IF sales of expensive, fiery liquor baijiu are anything to go by, China’s luxury shoppers are back in town.

Kweichow Moutai Co., China’s top maker of baijiu whose bottles can sell for more than US$300 a pop, saw its revenues and profits more than double in the third quarter, the sharpest quarterly rises in over half a decade.

The steep jump underscores a luxury revival in the world’s second-largest economy, whose shoppers drive around a third of global luxury sales and are key to driving demand for Prada handbags to Remy Cointreau liquor.

Spending on luxury goods in China dipped 2 percent last year on the back of a prolonged crackdown on extravagance and corruption but is estimated to rise 15 percent this year to about US$24 billion, according to consultancy Bain & Co. Chinese consumers, who often shop overseas, are expected to spend nearly US$100 billion on luxury globally this year.

Moutai, now the world’s most valuable liquor maker, said late Wednesday its net profit hit 8.7 billion yuan (US$1.31 billion) in the July-September quarter, up 138.4 percent against the same period a year earlier.

The firm’s sales also rose strongly, up close to 60 percent in the first nine months of the year to 42.5 billion yuan and rising around 116 percent for the quarter, the biggest quarterly sales jump since mid-2008.

The liquor maker’s share price and sales have shrugged off a long-running corruption crackdown that has targeted lavish spending by officials and military.

“Luxury is back in China. The market is rebounding and people who skipped on purchases for a few years are now looking to spend again,” said Shaun Rein, Shanghai-based managing director of China Market Research Group.

Moutai’s shares were up 6.97 percent to a record high Thursday after the results, bringing its gains to about 80 percent this year. It is up over 450 percent since the start of 2014, which has driven its market capitalization to about US$113 billion, well past that of British rival Diageo.

Moutai is a household name in China. The pungent, colorless spirit baijiu, usually made from sorghum, outsells vodka worldwide. (SD-Agencies)