How to read the seal of a 1988 Moutai
Three details separate a genuine pre-merger bottling from the seventy percent of fakes circulating in Asia. Not all are visible to the eye.
This house serves only those of legal drinking age in their country of residence.
Drink with intention. We do not sell to minors.
A private cellar of vintage Moutai and aged Japanese whisky — sourced direct, sealed to provenance, brought to a single table.
Each pour in our house is hand-verified, vintage-confirmed, and accompanied by a certificate of provenance. We handle perhaps a hundred bottles a month — never more.
Counterfeit Moutai outsells the real thing on the open market. We refuse the open market.
Read the Provenance Standard →Distilleries, family cellars, and verified single owners. Never auction-house secondaries we cannot trace.
Each bottle is verified against the producer's archive, photographed under UV, and sealed with a numbered house wax before dispatch.
Every order ships with a hand-numbered provenance card, signed by the house cellar master. Frame it. It is part of the story.
Single-bottle reserve. One of seventeen in private hands.
A pre-merger bottling from the original Maotai distillery, sealed under cellophane the week of the Seoul Olympics. Aged thirty-six years in a Guizhou family cellar before passing into our care. Sauce-aroma at its most patient — soy, dried plum, leather, honey, and a finish that holds for ten minutes after the glass is empty.
A vatting of malts aged in mizunara, sherry, and American white oak.
The crown of Suntory's blending art. Stone fruit, sandalwood, a slow ribbon of smoke that arrives only when the glass is half empty. Decanted in the company's faceted twenty-four-sided bottle — one face for each hour of the day, one hour for each pour. Increasingly rare since Suntory paused production in 2018.
A standing arrangement for collectors who prefer the rarities to find them. Three tiers, by quiet introduction.
Cellar masters call you before the public listing. Most rare bottles are gone before the page renders.
A private, lifetime record of every bottle you have purchased — for insurance, estate, or simple pride.
Annual closed tastings in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore. Twelve seats. By the cellar master's hand.
Three details separate a genuine pre-merger bottling from the seventy percent of fakes circulating in Asia. Not all are visible to the eye.
Why a single Japanese oak species turns honest barley into something the Scots, gracious as ever, simply concede they cannot make.
Some pours are meant to be drunk. Some are meant to outlive their owners. We make the case for both, and the geometry between them.
New arrivals, vintage notes, the occasional glass-side correspondence. Sent four times a year. Never to be forwarded.