The alcohol that represents Korea is, without a doubt, “Soju”. One of the reasons why foreigners visiting Korea are happy might be that they can drink Soju at a super cheap price. This is because in Korea, a bottle of Soju, which can be bought for only $2 at a convenience store, is sold at a high price of between $15 and $20 in Europe and the United States.
Soju is a clear, colorless distilled beverage of Korean origin. It is usually consumed neat, and its alcohol content varies from about 16.8% to 53% alcohol by volume (ABV). Most brands of soju are made in South Korea. While soju is traditionally made from rice, wheat, or barley, modern producers often replace rice with other starches such as potatoes and sweet potatoes (Wikipedia). Many people, especially, ladies tend not to favor Soju because of the strong taste. But can you believe that it was so much stronger in the past?
Soju referred to a distilled beverage with 35% ABV until 1965, when diluted soju with 30% ABV appeared with South Korean government’s prohibition of the traditional distillation of soju from rice, in order to alleviate rice shortages. Instead, soju was created using highly distilled ethanol (95% ABV) from sweet potatoes and tapioca, which was mixed with flavorings, and sweeteners, and water. The end products are marketed under a variety of soju brand names.
Soju companies have launched various fruit-flavored soju, including grapefruit, blueberry and green grapes, to gain popularity with women and those who don’t like the strong taste. Those fruit-flavored Sojus became much easier to drink but still have alcohol taste. So they were really popular when first released, but not anymore. If you can’t drink Soju because it is too strong, I want to introduce to you how to enjoy it more easily. These are some ways of Koreans who enjoy Soju to mix Korean famous ice cream and Soju together.
Depending on your recipe, tens of thousands of Soju cocktails can be born. The YouTube video above explains 4 cocktails in total, so take a look. I will introduce one recipe that might interest many people because of its color(purple). As many of you might already know, purple is the color of BTS. This cocktail has nothing to do with BTS, but wouldn’t it be happy to think of BTS even when drinking Soju? LOL
So basically, you might need Soju glasses to make the Soju cocktail for measuring. But, if you are a person who doesn’t want to stick to the recipe, just follow your guts lol Prepare a big jar to put Soju, ice cream, and sprite or club soda in it. And pour however you want to!
