Trade is the most common form of human cooperation and has always been seen as a fair model for distributing rights and interests. For hundreds of years, trade in liquor has followed a structure that consists of "brands(producers)-city distributors-stores-consumers." The entire process from production to consumption of liquor need participants to invest resources based on their positions. These participants obtain corresponding returns according to conventional practices.

 

Since the 21st century, the rapid development of the Internet has accelerated e-commerce. The short-chain sales, which involve only the brands and consumers, become a possibility. City distributors used to provide channels, but now this service has become inconsequential. 2012 is seen as the "first year of the mobile Internet." The large-scale usage of smartphones has made online shopping much more convenient. A set of tools became available: trading platforms, delivery services, and online payments. These allowed liquor brands around the world to become more ambitious. Now, brands could change the traditional business model by using technical means to find their own end users and providing services directly. To the dealers and stores that have grown with them, the brands are saying: goodbye and may we never meet again. Beginning in December 2019, the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus damaged trading patterns around the world. Traditional retail became the hardest hit sector. People were confined to their homes and could only meet their living needs by shopping online. The scientific community had limited knowledge about the new COVID virus, and the medical system had no reliable, widely applicable drugs or treatment protocols. To prevent a sharp rise in the death toll, the Chinese government has adopted stringent strict prevention and control measures against COVID. The control measures severely disrupted the traditional trading pattern in the three years from December 2019 to December 2022. Brands in various industries took advantage of this crisis to greatly increase online sales. In the Chinese baijiu industry, brands have gained unprecedented concentration and control of the market. In contrast, the city distributors, who have cooperated for many years and greatly helped the brands grow, began to lose sales rapidly. The pandemic and the shifts in the brands' strategies dealt a double blow. Some distributors, who have been in the industry for decades or even two generations, choose to leave the sector. Other distributors with cash and experience began to look for a way out by changing their identity. A typical way some large distributors choose is to look for weak manufacturers, customize products, and switch from a distributor to an emerging brand owner. Now, they are competing against their former upstream partners in the same market.

 

Ms. Peng Zhiying, the heroine of Forty-two Degrees of Fragrance, is an urban liquor distributor from Jinan City, Shandong Province, China. By showing her experience as an entrepreneur, I hope to show a glimpse of how the liquor trade model changes from the past to the present, and I want to use that transformation to explore or commemorate the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.