A Chinese company may have found the recipe for a happy single life: a never-ending supply of alcohol to keep customers warm on those long and lonely nights.



As part of Alibaba’s annual Singles Day shopping holiday, the world’s biggest, one online retailer is offering a lifetime supply of baijiu liquor for a single payment of 11,111 yuan (£1,275). The price refers to the date of the retail event, where online shops slash prices on 11 November each year, a date chosen for its collection of lonely number ones.

The first 33 customers to buy the lifetime supply of booze will receive 12 bottles of baijiu every month until their demise, and can leave the steady stream of alcohol to a family member if they die within five years of their purchase.

Baijiu is a fiery white spirit usually made from sorghum or rice and can easily contain alcohol content well above the standard 40%. It is typically drunk as a shot and a common sight at Chinese banquets. Despite several major pushes to sell the liquor abroad, it has largely failed to become popular outside of China.

The one day promotion is a significant reduction from the normal price of 99,999 yuan, while a single bottle of Baijiu usually sells for 196 yuan.

However, the deal could be nullified if the company went bankrupt, said a lawyer interviewed by the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper, pointing to the potential havoc it could wreak on the company’s long-term profits.

The annual retail extravaganza has become a major event with Alibaba hosting a gala that last year featured David and Victoria Beckham and Kobe Bryant.

Sales in 2016 topped US$17bn, easily eclipsing similar holidays like Black Friday in the United States. The shopping day was supposedly started by university students in the 1990s, celebrating their bachelordom by buying themselves presents.