By CINDA CHAVICH

The Hwayo soju distillery is an anomaly in Korea – a small local firm turning out a high-end, artisan rice liquor.

Soju is Korea’s answer to grappa or vodka, a simple white spirit that’s quaffed with friends, most often for the intoxicating effects and with little concern for the after effects (which apparently can be particularly brutal if you over indulge).

Soju has that reputation, the Asian alcohol that’s pounded in shots like tequila or dropped boiler-maker-style into a glass of beer and downed with the familiar toast, “Gunbae!”

Because, in Korea, everyone drinks soju – its part of everyday socializing with friends in sojubangs or hop bars, cramped little joints where soju and snacks or anju are consumed after work and long into the night.

When I ask where I might find a trendy, modern soju bar in Seoul – something akin to a western wine bar – to sample the finest soju, or taste the best brands side-by-side, most Koreans look askance.

“You like soju?” is the usual response, often with a raised eyebrow or the behind-the-hand giggle of a Korean girl.

It’s still uncommon, but like Hwayo, a handful of other Korean sujo producers are determined to raise the profile of this simple spirit, and I’m here to find out what makes everyday intoxicant into a premium product, with a premium price.

                                                                                

The roots of soju reach back to the 13th century, when Mongol invaders brought the technology of distilling to Koreans who soon converted their milky rice wine – makgoli – into the fiery spirit. Rice was the ingredient of choice for centuries, until the 1960s, when rice shortages caused the Korean government to ban the use of rice for soju. That ban stuck until 1999 so, for most of the past 50 years, soju has been made with other fermentable starches, mostly from sweet potatoes and tapioca, sweetened with sugar and other flavourings.

That’s the kind of soju – a cheap, industrial-made drink – which most Koreans are accustomed to consuming. And consume it they do. While most North Americans know little about soju, the best-selling Jinro is literally the world’s largest spirits brand, globally outselling giants like Bacardi and Johnny Walker. A typical 375-ml bottle of the clear, slightly sweet spirit has about 20% alcohol and sells for about $2 (CDN) in Korea.

But that’s not what they’re making at Hwayo – their premium soju is made the traditional way, with just three ingredients, rice, water and live koji cultures. And it sells for 10 times the price of the industrial street quaffers.

I’ve arrived at the Hwayo facilities, a series of small grey steel buildings on the outskirts of Seoul, with a local interpreter for a tour with Manager Sae-Hee Moon. He leads me past stacked sacks of Korean Japonica rice, up onto a steel catwalk where the grains are steamed and mixed with live koji or aspergillus – the molds that ferment soy sauce and miso – and brewed into a spritzy rice wine. This basic rice “beer” – like the sweet barley wort of whisky – is either bottled as makgoli or sent to their small pot still to be distilled into soju.

While most soju is distilled in a continuous or multiple distillation process, and goes right into bottles, this premium soju is single distilled at low temperatures, under reduced pressure, to preserve natural aromas and flavours, then aged. We head to another building where 300 large, hand-make clay vessels or ongi – the kind used here in Korea for aging everything from kimchi to soy sauce – stand in rows. The clear alcohol ages in the dark, while classical music plays.

“The acoustic vibrations stimulate the alcohol molecules,” Moon explains, “sometimes traditional Korean music, sometimes Western music to globalize.”

They’re also experimenting with barrel aging, and another cellar holds dozens of oak barrels where soju is taking on cask aromas and colours, similar to other barrel-aged spirits. The distillate is diluted to create three distinct products for bottling – 40, 25 and 17 per cent alcohol is typical for soju.

Hwayo Soju is just one arm of the KwangJuYo Group, a Korean company led by Tae-Kwon Cho. Cho inherited his father’s fine Korean pottery company and has since expanded his business, with hopes to elevate Korean food and drink in the eyes of the world.

His 30-year-old daughter Lucia, a trained chef and Slow Food advocate, says her father has created high-end Korean restaurants to showcase the beautiful Korean tableware and vessels created at the family pottery in Icheon. Among the clean modern plates and precisely incised floral patterns, there are tall-necked Jungbyung bottles and tiny Bangwool cups that ring like little bells for serving soju. Cho has also reproduced an ancient Korean liquor cup or GyeYoungBae – a mysterious cup perched over a pot, that can never be totally filled, to prevent over indulging.

Lucia offers a citrusy soju cocktail and we sip Hwayo straight while enjoying a contemporary Korean meal – cold soy milk soup with spaghetti squash “noodles,” burdock root Japchae with grilled eel, and tender abalone with braised short ribs.

She acknowledges that it’s all new to Koreans – even in Seoul there are only a handful of contemporary Korean restaurants - and for many Koreans, “premium soju” is still an oxymoron.

But with brands like Hwayo, that upscale soju tasting bar can’t be far off.

©Cinda Chavich 2011

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