Wong Sewai: Chinese Liquor from a Buddhist Priest

One facet of the U.S. liquor industry that past posts have illuminated are the distillers and liquor dealers who have set up shop on these shores principally to make and sell alcoholic products to their countrymen.  That includes Germans, French and Italians.  To them must be added a distiller and Buddhist priest named Wong Sewai.  Before National Prohibition, Sewai, left, brought his Chinese liquor directly to America.

The story begins 146 years ago in 1876 when Wong Sing-hui, from Guangdong Province in China invented secret formulas for several strongly alcoholic drinks that proved very popular.  Shown here in a memorial portrait, the founder called his distillery Wing Lee Wai.  His brands over time gained a reputation for quality and became popular favorites among Chinese.  In 1905, the company moved its head offices to Hong Kong, then a British colony.

In the meantime, in America the Chinese population was growing rapidly.  In the 1880 census the numbers jumped 80% from the decade before to more than 105,000, almost all of them men.  Two developments drew them to these shores:  The need for labor to build the railroads that were opening up the West and the lure of searching for gold, as shown below. Both occupations fostered large thirsts in workers and while racist cartoonist Thomas Nast may have believed that the Chinese had embraced American whiskey, many were sending back to China for their liquor.

With death of Sing-hui, Wong Sewai, his eighth son, took the reins of the Wing Lee Wai organization.  The beneficiary of an education at the prestigious Queens College before joining the family business, Sewai in 1914 registered the “Two Cranes” trademark of his liquor with the Hong Kong government, established branches in five other Chinese cities and overseas including Penang, Singapore, and a city with a burgeoning Chinese population, San Francisco.  The liquor became known among Chinese for its slogan:  “A half chicken and a bottle of Wing Lee Wai.”  (The Chinese word for chicken and Wai rhyme.)

Speaking English with some fluency, Sewai took particular interest in establishing his brand on American soil and registered it with the Patent & Trademark Office. When he opened the San Francisco branch of Wing Lee Wai in the early 1900s, Sewai brought his entire extended family to the Golden Gate City.  A photo of the occasion shows the assembled visitors in front of the new store.  Sewai is second from left.

Not content with merely a presence in Frisco, the company advertised profusely in Chinese language newspapers.  The result has been the numerous ceramic bottles marked Wing Lee Wai to be found on auction sites like eBay.  Closed by National Prohibition in 1920, Chinese liquor rebounded with Repeal and traditional containers can be found into the 1940s.  

In addition to his business interests  Sewai was known as a devout Buddhist leader and priest who was active on behalf of Hong Kong’s popular Wong Tai Sin Temple, shown below.  Sewai founded the Tata Buddhist Association in 1928, built a two million square foot Buddhist temple for Tata in 1936, and in 1950 donated the house next to his residence in Kowloon City for a Buddhist primary school named in memory of his late father.

   

Wong Sewai, after a life as an entrepreneur and religious figure, died in 1956 in Hong Kong.  Shut down not long after initiation by National Prohibition, Wing Lee Wai’s San Francisco offices reopened for a time in the 1930s.   Wing Lee Wai, a household name in China, continues to supply the world with liquor and wine to this very day.

Notes:  This post owes much to an article entitled “Eternal Fortune and Fame – The 140 Year old Saga of Chinese Winemaker Wing Lee Wai” re-posted on the Internet on January 10, 2023. It originated on Sept. 18, 2017, under the auspices of York Lo Articles.  The article contains biographical material on Wong Sewai, as well as providing three of the photos used here.  Note that in China while many spiritous beverages are classified as “wines,” they are not made from grapes, are highly alcoholic, and may be considered equivalent to whiskey.