Lay Mau (1941-1951)
In 1951, the Chinese government decided to produce Kweichow Moutai on a large scale to increase revenue for the country. Due to this 3 leading distilleries Chengyi (established in 1863, brand Hua Moutai), Ronghe (established in 1879, brand Wang Moutai) and Hengxing merged into Kweichow Moutai Factory, a state-owned enterprise owned by the newly formed Communist government. Hengxing, founded in 1929 by Zhou Bingheng as Hengchang, was sold to Lai Yongji from Guiyang in 1941. From then onwards the Lai family, along with the Hu and Wang family, started to dominate the market in Maotai town.
From the pre-1952 period only a handful of bottles are left, on various auctions these achieved prices varying from $300.000 to 1.600.000 USD.
This is one of the very few surviving bottles Lay Mau, distilled and bottled by the Lai family in their Hengxing distillery. The most expensive Moutai ever sold was a Lay Mau, said to be from 1935 which we seriously doubt as this name wasn't used until 1941 when it replaced the Hengchang brandname 'Hengxing Shaofang'.