· Blenders International · Water Science
Soju, shochu and baijiu: how Asia's biggest spirits build a bottle out of water
The world's best-selling spirit is roughly four-fifths water, Japan has a dedicated word for the water added before bottling, and China's largest spirits category treats dilution as a process step with its own quality problem. Asia's three biggest categories dilute harder than whisky does — which is exactly why their water is specified, filtered and, in one case, written into law.