In the news report from Epoch Times on January 9, 2025, China’s Guizhou Maotai Liquor Factory (Group) Co., Ltd. (Maotai) faced a cold reception with the launch of its zodiac liquor “Snake Maotai”: scalpers stopped buying and lottery winners abandoned their purchases.
According to Tencent News Prism on January 8, “Snake Maotai” is the 12th liquor in Maotai’s zodiac series and the last one in this round of zodiac liquors. It was launched on January 5, 2025, with an official price of 2499 yuan (RMB), but the market price on January 1 had reached 3900 yuan per bottle. However, on the first day of its listing, the actual transaction price in the market was only 2750 yuan per bottle.
Due to the excessively low market price, scalpers who had originally added 200 yuan to the official price began lowering prices or even stopped buying, leading to some lottery winners choosing to abandon their purchases. Industry insiders commented, “The price plummeted just after the launch, and lottery winners abandoned their purchases.”
On January 7, the market price of Snake Zodiac Maotai liquor further dropped to 2650 yuan per bottle, with a premium of only 150 yuan per bottle. Some liquor merchants anticipate that “the price will only go lower when the lottery winners actually receive the goods.”
Maotai’s zodiac series liquors were previously highly sought-after and speculated upon by liquor merchants, with price increases and speculation frenzy rapidly expanding the market for this series of products. This year marks the first time since the frenzied debut of the Rooster Zodiac Maotai liquor in 2017 that the Maotai zodiac series has experienced a cold reception upon launch. The market premiums for the Ox and Tiger Zodiac Maotai liquors in 2021 and 2022 were around 3300 yuan per bottle, while those for the Rabbit and Dragon Zodiac liquors in the past two years were around 1800 yuan per bottle.
The report indicated that the tepid response to Maotai’s zodiac series products reflects the company’s product strategies at different periods and mirrors the cooling of the investment frenzy surrounding Maotai zodiac liquors. Simultaneously, the Snake Zodiac Maotai liquor this year was distributed in large quantities—500,000 bottles over five consecutive days before the launch event—while the Rabbit and Dragon Zodiac Maotai liquors in the previous two years had only 29,999 bottles released during the subscription events on the launch night. Maotai’s change in distribution strategy directly led to a large influx of Snake Zodiac liquors into the market within a short period, and the artificial “supply shortage” disappeared, signifying the end of the era of zodiac liquors being artificially hyped.
Netizen “Silent” expressed: “It was a hype from the beginning. Did the liquor change just by adding a zodiac sign? No, it didn’t. People bought it initially because of the trend and money, but now no one has money, so it has lost its commercial value.”
“Alex Chen” believed: “Those who bought it don’t drink it, and those who drink it don’t need to buy it! Maotai has deviated from the principles of liquor and become part of the speculative bubble economy!”