You Can Never Wake Someone Pretending to Be Drunk

The A-share listed company JiuGui Liquor has been acting drunk over 50,000 bottles of 2012 aged baijiu that contain saccharin.

This should have been a simple matter. The market regulator only needed to test the sealed stock in the warehouse. If sweetener was detected, they should find out whether it was added by the producer, the distributor, or someone else—then give the public an explanation.

Instead, we see the producer and distributor telling different stories while the regulator and the court spar like immortals.

When this blew up, nobody believed the distributor suddenly grew a conscience to report the factory. Everyone involved knows the interests at stake.

In an interview with China National Radio, the distributor’s lawyer said: if the court rules the batch is problematic, it should be destroyed and those responsible held accountable, not sent back to the JiuGui plant. If the court rules the batch is fine, let the distributor sell it normally instead of keeping it sealed. The court, he said, should take that advice.

Here, the local market regulator acted like the producer’s hired muscle. Someone reported issues with the stored stock, but they sampled bottles already on the market and said nothing was wrong. A bait-and-switch—are they drunk on JiuGui?

As a liquor company built on marketing, JiuGui once had its 2012 baijiu found to exceed plasticizer limits by 2.6 times. Who would have thought that in “9012” it’s still tangled up with the 2012 batch, as if haunted by a wine ghost. As the saying goes, if you’ve done nothing wrong, you don’t fear ghosts knocking. If the company truly never bought or added saccharin, then once someone reported issues, it should have halted sales and reported to the police for malicious smearing. Why rush to negotiate with the culprit and haul the stock back?

In just four days we’re supposed to enter a “moderately prosperous society.” Everyone should sober up and stop pretending to be drunk.

Published at: Dec 27, 2019 · Modified at: Jan 14, 2026