Dragonbeat (Tom Miller and Will Freeman): Beijingers call the hot and sticky months of July and August the "sauna" season. On muggy summer evenings, sensible locals sweat it out in the capital's old lanes with sticks of fatty lamb kebab and cold bottles of Yanjing beer.

But real men roll up their T-shirts under their armpits, ditch the pansy lager, and instead glug down the local firewater known as baijiu - a potent mash of sorghum, rice, unhusked barley and other grains.