Liu Dashu: My dream is to make drinking alcohol as easy and casual as drinking coffee or milk tea.

Ask AI · How Liu Dashu Used Five Years to Crack the Problem of Missing Brands in Low-Alcohol Beverage Liquor Brands?

“Standing on the fertile ground of China’s liquor and beverage industry, and making turning drinking alcohol into reality—just like drinking coffee milk tea—happen right around us, begins today.”

On March 26, the 114th National China Food & Drinks Fair (Guangzhou / Jiangsu) key main forum event—2026 China Alcohol Industry New Consumption New Scenarios Trend Release Forum—was held at the Chengdu Century City Convention Center main exhibition hall. Multiple industry insiders held discussions around “Where are the new consumption scenarios in China’s liquor industry?”

At this roundtable discussion, Tieli, Executive Vice Chairman of the Sichuan Liquor Distribution Association, participated as the host. Mr. Zhou ChuanKui, Chairman of Chengdu ChuanTang Supply Chain; Mr. Gu Lei, CEO of Zhanma Xia; Mr. Xijie, Chairman of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Liquor Trade China Spirits and Wine Committee; Liu Dashu, founder of the Dashu’s Alcohol & Beverage New World and the Jiuji Shop, were on-site and engaged in thought-provoking exchanges.

Mr. Liu Dashu founded Jiuji Shop (the Jiuji Store) and, in terms of new consumption in alcohol & beverage, he has made very solid explorations. His dream is to make drinking feel as easy as drinking coffee milk tea.

Low-Alcohol Alcohol & Beverage: There Is a Category but No Brand—Lack of Drinking Scenarios

First, Liu Dashu stated that he had been working on low-alcohol alcohol & beverage for six years, and the main thing he wanted to say was, “I love Chinese baijiu.”

He believes that Chinese baijiu is the world’s top-tier distilled spirit with a long history, and the development of new alcohol & beverage has already entered the second stage.

He said that new alcohol & beverage isn’t a split between categories; it’s a large-scale integration.

Starting in 2024, he began advocating entering a new world of alcohol & beverage. In fact, in the past, among leading liquor enterprises like Moutai, Wuliangye, and Luzhou Laojiao, there have always been low-alcohol alcohol & beverage and flavored alcohol beverage enterprises and companies, and they have continued investing and exploring.

At this year’s Spring Sugar and Wine Fair, there is a special phenomenon: there are especially many booths for low-alcohol spirits, and they are getting even more attention.

Everyone who makes liquor knows this: it’s easy to make a product, but can you sell it? Sell it to whom? This is a question that cannot be avoided.

He believes that when it comes to making low-alcohol alcohol & beverage, there’s one problem: first, there is a category but no brand. Second, there’s a lack of drinking scenarios.

Six Years of Practice in New Alcohol & Beverage—In Total, He Explored Five Store-Opening Models

Liu Dashu introduced that when he began entering this track, he did two things. First, he found the carrier for the product category of low-alcohol alcohol & beverage. Second, he created a scenario specifically designed for the retail and experience needs of low-alcohol alcohol & beverage.

“Five years ago, I said I wanted to do a collection store for xiao tianshui. A lot of people thought I was crazy.”

Over six years, he built the first national franchise store for xiao tianshui. Back then, he introduced to customers that it was a store that sold everything except red/white beer—there wasn’t a single well-known brand.

It was like a strange hybrid store type—like a cigarette-and-liquor shop, with shelves and clearly marked prices, offering retail; and like a coffee shop, with a youthful vibe. It also offered the kind of moderate experience where you could sit down and drink like at a bar or tavern. With the advantages of a bar, it enabled on-premise consumption and drinking. In such a scenario space, users lowered the consumption choices they made for products due to brand and category.

The biggest advantage of low-alcohol alcohol is that it’s easy to drink and ready to drink—the logic is that low-alcohol alcohol is delicious.

“Over the six years, as a middle-aged entrepreneur, I paid the highest price and costs to be with the so-called C-end users. It wasn’t only about making products; more than that, it was spending time staying at that store scenario—communicating, exchanging, and closing deals.”

So at the beginning, it was a shop with not so many product varieties—it was essentially a buyer’s shop. “The product you do best, when you place it in our store, is precisely because you have the opportunity created by a buyer’s shop. With sustainable profitability from this kind of scenario, it allowed us to earn the chance to make our own products. This logic is: for those who make alcohol, famous brands bring traffic, and our own brand brings profit.”

That way, through user-based experiences, he formed his own methodology for making low-alcohol alcohol & beverage products.

Over six years, he ran more than ten stores and developed five different store models. There are experience stores like the one in Yulin Neighborhood with about 70 to 80 square meters; there are retail stores of about 20 to 30 square meters; and community stores like one around 40 square meters.

“What I want to say is that in new alcohol & beverage, there is no distinction between new and old. It’s not a new world versus an old world. Everything is built on the foundation of past Chinese baijiu.”

He said that last year, Chinese baijiu blew the clarion call for becoming low-alcohol, promoting the development of low-alcohol spirits. We also need to thank coffee’s and milk tea’s ‘becoming drink-like’ trends and milk tea’s ‘becoming beverage-like’ transformation, bringing alcohol and your distance infinitely closer.

“Still, it’s a line I’ve been saying for the past three years: let’s work together, and drink alcohol like drinking coffee, milk tea, and beverages.”

Cover News reporter Yu Qishu Sun Peike