Niikeng Liquor

Niikeng Liquor

　　　Niikeng Liquor is one of the renowned local liquors in Hebei Province, ranking among the top six in the province’s liquor industry.

Niikeng Liquor Industry (officially known as Hebei Niikeng Liquor Industry Co., Ltd.) primarily produces and sells the Chinese time-honored brand — Niikeng Liquor. Its factory is located in Ningjin County, Hebei Province.

Niikeng Liquor is a pure grain spirit, using Northeast China’s red sorghum as its main ingredient, along with carefully selected glutinous rice, rice, wheat, and corn as supplementary materials. It is distilled in clay pots using water from Heilongtan in Heilonggang. Throughout the entire brewing process, no additives are used — it is purely grain-fermented.

　　The brewing history of Niikeng Liquor is long and storied, with written records dating back to the Tang Dynasty. The great poet Li Bai, while supervising the construction of the Taibai Canal, passed through Ningjin and tasted the locally brewed Niikeng Liquor from a local workshop. He was highly impressed and specifically inscribed a poem for the tavern: “Fragrance drifts ten li, intoxication begins three li, a sip brings five clouds of delight.”

　　Niikeng Liquor is made from carefully selected high-quality red sorghum from the Northeast, using medium- to high-temperature Daqu (fermentation starter) made purely from wheat as the saccharification and fermentation agent. The traditional “old five-pot” production technique is employed, along with solid-state fermentation in clay pits (with a fermentation period generally around 60 days, and up to about 120 days for double fermentation), mixed steaming and mixed firing, quality-based distillate selection, graded storage, and years of aging, followed by careful blending. Niikeng Liquor has passed international quality system certification. From raw material procurement and storage, crushing, mash blending, clear steaming, gelatinization, distillation, raw liquor storage, to aging, blending, tasting, filtration, inspection, and bottling — every one of the dozens of processes and thousands of quality control points follows strict quality standards and employs comprehensive testing methods to ensure the stability of the quality and flavor of the liquor upon leaving the factory.

　　The company that produces this liquor was established in 1916, formed after the merger of the pre-liberation-era distilleries “Fushengquan,” “Zhichenggong,” and “Zhichengyong.” It became a state-owned enterprise after the liberation and completed its shareholding reform in December 2003, with restructuring carried out by Hebei Ningfang Group. The company covers an area of 150 mu, has total fixed assets valued at 120 million yuan, and currently employs 1,036 workers. Its main products are the Niikeng and Fushengquan series of liquors, producing 25,000 tons annually of high-, medium-, and low-grade liquors, with all economic indicators reaching advanced levels within the domestic industry. The Niikeng and Fushengquan series of liquors use high-quality red sorghum as the raw material, medium- to high-temperature wheat Daqu as the saccharification and fermentation agent, and employ a unique clay-pit fermentation process passed down since the Yao and Shun periods, combined with advanced modern liquor production techniques, through long-term fermentation and meticulous brewing and blending. The fermentation pits are made from the unique sticky clay of the Heilonggang basin, compacted layer by layer before being dug deep into pits. The products are sold across more than ten provinces (and municipalities) including Beijing, Shanghai, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi, and are highly favored by consumers.

        Features: Because this type of sticky clay contains large amounts of effective phosphorus and humus, it can produce a wealth of aromatic compounds during fermentation. As a result, this product is characterized by its crystal-clear transparency, rich cellar aroma, smooth and sweet entry, mellow and gentle fragrance, and a long-lasting aftertaste.