Soju, Makgeolli, Somaek: Korean Drinking, Explained

Korean drinking culture is easy to enjoy and easy to get wrong, and the part people get wrong is almost never the drink. It is the pouring. Here is what is in the bottle, followed by the rules that actually govern the table.

Soju: not vodka, and weaker than you think

Soju is Korea's clear grain spirit, and the green bottle you have seen is one specific modern form of it. Most mass-market soju is diluted rather than pot-distilled: neutral spirit, usually from rice, sweet potato, or tapioca, cut with water and lightly sweetened.

The strength has been falling for decades, and the current numbers surprise people who expect something vodka-like:

• Mainstream green-bottle soju runs roughly 16 to 17 percent ABV across the popular lines today, which is wine territory rather than spirits territory.
• The "original" versions of the big brands sit near 20 percent, a little above the rest of the range and roughly where the whole category used to be a couple of decades ago.
• Flavoured sojus run lower still, often in the low teens, and are sweet enough that people underestimate them.

That decline is deliberate and commercial. Brands have competed on smoothness and drinkability for years, and the ABV has drifted down with each round.

Then there is traditional soju, which is a genuinely different product: pot-distilled, no dilution to speak of, and often 25 to 40 percent. Andong soju, the best-known regional style, runs higher still. If a bottle is expensive, ceramic, and not green, it is this kind, and it should be sipped rather than shot.

Makgeolli: the cloudy one

Makgeolli is unfiltered rice wine, and it is the oldest alcoholic drink still in everyday Korean use. It is milky, faintly sweet and sour at once, lightly fizzy from fermentation that has not entirely stopped, and mild: usually around 6 to 8 percent ABV, in the range of a strong beer.

Two practical things. It separates, so the sediment settles at the bottom of the bottle and it needs a gentle swirl or a slow inversion before pouring; shaking it hard produces a mess, because it is still carbonating. And it is served in a bowl rather than a glass, which is not decoration, it is how the drink has always been handled.

The traditional pairing is pajeon, the scallion pancake, particularly on rainy days. That association is real enough that Korean pancake restaurants get visibly busier when it rains.

Somaek: the mix everybody actually drinks

Somaek is soju plus beer, the name being the two words jammed together, and it is what a great many Korean drinking sessions actually run on.

The common ratio is around three parts soju to seven parts beer, adjusted to taste and to how the evening is going. The result lands near a strong beer in strength but drinks faster and cleaner than either component, which is precisely the risk in it.

There is a small ritual to it. Pouring the soju first and the beer after produces a better mix, and the theatrical versions, spinning a spoon in the glass or building a row of shot glasses to knock into the beers, are genuine bar traditions rather than tourist inventions.

The rules that actually matter

This is the part worth memorizing, because Korean drinking etiquette is real, it is observed, and none of it is difficult.

• Never pour your own drink. This is the central rule. You watch other people's glasses, they watch yours. Pouring for yourself reads as either a complaint or a snub.
• Two hands when it involves someone older. Pouring for them or receiving from them, hold the bottle or glass in one hand and support your forearm or wrist with the other.
• Do not top up a glass that is not empty. The opposite of the Western habit. Wait for it to be finished.
• Turn away to drink in front of a senior. Head angled away from the most senior person at the table, glass shielded slightly. Nobody will say anything if you skip it, and everybody notices when you do it.
• The first drink is taken together. Wait for the toast rather than starting alone.
• Anju is not optional. Korean drinking comes with food, always. Ordering alcohol with nothing to eat is the genuinely strange thing to do.

The one rule under all of them: it is a social exchange, not a personal beverage. Every convention here exists to make sure someone else is paying attention to your glass and you are paying attention to theirs.

How to say no

Worth knowing, because the pressure is real and the polite exits are specific. Accepting the pour and leaving the glass full is the standard move, since an untouched glass will not be refilled. Covering the glass lightly with your hand while it is being offered also reads clearly. And driving is an answer nobody argues with in Korea, where the legal blood alcohol limit is low and enforcement is aggressive.

The short version

Soju is a clear spirit, mostly 16 to 17 percent these days and not the vodka-strength drink its reputation suggests. Makgeolli is cloudy unfiltered rice wine at 6 to 8 percent, served in a bowl, swirled not shaken. Somaek is roughly three parts soju to seven parts beer. Pour for others, never for yourself, use two hands with anyone older, and eat something.

Most of this happens over a grill, so it pairs directly with how to order at a Korean BBQ restaurant. If you would rather cook at home, the pantry guide is the place to start.