Korean Job Discussion Forums

[DanseurVertical]

Of all I have tried, one of the best I know is 김포금쌀. It is just mildly sweet, and the sweetness comes only from the rice. Its taste reminds me of Japanese nigori sake, which also is not very sweet.

In Japan, nigori sake is the sweetest of all. Why do Korean 막걸리 makers insist on their product being sweet (usually by artificial additive) ?

Back in the US, an ajumma who worked at a restaurant I visited told me that Korean people do not often like very sweet foods. I thought, cool, me too. But when I first came here a couple years ago, I was surprised that the 막걸리 is sweetened.

[yodanole]

You're asking this about a nation that adds sugar to Cheetos?

[NohopeSeriously]

Traditionally since the Chosun dynasty people have drunken makgeolli within a day or two like the common millet beer in Nepal. And for the people who don't know their food chemistry, beer made from barley and without hop tastes very sweet.

[DanseurVertical]

[Jake_Kim]

Before the Japs invaded and took over Korea, mashbill for brewing would have been predominantly rice plus some small wheat dough containing certain fungi and yeast.
Under the Japanese occupation, traditional brewing got taken over and out largely by the more efficient, industrialized process of making Sake and Soju, whose production being heavily modified by Japanese influence.
Then the end of WW2 led to the division of the peninsula, which led to Korean War in just 5 years, agricultural base of the whole country collapsed during this 3-year war.
Nationwide famine was the norm with the shortage of rice, and what remained available from foreign aid materials were wheat flours. So, brewers got hold of this ingredient, went ahead and produced wheat Makgeolli, yet it tasted so sour.
What they did have back then, as opposed to properly processed sugar that was rare and unaffordable, was saccharine, the artificial sweetener.
Accordingly, the Makgeolli as older generation of Koreans know it was born, which gives a bitter and sour, yeasty unfiltered taste only to be masked by the artificial sweet taste of Diet Coke.
Even after the 80s, when the mashbill started to transition back to rice, consumers' adherence to artificially sweet taste was persistent and market-proven. It was so even when they never demanded such sweetness from Makgeolli's western counterpart, beer.
A couple of local brewers, Grand Master Song Myeong-seop, for example, refuses to add any flavor or sweetener to his Makgeolli, thus making it to retain its bitterness and mild acidity. Yet most of the first-time Korean consumers respond to the taste by, say, 'WTF is this?'
That's because Song's Makgeolli is on one 'purist' end of the spectrum, while the other end of which is represented by the largest selling '서울장수(Seoul Jangsu)' brand that yearns to become some rice-y milky soda of yesteryear by sticking with the core customer group - lower-to-lower-middle classes' middle-aged men in their 50s/60s.
There are efforts and new ideas experimented by some latecomer 'craftbrewers' of Makgeolli out there, but the overall market is still too thin, and they're still far from establishing the economy of scale on their own.
The fact that unpasteurized Makgeolli has very, very short window of 'Best before' period doesn't help local start-ups either.

[javis]

[IPayInCash]

[R. S. Refugee]

[yodanole]

I make my own garlic bread and tomato juice. Cheetos are more problematic. I sometimes find actual imported Cheetos at Home Plus.

As for the makkoli, I'm not a fan and only drink it if I'm in a "go along to get along" situation, such as the formal ceremonies DV mentions. Or with more "traditional" folks from the countryside.

[DanseurVertical]

[DanseurVertical]

[DanseurVertical]

[Steelrails]

Why is magkeoli sweet? Because in all likelihood, bitter magkeoli would taste like butt.

[DanseurVertical]

[jdog2050]