Bairun's High-Stakes Gamble: The Cocktail King Sets Sights on Whiskey
A Chinese whisky brand named "Laizhou" has suddenly become popular.
Laizhou Whisky didn't come out of nowhere. It is a "sister brand" of RIO cocktails, launched with the investment of Bailun Co., Ltd.
In 2019, Bailun Co., Ltd. invested a huge amount of money to build the Laizhou Distillery in Qionglai, Sichuan. It went into production in 2021. By early 2026, 600,000 barrels of whisky had been canned for aging, and tens of billions of yuan had been spent in total.
From a market perspective, the Chinese whisky market is about to enter a period of rapid growth. However, limited by the aging cycle, Laizhou will not be able to enter the high - end market until 5 - 10 years later. Can it catch the biggest market opportunity?
Bailun Co., Ltd. is eager to cultivate whisky as a new business curve besides flavors and fragrances and pre - mixed cocktails, but it faces two major problems: on the one hand, the investment in whisky is huge, and the return cycle is extremely long; on the other hand, both of its two traditional businesses have reached a bottleneck. Can the company complete a major transformation of its business through cross - cycle layout?
The Takeoff of Chinese Whisky
Like beer, whisky is a pure foreign product in China. In the early days, foreign spirits led by whisky entered China along with foreigners.
In the following decades, all the whisky in the Chinese market, whether it's the high - end Macallan or the mid - to low - end Johnnie Walker and Ballantine's, were imported.
It wasn't until 2007 that a Taiwanese businessman, Wu Songbai, invested 1 billion yuan in Daqin Mountain, Zhangzhou, Fujian. Only then did the Chinese mainland have its first single - malt whisky distillery, named "Daqin".
Wu Songbai is very powerful. He tasted the sweetness in the whisky + cultural and tourism industry and continuously expanded his investment scale. Ten years after the Fujian Daqin distillery went into production, Wu Songbai went south to Guangdong and invested another 1.6 billion yuan. In 2024, he established the Guangdong Daqin Whisky Distillery in Nankun Mountain, Huizhou, Guangdong, aiming to build one of the world's largest single - malt whisky distilleries.
In 2019, the international spirits giant Pernod Ricard established the Diechuan Whisky Distillery in Emei Mountain, Sichuan. This is also the first localization move of a global spirits giant in the Chinese whisky market.
In the same year, Bailun Co., Ltd., the giant of pre - mixed cocktails, also chose Qionglai, Sichuan to build the Laizhou Distillery. It officially went into production in 2021 and became the largest whisky distillery in China.
By then, the leading players in the Chinese whisky market had gathered.
From Daqin to Diechuan and Laizhou, over the past decade or so, the Chinese domestic whisky industry has gradually taken shape. As of 2025, there were more than 50 whisky distilleries in China. Many liquor giants such as Yanjing Beer, Qingdao Beverage Group, and Tianyoude Wine have participated in it.
At this time, the Chinese whisky industry finally welcomed its first wave of upsurge.
In January 2025, the Laizhou Single Malt Whisky Sherry Collection was launched in a small batch; in March, Baolide, the sub - brand of Laizhou, launched two marketable products, Single Blended Whisky 22 and 66; in June, five new products of Laizhou Single Malt Whisky were launched simultaneously; in September, the limited - edition Laizhou Single Malt Whisky Mongolian Oak Barrel Mid - Autumn Festival Limited Edition went on sale. In just one year, Laizhou completed the construction of its product matrix.
Diechuan started selling products in 2023, successively launching products such as pure malt and sherry cask whiskies. The first Chinese - style smoked whisky launched in January 2026 is of special significance; while Daqin, after years of operation, has formed product series such as Classic Single Malt, National Color, Beloved Eight - fold, and Premium Collection.
Industry data shows that in 2025, the import volume of Chinese whisky was 35,800 kiloliters, a year - on - year increase of 23%, and the import value reached 446 million US dollars; the production volume of Chinese whisky reached 60,000 kiloliters, with a total designed production capacity of 120,000 kiloliters and a total designed planned production capacity of 300,000 kiloliters.
In this process, the global status and influence of Chinese whisky have been significantly improved. Just as the slogan of the Laizhou Distillery says: "The Chinese point on the world whisky map has finally been lit up."
In addition, the new national standard for whisky was updated in 2025 and began to be implemented in early 2026. This new standard, which follows the market trend, has laid the foundation for the high - quality development of Chinese whisky.
If yellow rice wine is the root of the Chinese liquor market, Baijiu is the thick branch, beer and red wine are the leaves, then whisky is the newly - born bud.
Why Does Bailun Layout the Whisky Industry?
After seven years of low - key layout, Bailun Co., Ltd. finally regained its glory in 2025 as the king of Chinese whisky.
The Laizhou brand was printed on the front page of Bailun Co., Ltd.'s 2025 annual report. The annual report also spent a lot of space introducing the achievements of Laizhou and Baolide, regarding them as one of its main businesses.
So, why does Bailun Co., Ltd. deeply layout the whisky industry?
Bailun Co., Ltd. was established in 1997 and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2011. Its early main business was flavors and fragrances, mainly used in industries such as cigarettes, food, and beverages.
In the 1990s, pre - mixed cocktails entered the Chinese market with the bar culture. Limited by the low growth potential of the flavors and fragrances business, Bailun Co., Ltd. established Baks Wine Industry in 2003, laid out the pre - mixed cocktail business, and launched the RIO brand.
Early RIO cocktails took the high - end route, mainly in bottled products, and were mainly sold through nightclubs and other channels. It was difficult to open up the market for a long time. Before the IPO, Bailun Co., Ltd. divested the loss - making Baks Wine Industry.
Around 2013, RIO cocktails changed their strategy, launched canned products, and took the affordable route. With the help of variety shows and TV dramas for internet - celebrity marketing, they became popular in KA and internet channels, and their performance soared.
So, in 2015, Bailun Co., Ltd. acquired Baks Wine Industry at a high premium - selling low and buying high, which once caused strong doubts in the market.
In the following years, under the operation of Bailun Co., Ltd., RIO cocktails have experienced a bumpy growth path and have completely fallen into a bottleneck period in recent years.
Although RIO has always been the leader in the pre - mixed cocktail market, due to the small market capacity, the loss of category freshness, the increase of substitutes in the scenario, and the intensification of market competition, Bailun Co., Ltd. has entered a period of declining performance.
From 2023 to 2025, the revenue of Bailun Co., Ltd.'s liquor products was 2.884 billion yuan, 2.677 billion yuan, and 2.596 billion yuan respectively. If Laizhou Whisky is excluded in 2025, the decline of RIO cocktails is even more serious.
In this situation, Bailun Co., Ltd. has to layout the seemingly larger and more stable new business curve of whisky in advance.
The core raw materials of pre - mixed cocktails are actually whisky, gin, and rum. In addition to whisky, the Laizhou Distillery is also involved in Jiaoyu Gin, Linglie Vodka, etc. In fact, Bailun Co., Ltd. is not crossing the border but extending deeply into the industrial chain.
Among the world's five major spirits categories, whisky has become the well - deserved leader, with a market scale of up to 90 billion US dollars. Moreover, this market is relatively fragmented, providing a lot of room for new brands to explore.
To some extent, the Laizhou Distillery also has the ambition to represent Chinese whisky in the global market competition.
A High - Stakes Gamble with Uncertain Outcomes
The global whisky market is firmly dominated by Scottish and Japanese brands. Well - known brands such as Macallan, Johnnie Walker, and Chivas Regal, as well as Yamazaki, Hakushu, and Hibiki, all come from Suntory.
The stability of the whisky market is much stronger than that of other global liquor markets. This is determined by the product and industrial characteristics of whisky.
The whisky brewing process is not very complicated, but the brewing itself imparts less flavor. 70% - 80% of the flavor comes from the long - term aging process in oak barrels.
Newly - brewed whisky cannot be sold externally. It has to be aged for at least 3 - 5 years to be launched as a basic product, and mid - to high - end products often require more than 10 - 15 years of barrel aging.
The investment in a whisky distillery is huge. In addition to infrastructure construction, the sunk costs such as oak barrel procurement and base - wine aging are unimaginable.
The primary reason for the rapid rise of the Laizhou Distillery is the continuous investment of Bailun Co., Ltd.
The distillery was built in 2019 and had its first canning in 2021; by early 2026, it had completed the 600,000th barrel of canning and had the canning capacity of 1 million barrels. Bailun Co., Ltd. has invested tens of billions of yuan in basic brand awareness, market expansion, and consumer cultivation.
The profits from Bailun Co., Ltd.'s pre - mixed cocktails are still not enough to support the whisky industry. In 2020 and 2021, the company raised a total of 2.1 billion yuan for the whisky aging project twice, and more than 1.8 billion yuan had been invested as of 2025.
The investment cycle of Laizhou Whisky is far from over, and capacity building, brand market cultivation are still ongoing. It will probably take another 5 - 10 years. Only after Laizhou can launch whiskies aged over 10 years can the brand's market value be truly reflected.
Therefore, the tens of billions of yuan that Bailun Co., Ltd. has invested in the whisky industry still leads to a future full of uncertainties.
Whether now or in the future, when Laizhou, as the leader of Chinese whisky, focuses on brand and channel expansion and consumer cultivation, it has to face the dimensionality - reduction strikes from global and domestic established whisky brands in terms of products, brands, and users.
The biggest problem Bailun Co., Ltd. faces is that if the pre - mixed cocktail business continues to shrink, what resources can Laizhou Whisky rely on to complete this earth - shattering transformation plan that requires continuous investment for more than 20 years?
This article is from the WeChat official account "Banma Consumption" (ID: banmaxiaofei), author: Yang Wei, published by 36Kr with authorization.