YiSheng liquor

Yisheng liquor is a historic brand of baijiu and yellow-rice wine produced in Changle Town, Haimen District, Nantong, Jiangsu, China.

History

Industrialist and educational reformer Zhang Jian established the original Yisheng Brewing Company in 1894 with encouragement from Viceroy Zhang Zhidong. This company was on the west side of the Number One Scholar Street, in ChangLe Town, Haimen.
The distillery shipped its ‘‘Yinchen Daqu’’ herbal spirit to the 1906 Milan International Exposition, where it won a gold medal—the earliest World’s-Fair award recorded for a Chinese liquor. After a period of wartime disruption, the plant was rebuilt in the early 1950s and expanded under public ownership, adopting semi-mechanised lines during the 1970s yet retaining its traditional pit-fermentation system.
In 2011 the brand was recognised as a “China Time-honoured” enterprise, and its brewing technique was inscribed on the Jiangsu Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Products

The flagship is ‘‘Yinchen Daqu,’’ an amber spirit scented with wormwood and marketed at 38 %–52 % ABV. Other labels include ‘‘Jianweng’’ and a range of low-proof rice wines and fruit liqueurs.

Ownership and operations

Nantong Yisheng Wine Industry Co., Ltd. is a privately held company incorporated in 2004 and registered at Yisheng Village, Changle Town, with Quanhui Zhang as general manager. Bloomberg records list 2004 as the official founding year of the modern entity while noting that production traces back to 1894.