Moutai liquor is named after it is produced in Maotai Town. However, this town was not originally called Maotai Town, but Maocao Village.

In the Tang Dynasty in Chinese history, liquor distillation technology appeared almost simultaneously in the northwest and southwest regions of the country. Later, during the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, this common wine-making technology was used to make liquor in Bozhou (now Zunyi), less than a hundred kilometers east of today's Dafang County.

In the 20th year of Wanli of the Ming Dynasty (1600), the Zhu Ming Dynasty launched a war to quell the rebellion of Yang Yinglong, the chieftain of Bozhou. Agriculture in Zunyi suffered catastrophic damage. As more than 200,000 officers and soldiers from around the country swarmed in, drinking and feasting, the consumption of Bozhou liquor increased sharply. Liquor workshop owners, who are relatively concentrated in Maotai Village, are forced to use the method of fermenting and distilling the entire cellar fermented grains for multiple rounds, and mixing in some new raw materials during the process, in order to make full use of the starch content in the fermented grains and save insufficient sources. Sorghum, wheat. As a result, a set of basic Moutai production techniques of "multiple rounds of sand mixing, fermentation, steaming and roasting" was developed in the Maotai Village Liquor Workshop. Since then, various generations of winemakers here have successively created the "stacking process" to fully ferment the new raw materials added between multiple rounds; some winemakers have poured back the poorer quality liquor obtained from the first distillation. The wine is poured back into the fermented grains to increase the aroma during fermentation. As a result, the "sand-returning process" of Moutai liquor production was born. After that, there were technologies for making koji at high temperature, using a large amount of koji, playing koji during the Dragon Boat Festival, sanding in the sand during the Double Ninth Festival, aging and other aspects. The Moutai production process originated around the 28th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty. By the early Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, it took more than 100 years to initially achieve perfection, and produced a unique liquor body that became famous far and wide.

Since the late Qing Dynasty, due to the growing reputation of Maotai liquor and the huge increase in population, Maocao Village was renamed Maotai Town.