Kweichow Moutai (left) is baijiu, a high proof, pungent, spicy, savory, sweet traditional liquor of China. (Matthew Mead/AP)
As of late last week, Kweichow Moutai, a Chinese firm, is the largest liquor company in the world.
The company hit a value of $71.5 billion on Friday, pushing it past Diageo, the maker of Johnnie Walker, CNNMoney reports. During the past year, the firm's stock has spiked more than 50 percent.
Moutai has been called the Chinese "drink of
diplomacy," used to toast President Richard Nixon on his historic trip
to the People's Republic in 1972, despite aides attempting to prevent the president from imbibing during the state visit.
But Diageo's decline relative to Moutai has more to do with the Chinese firm's rise, than a lack of effort by Diageo.
Johnnie Walker has sought in recent years to tap into emerging markets with growing middle classes, like China, as well as Mexico.
The company has sought to make its iconic "striding man" an emblem of progress, and perhaps more controversially in markets like China, an icon of democratic movements.
"When you look at today's striding man, he's
just a silhouette," Afshin Molavi, of the think-tank New America
Foundation, told NPR. "So in a sense, he could be anyone. He could be
you, he could be someone in Africa, someone in India, someone in China.
And so they've done a pretty good job of kind of making the striding man
an everyman."
A long-form ad describing the company's storied
history and its founder, starring Scottish actor Robert Carlyle, was
released in 2014.
[READ:
After Trump-Xi Summit, an Eye Toward the Future]
"Deep into the dark hearts of several wars, to the pleasure palaces of the aristocracy," Carlyle explained.
"By the beginning of the 21st century… [Johnnie Walker] was an
international symbol of progress. The brand's 'Keep Walking' mantra
adopted by pro-democracy protesters and parliamentary speech writers.
Would would the farm-born Victorian grocer thought of all of this? He'd
have loved it."
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