"Chasing Wind" Game: How Gu Yue Long Shan Cross-Border Dew Liquor Quenches Your Thirst

Will young consumers favor Gu Yue Long Shan’s innovative products?

From soy sauce to craft beer, and now to liqueur, this time the leading rice wine company Gu Yue Long Shan has once again become the industry focus. On March 18, Beijing Business Daily learned that Gu Yue Long Shan is crossing over into the liqueur track. Reviewing Gu Yue Long Shan’s recent development trajectory, it’s clear that their cross-industry steps are accelerating noticeably. Notably, while Gu Yue Long Shan is busy expanding into new categories, competitors are quietly surpassing them. According to the Q3 2025 report, Kuaiji Mountain achieved revenue of 1.212 billion yuan, taking the throne from Gu Yue Long Shan’s long-held position as the “King of Yellow Wine.” When “defending the city” faces challenges, “cross-industry” becomes Gu Yue Long Shan’s most prominent strategic label. Is this move a clever way to activate the brand, or a helpless attempt due to strategic confusion?

From soy sauce, beer to liqueur

It is understood that Gu Yue Long Shan has launched four new products in the liqueur category: Herbal No. 1, Herbal No. 2, Prime Minister’s Gate Health Yellow Wine, and Yellow Jujube Wine. Regarding the market deployment of these new products, Gu Yue Long Shan’s Secretary Office told Beijing Business Daily that they are currently unaware of the specific details.

Gu Yue Long Shan’s entry into the liqueur market at this time is clearly not a sudden whim but a response to industry trends. According to data from the China Alcoholic Drinks Association, by 2025, the liqueur market size has surpassed 80 billion yuan, with a 40% year-on-year growth. With this growth rate, liqueur has overtaken wine to become the third-largest alcohol category in China, after Baijiu and beer. Industry experts expect this market to potentially exceed 200 billion yuan by 2030.

In this regard, Sun Aibao, Party Secretary and Chairman of Huangjiu Group (Gu Yue Long Shan), stated that beyond the traditional four major alcohol categories, liqueur is becoming a new growth track for the industry. Currently, while maintaining its core in yellow wine, Gu Yue Long Shan is actively planning its layout in the liqueur sector, and has joined the ranks of China’s top five companies in liqueur development alongside Wuliangye, Luzhou Laojiao, Jinjui, and Hainan Yedao.

Before officially entering the liqueur market, Gu Yue Long Shan had already extended its cross-industry reach into other popular categories. Data shows that as early as the 2020 Autumn Sugar and Wine Fair, Gu Yue Long Shan’s subsidiary Shaoxing Nu’er Hong Brewing Co., Ltd. first experimented with cross-industry, announcing its entry into the soy sauce sector with three series of soy sauce products. In 2024, Gu Yue Long Shan launched a coffee yellow wine combining Yunnan small-grain coffee and Shaoxing yellow wine. Subsequently, Gu Yue Long Shan collaborated with the popular IP Capybara Little Yellow Pig to launch “Coffee Yellow Prosperity,” a sparkling coffee yellow wine. In November 2025, Gu Yue Long Shan officially formed a strategic partnership with China Resources Beer, and the following month launched its first co-branded product, “Yue Xiao Beer.”

Wine marketing expert Xiao Zhuqing pointed out that future yellow wine companies should strengthen brand youthfulness through innovative marketing methods and channels, such as social media marketing, influencer live streams, and cross-industry collaborations, to enhance brand awareness and influence among young consumers. At the same time, they should focus on exploring and promoting brand culture, telling compelling brand stories, and increasing cultural connotations and added value to boost competitiveness.

Anxiety about youthfulness and slowing performance

The underlying logic behind Gu Yue Long Shan’s urgent pursuit of trending topics may be revealed in its 2025 Q1-Q3 financial results.

Financial data shows that in the first three quarters of 2025, Gu Yue Long Shan achieved revenue of 1.186 billion yuan, a decrease of 8.1% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 135 million yuan, a slight increase of 0.17%. More shocking is the change in rankings: during the same period, Kuaiji Mountain achieved revenue of 1.212 billion yuan, a 14.12% increase, surpassing Gu Yue Long Shan for the first time.

Quarterly data indicates that Gu Yue Long Shan’s pressure is even more severe. In Q3 2025, revenue was only 293 million yuan, down nearly 27% year-on-year. Additionally, contract liabilities reflecting distributor payment enthusiasm decreased by 68.16% year-on-year.

Compared to Kuaiji Mountain, financial reports show that in the first three quarters of 2025, Kuaiji Mountain achieved revenue of 1.21 billion yuan, up 14.12%, with net profit of 116 million yuan, up 3.23%. In Q3 alone, revenue was 395 million yuan, a 21.09% increase, and net profit attributable to shareholders was 22.39 million yuan, up 2.47%. Notably, in the first three quarters of 2025, Kuaiji Mountain’s innovative categories like “One Day One Smoked” sparkling yellow wine generated 150 million yuan, a 109.2% increase year-on-year.

Wine industry researcher Ouyang Qianli pointed out that although both Kuaiji Mountain and Gu Yue Long Shan are listed companies in yellow wine, the former is a private enterprise, and the latter is state-owned. From the market perspective, Kuaiji Mountain is more agile, firmly pursuing high-end and youthful strategies, and its related products have achieved good results. In contrast, Gu Yue Long Shan faces many considerations and often falls into a dilemma of “both… and… and also…”

More worrying than revenue decline is the aging main consumer group. As Generation Z gradually becomes the main consumer force, their natural distance from “paternal” yellow wine is evident. Therefore, whether through cross-industry beer or layout in liqueur, Gu Yue Long Shan is targeting the young consumers behind these categories.

Qin Shuyao, President of the China Alcohol Circulation Association, pointed out that as “post-90s” and “post-00s” generations gradually take over, the new generation of consumers has become the main force in new alcohol drinks. They are likely to choose their own products, pushing liqueur and pre-mixed drinks into the mainstream.

Faced with this irreversible generational shift, traditional alcohol companies eager to attract young consumers must break out of their conventional categories. Cross-industry collaborations have become the fastest way to break cognitive barriers and attract young traffic. Industry insiders suggest that by using beer’s low entry barrier to attract young people to yellow wine flavors, and then leveraging the health concept of liqueur to meet the “punk health preservation” trend, Gu Yue Long Shan is trying to build a “yellow wine+” product matrix to capture the new generation.

Crowded track

Whether cross-industry can help Gu Yue Long Shan, currently under performance pressure, breathe easier remains to be seen. But market feedback suggests that gaining recognition from young consumers through cross-industry efforts may still have a long way to go.

In fact, Gu Yue Long Shan’s co-branded “Yue Xiao Beer” once aimed to leverage China Resources Beer’s extensive network of 2.3 million catering outlets and 13,000 distributors nationwide to break through the market. However, slow channel sales have cast uncertainty over this product’s market performance.

A Beijing Business Daily reporter checked Tmall’s Snowflake Beer official flagship store and found that only 9 units of “Yue Xiao Beer Green Plum Sparkling Island Yellow Wine Craft Beer 330ml 12-pack” had been sold; only 5 units of “Yue Xiao Beer Dried Tangerine Yuzu Yellow Wine Craft Beer 330ml 12-pack” had been sold. Industry analysts believe that “yellow wine + beer” channel synergy may be effective in the Yangtze River Delta region, but outside East China, whether beer channels can drive yellow wine and derivative product sales remains to be seen.

The cold reception of the beer trial did not stop Gu Yue Long Shan’s cross-industry push; instead, it prompted the company to place bigger bets on the broader prospects of the liqueur market.

With the liqueur market exceeding 80 billion yuan, how much market space is left for Gu Yue Long Shan? Currently, the market is fiercely contested by health wines like Jinjiu and many other major Baijiu producers, continuously dividing the share of the liqueur segment. To carve out a piece of the pie, Gu Yue Long Shan must rely not only on speed but also on product strength, channel development, and brand storytelling to create differentiation.

Cai Xuefei further pointed out that Gu Yue Long Shan’s cross-industry strategy aims at finding new growth points and increasing category value, but it is also a form of market exploration. However, while Kuaiji Mountain has achieved breakthroughs in its “high-end + youthful” dual approach in yellow wine, Gu Yue Long Shan’s diversified layout has yet to show comparable explosive power.

Beijing Business Daily reporters Liu Yibo and Feng Ruonan