Sina Finance's "Liquor Price Internal Reference" is now live, putting the real market prices of well-known baijiu brands at your fingertips. From October 20 to 22, along the banks of Shanghai's Huangpu River, the 2026 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference will return once again. Nobel and Turing Award laureates will take the stage to discuss the future and trends of technology, and there will even be a live dialogue between the internet-famous professors who "rescue" people from anxiety and involution — Macfarlane and Xiang Biao!
Seats are limited, so act fast. Let us join together for this appointment with sustainability! [Click to register] On October 15, within the ancient architecture of Dajue Jingshe in Guiyang, the "Deep Cultural Roots, Fragrant Terroir" Kweichow Moutai sauce-aroma liquor cultural promotion event and the 2026 Huamao new product launch conference were held. Unlike the routine narrative of conventional new product launches, this event, held at the former site of the Hua family residence, destined the special nature of the new Huamao product from the very beginning. It is not a new product built from scratch, but rather an activation and reconstruction by Kweichow Moutai of a century-old brand asset. As the sauce-aroma liquor industry gradually enters a new stage of value competition and cultural competition, Huamao's renewed debut is not only a key supplement to Kweichow Moutai's "2+N" sauce-aroma product matrix but also injects a new variable into the mid-to-high-end business sauce-aroma liquor track.
Backed by a century of cultural heritage, Huamao's brand moat originates from real history
At a time when the sauce-aroma liquor industry universally talks about history, Huamao's brand heritage possesses an irreplicable scarcity. Tracing Huamao's origins back to 1862, Hua Lianhui rebuilt a destroyed distillery in Maotai Town, naming it "Chengyu Shaofang," and the huisha maojiu it produced was the predecessor of Huamao. In 1915, it won a gold medal at the Panama Pacific International Exposition under the name "Moutai Distillery Company," making Kweichow Moutai sauce-aroma liquor famous overseas ever since. Beyond the distilling business, the Hua family was even more renowned for "supporting culture through commerce and carrying the Way through culture." By the time of the third-generation heir Hua Wenqu, Huamao was officially named in 1945, and at its peak, annual output reached 23.83 tons, laying an important foundation for the development of contemporary Kweichow Moutai. In the view of historical and cultural scholar Fan Tongshou, the century-long journey of the Hua family is essentially a microcosm of the spirit of Guizhou's righteous merchants — "establishing oneself through righteousness, achieving far-reaching goals through trust, and benefiting the people through profit." This "righteous merchant" underpinning engraved into the brand's DNA is precisely Huamao's most core brand asset today. In today's consumer market, consumers' demand for baijiu has long surpassed the beverage itself. Especially for mid-to-high-end business people, they place greater value on the cultural heritage and spiritual resonance behind the brand. The triple cultural core that Huamao has distilled — "Yi (righteousness), Yi (friendship), Yi (harmony)" — taking "righteousness" as the root of self-establishment, "friendship" as the vein of connection, and "harmony" as the realm of coexistence, precisely aligns with the value pursuits of contemporary business people who emphasize trustworthiness, connection, and win-win outcomes. This cultural value, grown from real history, distinguishes Huamao from most homogenized business sauce-aroma liquors and gives it a natural brand mindshare advantage.
From appearance to liquor body, product strength precisely adapts to business scenarios
A brand's cultural value must ultimately be realized in the product. Judging from the product design and liquor body creation of the all-new Huamao liquor, it adopts the approach of "paying tribute to history and renewing tradition," creating a sauce-aroma product that fits high-energy business scenarios and possesses both a sense of quality and a sense of culture. In terms of packaging design, the new Huamao product hides historical details and ingenuity everywhere. The bottle shape is based on the original old Huamao bottle as a prototype, with lines that are square and round in proper measure, concealing sharpness within, adapting to the social needs of business occasions to be "appropriate without overwhelming the host." The relief patterns on the outer wall of the bottle are extracted from the topographic maps of the Chishui River and the He Yixing basin, and the bottle bottom draws on the hexagonal outline of the ancient well at Yangliuwan, using the symbol of "well" to imply remembering the source when drinking water; the two characters "Huamao" are taken from historical documents treasured in the Kweichow Moutai archives, preserving the handwritten brushstroke texture of old times, making the brand itself a touchable historical relic. In terms of the color system, the bottle body uses indigo blue as the main tone, echoing Huamao's commercial foundation of "trust and righteousness as the basis," and also conveying a calm and inclusive business temperament. The two characters "Huamao" on the front are engraved with gold gilding, symbolizing the value accumulation of a century-old brand. The outer box continues the cyan color system, with embossed patterns on the box surface replicating the texture of the Chishui River terrain, the back adopting a Republican-era printmaking style, and the interior adorned with traditional fish patterns and floral motifs — every detail conveys the Eastern aesthetic of "harmonious coexistence." In terms of liquor body quality, the new Huamao product likewise continues Kweichow Moutai's stringent standards. The product comes from the "He Yixing production area" within the golden production zone of sauce-aroma baijiu in the Chishui River basin. Relying on the unique local microbial environment, using high-quality glutinous sorghum, wheat, and water as raw materials, it is brewed following the traditional daqu process for sauce-aroma baijiu, selecting base liquors from the He, Yi, and Xing production areas, and carefully blending them using liquor to blend liquor. The final liquor body presents prominent sauce aroma, mellow fullness, and a long aftertaste, retaining the character of traditional daqu sauce aroma while also fitting contemporary consumers' tasting aesthetics. This liquor body style, balancing classic and modern, can adapt to multiple scenarios such as business banquets, gatherings with friends, and gift-giving and collection. It can support the sense of quality needed for formal occasions while also satisfying the comfort of daily tasting.
Filling a gap in Kweichow Moutai's sauce-aroma matrix, reshaping the 488 yuan price band
As an important member of Kweichow Moutai's sauce-aroma liquor product matrix, the launch of the new Huamao product is far more than the introduction of a single item; it is a strategic move by Kweichow Moutai to improve its "2+N" product structure and optimize its value ladder. From the perspective of product layout, Kweichow Moutai's sauce-aroma liquor has in recent years continued to improve full-scenario coverage from mass consumption to high-end tasting, but in the core price band of mid-to-high-end business, there has always been a need for a strategic product that possesses both brand depth and cultural attributes to take on the role. Huamao's emergence precisely fills this gap. Upward, it connects to the high-end value of Kweichow Moutai's main brand; downward, it radiates into the mass sauce-aroma market, building a unique value advantage with a century-old brand accumulation and Kweichow Moutai's quality endorsement. In terms of market strategy, Huamao has chosen a path of "steady progress and long-termism." On the channel side, it adopts a strategy of "self-operated first, experience priority," with the first batch opened for purchase through i-Moutai and Kweichow Moutai's national self-operated stores, first safeguarding the foundation of consumer experience and then steadily expanding the dealer network; in market advancement, it insists on "going deep first, then broad," first polishing product experience and cultural dissemination, and expanding in an orderly manner only after market awareness matures; in terms of price, it clearly sets the price at 488 yuan per bottle, open and transparent, not pursuing short-term bubble-like growth, nor exchanging low prices for volume, committed to building long-term stable brand value. It is reported that 488 yuan is the golden waist price band of the sauce-aroma liquor market and also the mainstream price segment for business consumption and mass gift-giving, where competition has always been fierce. But Huamao's entry still brings a different variable: it has both the quality endorsement and channel momentum of Kweichow Moutai Co., Ltd. and the exclusive cultural IP of a century-old righteous merchant, possessing differentiated cultural value in homogenized price-band competition. More noteworthy is that Huamao's renewal provides a sample for revitalizing old brands in the sauce-aroma liquor industry. Kweichow Moutai's development of Huamao is a full-dimensional reconstruction from historical roots, product design, and liquor body quality to market operations, truly transforming an old brand's historical assets into contemporary market value. This approach of "upholding tradition while innovating" undoubtedly has reference significance for the sauce-aroma liquor industry, which is seeking new growth drivers. From Chengyi Shaofang in 1862 to the renewed debut of the all-new Huamao in 2026, spanning 164 years, this brand carrying the spirit of Guizhou's righteous merchants has finally once again stood before the market. At a point when the sauce-aroma liquor industry is shifting from high-speed growth to high-quality development, Huamao is expected to rely on its deep brand heritage and precise product positioning to become a new growth pole in Kweichow Moutai's sauce-aroma matrix.
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