From Medicine Cabinet Back to Liquor Cabinet: Yihu Ganlu Redefines the Category Ceiling for Lujiu

Think back over the dinners and gatherings of the past year. You’ve almost never seen anyone voluntarily open a bottle of lujiu.

This isn’t because no one makes or drinks lujiu. It’s that the entire category’s visuals and positioning have long since trapped themselves in the medicine-cabinet lane. Loud red-and-gold color schemes, bottles plastered with ginseng and deer antler, paired with bold, blunt words like “health” and “nourishing.” Brands pile on efficacy selling points, trying to win consumers over with benefits, and end up in an awkward bind: young people turn up their noses and won’t drink it, middle-aged people who want to drink it can only do so quietly in private, and whether for everyday hosting or gift-giving, it’s simply not presentable.

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: This article is about 1,100 words, roughly a 3-minute read. It focuses on Yihu Ganlu, a lujiu proposal under Qinghai Lake Pharmaceutical, and how a bottle of lujiu can use packaging design to put itself back in the “liquor cabinet” instead of the “medicine cabinet.”

The Awkwardness of Lujiu: Efficacy Written All Over Its Face, Zero Social Function

The easiest trap for lujiu brand owners to fall into is “wanting to say everything good about the product all at once.”

The front of the bottle wants to list all eighteen herbs, the color scheme has to be loud red with gold foil, plus a few ginseng roots or lingzhi mushrooms drawn on. The consumer’s first reaction isn’t “this tastes good”—it’s “what disease does this treat?”

The problem is,. Bring it out at the dinner table and it’s like hinting, “I’m in poor health / I need a tonic / I’m drinking medicine.” Who wants to open this bottle in public? Lujiu hasn’t produced a true national brand in all these years not because the liquor is bad, but because the packaging locked down the consumption occasion first.

Lujiu at a dinner gathering

Yihu Ganlu’s Approach: First a Bottle of Liquor, Then Talk About Lujiu

When Qinghai Lake Pharmaceutical came to us to create this “Yihu Ganlu,” the thing we talked about most was one sentence:

The client has a pharmaceutical company’s endorsement, with advantages in raw materials and craftsmanship. But our judgment was: if the bottle is covered in “medicine,” it will never make it into young people’s drinking occasions; if the bottle looks like a bottle of whiskey, consumers will pick it up first, and then listen to your lujiu story.

So the core of the entire design isn’t “addition”—it’s “subtraction”:

No ginseng drawings, no efficacy claims, no loud red and gold. The bottle shape borrows whiskey’s upright lines, with deep brown liquid and restrained gold-foil labels. The first impression is “this is a bottle of aged liquor,” not “this is a health supplement.”

The four characters “lujiu xiangxing” (lujiu aroma type) on the label are something we deliberately kept. It tells consumers what category this is, without reinforcing the “health tonic” implication. Category education is necessary, but efficacy promotion should be left to word of mouth and the drinking experience, not the bottle.

Many lujiu have low ABV and taste like sweet drinks, which seasoned drinkers disdain. Yihu Ganlu puts 38° front and center on the label, telling consumers: it has real strength—drink it neat, over ice, or bring it to the table.

Yihu Ganlu single bottle display

Three Concrete Moves: Making It Bold Enough to Sit on the Liquor Cabinet

The crown and five stars at the top of the label hint at quality grade, without empty phrases like “supreme” or “premium.” Lujiu needs endorsement, but endorsement doesn’t mean blowing smoke.

The broad-shouldered, straight-bodied bottle shape gives the same feel in hand when pouring as whiskey or brandy. Paired with ice, there’s no incongruity at all—that’s exactly what we wanted: to bring lujiu into the “neat over ice” drinking habit, not the “mix with hot water and take as medicine” health habit.

Lujiu served over ice

It has to hold its own on the liquor cabinet before it can be given as a gift. Yihu Ganlu’s gift box isn’t over-packaged: one bottle with two glasses, velvet lining, and a sense of ceremony when opening and closing. The giver can present it with confidence, and after the recipient finishes the bottle, they’ll still want to keep it on the table.

Yihu Ganlu gift box display

Why This Proposal May Be the Ceiling for Lujiu

When I say “ceiling,” I don’t mean a price ceiling—I mean.

After all these years in the lujiu category, the real ceiling has never been how expensive the ingredients are or how strong the efficacy is. It’s “whether you dare to treat yourself as a bottle of liquor.” Only if you dare to show up on the table can you get onto the dinner table; once you’re on the dinner table, you get repeat purchases, a brand, and pricing power.

Yihu Ganlu’s value is using packaging to translate Qinghai Lake Pharmaceutical’s “sense of trust” into a “liquor feel” that both young and middle-aged people can accept. This isn’t about making lujiu expensive—it’s about making it “right.”

Label detail

The Path to Breaking Through

This article’s text and images are presented solely as a creative case study by Sanyao Planning & Design. The brands and products mentioned belong to their respective clients. Yihu Ganlu is a design proposal and has not yet launched.