By Jonathan Hopfner
SEOUL, Nov 3 (Reuters Life!) - South Korea makes no secret of its desire to see it's often fiery cuisine appreciated by a wider international audience. But if recent signs are anything to go by, it may have more luck with the local firewater.
Makgeolli, a milky rice wine traditionally a staple of the rural poor, is now winning converts among tourists and fashion-conscious youth.
Made by fermenting boiled rice and water, standard makgeolli has a light, sweet taste, a chalky texture and an alcohol content of only around 6 percent.
But it's packing a significant punch in terms of export growth, with overseas sales jumping 52 percent year-on-year in 2008 and a further 13 percent to top $2 million in the first half of this year, led by rising appetite for the beverage in neighbouring Japan, according to government data.
After seeing its share of South Korea's nearly $8 billion annual alcohol market slide to under 4 percent in recent decades, the drink has also been reborn at home, thanks to a growing number of brewers such as Kooksoondang making upscale versions.
Kooksoondang CEO Bae Jung-ho admitted makgeolli suffered from a "cheap image", with quality slipping in the 1960s when a poverty-stricken South Korea diverted rice stocks away from brewers, who turned to lower-cost substitutes and chemicals that sealed the wine's headache-inducing reputation.
But now, Bae says, its being recognised as a quality product.
Despite the shaky state of the economy, Kooksoondang, which touts relatively expensive varieties using high-grade rice, has seen its makgeolli revenues surge 20-fold so far this year, while Bae estimates the domestic makgeolli market has grown 50 percent.
HALLMARKS OF A TREND
Makgeolli has moved from farms and backstreet taverns to upmarket retailers such as Lotte Department Store, which sells berry and ginseng-infused variants.
Asiana Airlines, the country's No. 2 carrier, has started to serve it on some international routes and it's even made the menus at five-star hotels, where it's typically sold at 15,000 won ($13) a bottle, 10 times the cost of some popular varieties.
More importantly, it's finding traction with a new generation. At Dduktak, a makgeolli-themed bar in Seoul's busy Konkuk University district, patrons huddle over colourful cocktails that blend the wine into milkshake-like concoctions with everything from espresso beans to lemongrass.
Yoon Jin-won, owner of the Dduktak franchise and head of the Korea Liquor Culture Institute, says he came up with the cocktails "to introduce makgeolli to a younger crowd."
Makgeolli-based beverages now account for half of the revenues from his 15 outlets, which are facing competition from a slew of upstart traditional pubs, including Kooksoondang's Baeksaeju Maul chain, which has doubled in size in the past year.
But can the makgeolli buzz can be sustained? Continued...
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