day is to provide alternatives to the ganbei, rapid gulping-style consumption of this sorghum-based spirit that is so popular with the most devout of Chinese drinkers, but which proves more than cumbersome for most foreigners. Boyce explains: "I also created WBD as a platform to go "beyond ganbei." People in China typically consume baijiu as lukewarm shots but that's not a popular way to drink white spirits like gin or vodka elsewhere. Over the past two years, our venue partners have created baijiu-inspired cocktails, infusions and liqueurs plus foods and drinks like pizza, ice cream, chocolate, gummy bears, beer, and coffee."

Boyce adds: "No one is saying doing shots of baijiu is bad. But going beyond ganbei is a lot of fun and creates new ways for people to ease into baijiu."

To that, we can only say "cheers!" and raise a glass of our own. Well, maybe come Friday. For updates and more information about World Baijiu Day, see the event's website here follow the event on Facebook or Twitter.

More stories by this author here.
Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
Twitter: @MulKyle

Photos: Serious EatsWorld Baijiu Day, 300 Shots at Greatness