Food & Drink - Seoul - page 376

DRINKS
Bottled and canned soft drinks are everywhere. Some uniquely Korean choices are grape
juice with whole grapes inside, and sikhye, rice punch with rice grains inside. Health tonics,
made with fibre, vitamins, ginseng and other medicinal herbs, are available in shops and
pharmacies; many claim to boost your virility, vitamin levels and alertness, or cure (or pre-
vent) a hangover!
Tea
Tea (cha) is a staple, with the term also used to describe drinks brewed without tea leaves.
The most common leaf tea is nokcha (green tea). Black tea (hongcha) is harder to find.
Non-leaf teas include the ubiquitous boricha (barley tea), daechucha (red-date tea), omi-
jacha (five-flavour berry tea), yujacha (citron tea) and insamcha (ginseng tea). They may
be served hot or cold.
Alcoholic Beverages
Koreans drink enough soju - a highly potent mix of ethanol mixed with water and flavour-
ing - that the Jinro-brand soju (you'll see the green bottles everywhere) is the top-selling
brand of spirits worldwide . The size of the soju bottle is calculated to fill only seven shot
glasses. The stuff might go down easily, but it can induce a killer hangover the next day.
Go for the higher-quality stuff distilled from grain (try Andong Soju or Jeonju Leegangju);
it offers a far more delicate flavour, but can have an alcohol content of up to 45%.
Makgeolli is a traditional farmer's brew made from unrefined, fermented rice wine. Gen-
erally much lower in alcohol content than soju, it has a cloudy appearance and a sweetish
yogurty flavour. It is traditionally served in a brass kettle and poured into shallow brass
bowls, although Seoul has several bars now where higher-quality styles of makgeolli, akin
to the range of Japanese sake, are served and savoured.
A host of sweetish traditional spirits are brewed or distilled from grains, fruits and roots.
Many are regional or seasonal. Bokbunjaju is made from wild raspberries, meoruju from
wild fruit, maesilju from green plums and insamju from ginseng.