3 ways to celebrate World Baijiu day

Tomorrow is World Baijiu Day, an international celebration of the Chinese spirit (as in the drink, not the people's character) started by Beijing blogger Jim Boyce way back in 2015. There are events taking place all week in the run up to the day itself in bars as far afield as Brussels, Melbourne and Portland. Tuesday 9 is also Qixi (aka 'Chinese Valentine's Day'), so why not get romantic with the 'White Lady' and these three ways to celebrate?

Ganbei some baijiu cocktails

DADA and Logan's Punch are the only two Shanghai venues officially involved with World Baijiu Day this year and ought to make for better drinking options than just grabbing a bottle of Erguotou from your local AllDays.

DADA will be serving up their classic Chinglish cocktail (versions 1.0 and 2.0), which mixes rum, lemon and lychee and melon liqueurs with a baijiu base, alongside some other baijiu concoctions including the 'Blue Joe' pictured above. And to accompany your cocktail, they'll also be screening a film about the making of the spirit.

Over at Logan's Punch, they'll be putting together a drink called the Xiao Long Gao, which mixes American Bye Joe, passionfruit, lemon and a little sugar. Yum.

Book a Chinese wine tour

It falls a little late for World Baijiu Day itself, but UnTour's Chinese Wine and Street Food Tour is worth booking yourself in for if you've gotten a taste for the stuff (and, actually, even if you don't). Basically, it's a pairing of UnTour's excellent and perennially popular night market tour with a selection of three Chinese wines. We're talking grape wines here (from the likes of Inner Mongolia's Chateau Hansen, Shanxi's Grace Vineyard and Ningxia's Kanaan), but there's also free-flow beer and baijiu throughout the night.

Tickets are 600RMB each, which seems like a bargain given the copious amounts of food, alcohol and knowledge consumed over the course of the evening, and you can book it right here.

Eat a baijiu burger

So Carl's Jr have a baijiu burger now. The Summer Moonlight is basically a standard Carl's burger - a chargrilled patty, a couple of rashers of bacon, slice of cheese, tomato, lettuce and crispy onion strips - but with one very 'special' addition: the baijiu sauce.

And yes, it is real baijiu, not just flavouring. The sauce is apparently 5 percent alcohol and each burger has around 0.8ml of Gujinggong brand spirit in it (a small amount admittedly, but let's face it - it's not like you need much of the stuff). Read all about the baijiu burger here.