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China is one of the most populous countries in the world but it has not been known for whisky drinking or production until more recently. While population rival India has been making and drinking whisky for years, China has only entered the fray in the past decade, but has grown rapidly: in 2023, domestic production exceeded whisky imports. While this has been a success story at home, Chinese producers are still not well known on the international market. That could be about to change, with a number of producers starting to export their whiskies and win awards on the global stage. In the vanguard, and leading the award tally, is Sichuan’s Laizhou.
The Source of Strong Aroma Baijiu
Sichuan, in southwest China, is not new to making alcoholic drinks. The home of strong aroma baijiu, the most popular style of the country’s national spirit, the province has a centuries-long history of alcohol production. The area around Chengdu is dense with baijiu producers. Nearby Qionglai has a wide array of producers, from boutique distillers to gigantic, town-sized operations producing some of China’s best-known spirits. Hidden among the baijiu makers is Laizhou, a newer entry into China’s whisky arena, but one that is already making waves internationally.
While only founded in 2021, the distillery was built with big ambitions, and the past few years have seen rapid growth. It opened its own cooperage in 2023 and a visitors centre and whisky museum in 2024. The plans include warehouse space for a million casks of whisky and distilling operations for brandy, plus apartments, a hotel, a spa and even a basketball court. Laizhou is a very different prospect to distilleries in other parts of the world.
Laizhou Whisky
On the whisky front, the comparatively tiny production area packs a lot into its space. There are both pot and column stills, producing both malt and grain whisky, with the latter key to the production of Laizhou’s most popular products: Blender 22 and Blender 66, blended Chinese whiskies focused on the home market. However, it’s the malt whisky which is now starting to make its way out into the wider world.
With eight pot stills of various shapes and sizes, and a capacity of about 6 million litres of pure alcohol per year, Laizhou is versatile when it comes to making whisky. The team, led by Heriot-Watt-educated distiller Hao Wu, are experimental with maturation. They use ex-bourbon, sherry, wine and tequila casks plus, in a world first, casks previously used for huangjiu (Chinese yellow wine).
I was fortunate to visit the distillery while judging for the International Wine and Spirits Competition in late 2025. While there primarily to taste baijiu, we also had a wide range of Chinese whisky to consider. The whiskies were impressive, surpassing our expectations, with a handful of distilleries consistently hitting high scores. Chief among those was Laizhou, with its flagship single malt picking up a 95pt Gold Medal and its peated expression a 98pt Double Gold.
Laizhou Finest Select Single Malt Whisky
Laizhou Finest Select is the core of the distillery’s single malt whisky releases and, appropriately, the first of its whiskies that I tried. It’s very much up my street, with bright fruit at its core, and I was surprised when I saw the breakdown of the recipe – there’s a lot going on here. It’s a mixture of new oak, ex-bourbon and ex-PX sherry casks, which I expected, but there’s also some Chinese fortified wine casks in the mix, which I suspect explains some of the more exotically tinged sweetness.
Nose: Freshly sliced sweet and sour apples, sugared almonds and buttered white toast. Gummi bears and wine gums sit in the middle, surrounded by fresh and candied orange and lemon peel. Baking spice and dried apricots develop.
Palate: Zingy and sweet to start, with lemon zest and sour apples balanced by candied peel and butter toffee. Dark oak sits right at the back with cherries and sultanas. Spiced sponge cake builds through the middle, joined by fruity boiled sweets, grass, green leaves and red apple skin.
Finish: Spiced apple sponge cake with candied lemon slices and a touch of youthful green wood.
Laizhou Peated Bourbon Cask Single Malt Whisky
I first tried the Laizhou Peated Bourbon Cask entirely blind during the IWSC judging session in China. It was an immediate hit, with my sample being put to one side to accompany my lunch, and one of the other judges asking me when we would find out what the whiskies were – he wanted to make sure to pick up a bottle before we left the country. Going back to it now that it’s got to the UK, it’s still a whisky that seems tailor-made for me: balanced peat, fruit and spice with more complexity than you might expect for its youthfulness.
Nose: Soft, earthy peat smoke leads, followed by gummi-bear fruit, damp wood, fragrant grass and leaves, hints of mint chocolate, sultanas, singed toffee and bright, sharp apples: freshly sliced, barbecued and baked with cinnamon and brown sugar.
Palate: Fresh and briny with a touch of sea breeze and crashing-wave ozone leading to sharp green apples, just-ripe pears and apple boiled sweets. Rhubarb and Custard sweets develop, along with lemon drizzle cake, bracken and butter mints. Bright peat smoke is ever present: burning grass and pine.
Finish: Sweet pine and apple linger, along with fragrant smoke.
The Future of Chinese Whisky
While Chinese distillers don’t really need to look outside of their own country for eager fans to drink their whisky, we’re fortunate that some, such as Laizhou, are sending their releases further afield. That way we can try their spirits without travelling around the world.
We’re very pleased to announce that the Laizhou range will shortly be available from The Whisky Exchange and we look forward to seeing it grow over the coming years.
