Beside a large jar sealed with red cloth, a hand pours liquor from a long-handled wooden ladle into an earthenware bowl, a few square blocks of qu starter are stacked nearby, and red sorghum grains fill a dish and scatter over the table.
High-heat starter
Introduction
Baijiu of the sauce aroma, known for starter made at a high temperature.
Sauce-aroma baijiu is baijiu whose aroma is mainly of the sauce type, and the national standard for baijiu has a part of its own for it. The type is known for starter made at a high temperature; at one distillery the starter ferments at about sixty degrees Celsius for about forty days, being made at the Dragon Boat Festival, with the grain added at the Double Ninth. Making the starter is one of the main steps in producing this kind of spirit. Strong-aroma, light-aroma and other aroma types have classes of their own, and particular spirits are recorded as entries.