Stroll into any restaurant in South Korea on any evening of the week and also you’ll see them—rows of electrical inexperienced bottles of soju, their screw caps scattered throughout the tables. The straightforward-drinking, mass-produced beverage is in every single place: poured into shot glasses, combined with beer for somaeks, or knocked again between bites of smoky grilled meats or crisp-edged pajeon. Business soju, a far cry from its conventional origins, is South Korea’s hottest liquor, inextricably linked with the nation’s tradition. The spirit holds pleasure of place at all the things from glad hours and firm dinners to holidays and funerals. Prime manufacturers like Chamisul and Chum Churum seem prominently in Okay-dramas and within the fingers of Okay-pop idols. Regardless of the liquor’s trendy mass-market popularity, artisanal producers throughout Korea are ushering in a brand new period of small-batch spirits which are deeply rooted in custom whereas boldly trying to the long run.
Koreans have been brewing alcohol, or sool, with rice for greater than 2,000 years—and distilling soju for the reason that thirteenth century—however at present’s soju bears little resemblance to the unique. Giant company soju makers don’t really ferment or distill something; they supply low-cost ethanol created from tapioca or candy potato and dilute it with chemical preservatives and synthetic sweeteners. Historically, soju is created from rice, water, and nuruk (a wild fermentation starter), which collectively type a base spirit known as wonju. When left to settle, wonju separates into two layers. The clear, golden liquor on the high known as cheongju or yakju, and may be loved by itself or distilled into soju. The cloudy, sedimentary spirit on the backside known as takju, and that can be served as-is or may be combined with water to make makgeolli. You’ll be able to’t produce one sort of sool with out the opposite, and every is an thrilling class in its personal proper.
In the course of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), sool manufacturing was historically the area of girls, together with fermenting kimchi and the three quintessential Korean sauces: gochujang (pink chile paste), doenjang (soybean paste), and ganjang (soy sauce). Matriarchs handed down household recipes for these family staples, lots of which known as for distinctive native elements, however this switch of information was disrupted by Japanese occupation, when house brewing was outlawed in favor of business liquor manufacturing. The Korean Struggle that adopted nearly worn out the craft.
In 1965, going through meals shortages, the South Korean authorities outlawed the usage of rice in alcohol manufacturing. Based on Hyunhee Park, writer of Soju: A World Historical past, this transfer led to trade consolidation and the rise of mass-produced sool made with low-cost different starches. Even after the rice ban was lifted in 1989, the adjustments caught: Business makgeolli and soju proceed to dominate the market and Korean consuming tradition.
Lately, although, craft distilling is experiencing a revival, with the assistance of state assist. Recognizing heritage liquors as a cultural asset—and a doubtlessly profitable trade—the South Korean authorities has begun providing tax advantages and subsidies to producers, and permitting them to promote merchandise on-line on to shoppers, a privilege afforded to no different sort of alcohol. This was an actual boon through the pandemic, when two portmanteaus, homesool (“drink at house”) and honsool (“drink alone”), turned the buzzwords of the second for youthful Koreans.
Andong, North Gyeongsang Province
Received-jeong Lee, an 18th-generation household matriarch, makes her sool from a 600-year-old recipe. Her brewery’s title, Ellyeop Pyunjoo, interprets to “a single, small leaf-like boat,” from a 1547 poem by Nongam, a Joseon Dynasty scholar—and Lee household ancestor. The brewery is positioned at Nongam Jongtaek, the household’s historic, nature-steeped property within the metropolis of Andong, the place Lee makes use of native rice, nuruk dried within the solar for 30 days, spring water from the close by mountains, and firewood collected from the encompassing pine bushes. “The nuruk, rice, water, and air all must be good,” says Lee’s husband Sung-won. “However most significantly, you want the utmost care. Even when it’s the identical recipe, the sool tastes higher when she makes it.” Lee realized brew and distill from her mother-in-law: “She would say, ‘It’s similar to elevating a child,’” Lee remembers. “In order that’s how I method it, at all times with a honest coronary heart.” This contains telling the hangari how beautiful they’re to encourage correct fermentation and taking copious every day notes. “I’m at all times occupied with how I can enhance the sool. That’s my eternally homework,” she says.
Lee feels much more strain now that she’s promoting to the general public. Up till 2020, when her household satisfied her to place bottles available on the market for the primary time, solely they’d the privilege of having fun with Lee’s takju, cheongju, and soju. The spirits have since grow to be the crown jewel of beverage lists at Michelin-starred eating places in Seoul. “She’s going to be a legend when she dies,” says Sung-won earlier than including: “She’s already a legend.”
Within the basement of an workplace constructing in Seoul’s Mapo District, Hyun-jong Kim is attempting to maintain a grasp’s legacy alive. Kim had been making soju beneath the legendary Taek-sang Kim (no relation), a Tenth-generation distiller, for eight years when Taek-sang handed away all of a sudden in 2021. Taek-sang realized brew and distill from his mom and handed down her data and centuries-old household recipes via workshops at his studio. Hyun-jong now pays homage to his mentor by working a full-blown Samhae Soju academy on the distillery. “Our college students aren’t coming to study,” he jokes. “They’re coming as a result of it’s the most cost effective solution to drink our soju.”
Samhae is called for its conventional three-stage brewing course of (“sam” means three) that begins on the Chinese language zodiac calendar’s Day of the Pig (“hae” refers back to the Sino Korean character for pig). The labor-intensive spirit dates again to the Goryeo Dynasty (918–1392), when the beverage was a luxurious solely loved by the noble class. Hyun-jong makes his model with rice, water, and nuruk, however has additionally began producing sojus that incorporate different native Korean elements, like chrysanthemums and buckwheat. “Folks’s style buds are so used to green-bottle soju that everybody is searching for one thing clear and flavorless,” says Hyun-jong. “Samhae Soju is the exact opposite of that—it’s bought character, it’s advanced. However as a result of Koreans have been consuming industrial soju for therefore lengthy, ours is a tricky promote.” He’s hoping that the academy helps change that at house and overseas. With college students from all around the world and Samhae now being exported in small portions to the U.S., he’s effectively on his manner.
Ulsan, South Gyeongsang Province
After attending college in New York Metropolis, architect Min-kyu Kim moved again to his rural hometown in Ulsan in 2009 to start out a brewery together with his household’s makgeolli recipe. Whereas Kim designed all the things from the constructing to the bottles, he left the sool to his mom Bok-soon, who handed away in 2024. Boksoondoga is called after her, and nonetheless follows the time-honored methods that Bok‑quickly realized from her mother-in-law: handwashing the rice 10 instances, fermenting in hangari (Korean earthenware jars), and making their very own nuruk. “My mother would go into the fermentation room and speak to the hangari,” says Kim. “She would take heed to the sounds and contact the jars to verify their temperature as a result of the sool is alive.”
This adherence to custom doesn’t imply the brewery is against innovation. For Boksoondoga’s flagship product, Kim and his mom performed with the pure carbonation that happens throughout fermentation to create an effervescent makgeolli within the vein of champagne. Relating to rising the enterprise, Kim takes an unorthodox method, bringing the model to artwork festivals, museums, and cosmetics conventions—wherever its spirits would possibly shock and delight. He additionally relentlessly pitched a retail idea to Korean prepare station authorities for 2 years earlier than lastly succeeding in 2020; the primary Boksoondoga store was such successful that there are actually 5 places. Subsequent on the docket: a second brewery, airport retailers, a sikhye (candy Korean rice drink) collab with Blue Bottle Espresso … and the checklist goes on. “I don’t restrict Boksoondoga,” says Kim. “I consider us as a tradition firm, and makgeolli is only one a part of it.”
Yongin, Gyeonggi Province
Based by husband-and-wife staff Joo-hwi Yi and Julia Bae in 2019, J&J Brewery is positioned in an outdated artwork gallery house in Yongin that belonged to Bae’s late dad and mom. A former pianist who spent a long time finding out within the U.S., Bae joined the booze enterprise out of affection—for her associate, not the sool—and now handles design, advertising and marketing, packaging, and gross sales for the brewery, tasting bar, and café.
It was Yi who was passionate in regards to the craft. He give up a company job in prescribed drugs to pursue making sool in 2011, and now makes use of each conventional nuruk and trendy yeast in his spirits, together with rice sourced from a farm quarter-hour away from the brewery. In contrast to different craft brewers, as an alternative of counting on the identical base liquor to supply makgeolli, yakju, and soju, Yi insists on brewing every spirit individually with a unique fermentation agent. “I feel it’s the one manner you may seize the nuances and individuality of every sool,” he says, “though it complicates the method, it’s definitely worth the effort.” J&J’s signature product is its dry and fruity gwahaju, which interprets to “liquor that lasts the summer time.” A sort of yakju that dates again to 1670, gwahaju is fortified with soju to elongate its shelf life. “It’s two spirits coming collectively to make one thing new and higher,” Yi says. “Like a couple, so we named it ‘Proposal.’”
Yongin, Gyeonggi Province
The very first thing you discover about Atto Brewery & Studio is the fixed foot site visitors exterior its glass storefront: dad and mom pushing strollers, teams of scholars horseplaying, grandmas ambling down the road. Based on CEO Do-hyeon Kwon and brewery director Hye-chan Park, that is by design. The duo opened Atto in an house advanced within the bustling Dongbaek neighborhood of Yongin, the quickest rising metropolis in South Korea, simply south of Seoul, as a result of they wished to construct a gathering place the place residents may pop in as a part of their common routine. “Anytime somebody walks by on their solution to the grocery retailer or friends into the window,” says Park, “we invite them in for a free tasting.”
Kwon, a former golf coach, and Park, who has a background in filmmaking, began out as hobbyists and met on the primary day of a craft distillation course. As soon as they perfected their sool recipes, they opened Atto in Could 2023, making takju, makgeolli, and yakju the old-customary manner—with simply water, nuruk, and native rice—in addition to with hyomo (yeast), which supplies them extra flexibility to tweak the flavour. “We use conventional and trendy brewing methods however solely pure fermenting brokers,” says Kwon. “It’s really why we named the brewery Atto—after the Sino Korean characters for ‘proper path.’” Whereas he and Park are pleased with their award-winning bestseller, a refreshing, historically brewed yakju akin to white wine, the actual feather of their cap is being embraced by the neighborhood.
