Brisbane bartender Ed Quatermass has been crowned victor of Moutai’s Enter the Dragon 3 Cocktail Competition, held last night at the Sydney Opera House. Quatermass, who oversees the bar programs of Cuatro Group venues Antico, Dr Gimlette, and Death & Taxes, clinched the top prize with his Beautiful Punch cocktail, a blend of Milo, shiitake mushrooms, coffee liqueur, vanilla, and Moutai Prince.

“Taking part in this year's Moutai Enter The Dragon 3 competition has been an unforgettable experience,” said Quatermass.

“I am truly thankful to be part of such a close-knit hospitality community and am incredibly proud of being able to represent Brisbane in such a prestigious event.”

For yesterday’s competition, the ten national finalists were given five minutes to craft and present a cocktail of their creation that incorporated at least 30ml of Moutai. As the overall winner, Ed Quatermass earned the title of Moutai Master along with a $10,000 cash prize.

Also competing in last night’s national final was Bertie Boekemann, Brendan Scott Grey, Cristiano Beretta, Dave Whitehead, Doris Yiyang Gao, Gorge Camorra, Jono Carr, Jenny Wang, and Simon Dacey.

“A huge congratulations is in order for all of our finalists who delivered exceptional creativity, knowledge of Moutai and dedication to their craft in this year’s competition,” said Dan Zhao, Brand and Marketing Manager of Moutai Australia.

“Our judges were incredibly impressed with their innovation and ability to blend flavours while bringing out the rich complexity of Moutai.”

In July, Moutai baiju was recognised by Kantar as the world’s most valuable alcohol brand, with a worth of more than AUD $127,000 million. Whilst dominant, Moutai’s 2024 brand value reflected a 2% decline on its 2023 worth, attributed to challenging market conditions that have led to steeper declines across other leading baijiu brands. Han Ye, Lead Partner of Kantar’s China Advisory Business, believes one of Moutai’s strengths has been its ability to adapt to younger demographics.

“In China, baijiu brands are trying to win over younger generations - which they have realised means building associations with new moods and occasions,” said Han Ye in the Kandar report.

“Importantly, they have done this while still maintaining Moutai’s premium positioning - because they chose the right brands to collaborate with.”

Following Moutai, the next most valuable baijiu brand was Wu Liang Ye, with a brand value of more than AUD $13,500 million positioning it as the seventh most valuable brand overall. After that, Chinese baiju brands National Cellar 1573 and Luzhou Laojiao landed in 10th and 19th place respectively. 

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