The counterfeit Moutai industry

Last week, a court in Shanghai sentenced two people to a year in jail and a fine of 260,000 yuan ($35,697) for producing counterfeit bottles of Kweichow Moutai 贵州茅台, the distilled spirit (báijiǔ 白酒) considered to be the “national liquor of China.” The drink was made famous in the West in 1972, when then premier Zhōu Ēnlái 周恩来 toasted visiting U.S. President Richard Nixon with it.

Made from local red sorghum, wheat, and water, Moutai baijiu has a production cycle of five years, and can only be produced in the town of Maotai, in the province of Guizhou. The company Kweichow Moutai has for many years had the highest market capitalization of all Chinese listed companies, and the highest of all global liquor companies, although it occasionally loses that ranking, often when the Chinese Communist Party conducts anti-corruption activities.

Moutai is expensive stuff: Regular bottles cost around 900 yuan ($125), but special collector’s editions can cost much more than that. In 2021, 24 bottles of Moutai produced in 1974 sold for $1.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction in London.

With those prices, there is naturally a big business in counterfeit Moutai.

High-end fakes

Some of the counterfeiters know what they are doing: So-called “high-imitation Moutai” (高仿茅台) can easily be confused for the real thing to the less experienced taster. All you have to do to get your hands on some imitation Moutai in China is to search for it online: You will find what appear to be reputable companies, with prices of Moutai bottles a little cheaper than (or similarly priced to) genuine Moutai. The price difference is always small to avoid suspicion that the product is fake. Many of these criminal operations deliver anywhere in China, but it’s cash on delivery only.

Selling fake Moutai can indeed be very lucrative: For production costs as low as 100 yuan ($13.80) per bottle, counterfeiters can sell high-imitation baijiu for 10 times that price at least.

A little bit of real Moutai and real Moutai bottles

The Shanghai case mentioned above followed a familiar pattern for Moutai counterfeiting operations. The court found that from November 2021 to January 2022, the two defendants had rented a number of apartments in Shanghai to store their base liquor and counterfeiting materials. The base liquor is usually a blend of cheaper baijiu with a small amount of genuine Moutai. The mixture is poured into Moutai bottles (which may be genuine, used, or stolen Moutai bottles, or high-end fakes). Such products are often sold as expensive Moutai editions: Counterfeits like the 53 Degree Feitian 53度飞天 Moutai brand usually sell for around 1,500 yuan ($205) per bottle. The counterfeiters in Shanghai were selling their products directly to liquor stores.

In February 2022, police in Chongqing announced the arrest of 24 suspects for producing high-imitation Moutai in four different counterfeiting operations. The police confiscated more than 800 bottles of fake Moutai, 3,000 kilograms (6,613 lbs) of base liquor, 14 sets of counterfeiting equipment, and 27,000 sets of packaging materials. This operation was highly professional: Each bottle of genuine Moutai contains an anti-counterfeiting microchip in the lid, which is destroyed on opening, and the Chongqing counterfeiters were able to reproduce fake microchips via equipment bought online. The fakes were given further credibility by being sold online with the endorsement of various internet celebrities.

In January 2019, police in Hangzhou arrested a man for selling fake Moutai after he had brought several boxes of Moutai to a liquor store, saying that he got them from a friend but did not want them, and wanted to sell them at a discount. The shop owner tested the liquor and found it to be fake, even though the counterfeiting was of an impeccable standard. In this operation, the booze was actually produced by a counterfeiting operation in Guizhou and then transported to Hangzhou, where two men would peddle them at liquor stores while driving around in a BMW to create the right impression.

In a separate case in May 2019, police in Hangzhou arrested 22 people and uncovered a large-scale liquor-counterfeiting operation in the city itself, which was producing fake alcohol in very unhygienic conditions, including in the toilet of a rental house. Nevertheless, the imitation baijiu was, according to police, of an exceptional standard.

The takeaway: How to spot fake Moutai

Despite the excellent quality control of many criminal entrepreneurs in the counterfeit Moutai industry, there are, according to some experts, some telling signs to distinguish between the genuine article and a well-crafted impostor:

• Every bottle of Moutai comes with two small drinking glasses. These glasses are key indicators of authenticity: They should have sharp edges and corners, the imprinted letters should be clearly visible, and the glass should be of high quality.
• An unusual taste and distinctive smell should be a dead giveaway, but clearly not everyone is always capable of such discernment. If you pour the liquid into one of the small glasses, however, it should have a slightly yellow appearance.
• If you shake the glass slightly and let it rest, you should be able to observe small droplets forming on the wall of the glass, the so-called “hanging cup” (guābéi 挂杯) effect. This is a telltale sign, as only genuine Moutai will have this effect.