Tumbler Of The Beast: Hong Xing Baijiu
Tired of the same old well whiskey and plastic bottle brandy, but don’t want to feel like an asshole ordering some bullshit digestif like a hipster? Welcome to Tumbler Of The Beast, our guide to the most metal liquors on earth.
Liquor: Hong Xing baijiu (红星, hóngxīng, “red star”)
Country of origin: The PRC, son.
ABV: 56% (112 proof)
Musical accompaniment: Pig Destroyer, Coroner, Ghost Bath.
Many drinkers talk about their booze being a “hug from within,” or braving winter weather in their “whiskey coat.” These terms stir up memories of satisfying cocktails by the fire, those fuzzy, safe moments when booze is your chill friend.
Baijiu is not that kind of liquor. Baijiu makes you want to dance and yell and find out what that dude who keeps ice-grilling you is made of. It’s like a silver tequila’s meth-head brother. Distilled from sorghum and sometimes rice, it is a harsh and fickle mistress. At weddings and Lunar New Years, Chinese people toast with it from the tiniest glasses, because a) there are going to be a lot of toasts that night, and b) any more than that and you will be a shuddering wreck. As it is, everyone simply gets polluted. Among baijius, none is more brutal, affordable, and volatile than Erguotou (二锅头, èrguōtóu, “two pot head”, referring to the fact that it’s twice distilled). And if you’re going with Erguotou, give me that Hong Xing.
To be fair, Hong Xing (“red star”) is the roughest of the baijius, so you can choose to drink something else if you like. It came into being when the Communists defeated the nationalists in 1949—hence the red star. This isn’t top-shelf stuff; it’s barely well. But here’s the thing: every liquor has its base flavor. Even the cheapest rot-gut rum tastes like molasses. The base flavor behind baijiu is just a little weird and unpleasant, at least to my Western-ass palate. So if you’re going to drink it outside of a nice formal occasion, why not drink the rudest shit imaginable? It doesn’t hurt that it comes in the kind of bottle you want to be holding when you get tackled by the cops. But this isn’t something you bring to a party (unless it’s, you know, a Communist Party, sorry I had to do it). I once brought it to a Chinese wedding thinking I was being culturally aware, and the bride told me I’d basically rolled up with a bottle of Old Grand-Dad 101 Proof.
Here are the tips given to me the first time I drank this stuff. To begin, don’t smell it before you taste it—that’ll put you off. Next, after drinking, try to breathe out through the mouth; otherwise, you might accidentally inhale the fumes and get dizzy. And finally, there’s no shame in having a chaser. Don’t be a hero. The Chinese chase it with food because it’s that potent—you need padding on the top and the bottom of Hong Xing. Once you’ve sipped the exceedingly clear liquid, you’ll feel a line of molten lava traveling down your throat into your abdomen, finally settling in the pit of your stomach and tangibly eating away at your insides. Then it’s off to the races.
There’s a stereotype of Asians not being able to handle their booze—‘Asian glow’, blah blah blah—and Erguotou proves what utter bullshit that is. Any population that produces this liquor is raw. Baijiu isn’t hard to find in the States, but Hong Xing can be, due in part to the fact that very few people choose it over other baijius, because it’s beyond gross. But if you find yourself at a liquor store in your city’s Chinatown, look for Hong Xing’s distinct green bottle and red star. And see if you can, buy that flask-sized bottle, too. It’s just grodier by nature, and when you’re planning a night on the Erguotou, grody is what it’s all about.
Special thanks to my brother Quin for help with the Chinese. No thanks to him for introducing me to this heinous stuff.
