Soju

Today’s post is about soju, the national liquor of Korea. I sent a few people back home a bottle and if you like it I can always send more. I can’t really imagine you will like it though. But don’t be afraid! It isn’t really that bad. In truth, soju closely resembles a 20% alcohol by volume vodka. It’s clear and mostly tasteless but like cheaper vodkas has a strong alcohol taste. So there is nothing to be afraid of. I am not going to bore you with the history or specifics of soju. Wikipedia has a great article if you are interested in that, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soju.

Okay the basic way to drink soju is to shoot it out of a standard shot glass. “One shot!” is a common phrase here. There are a few points of drinking etiquette but the most important one is that you don’t fill your own glass; somebody else always fills it for you. So if you ever see that a person’s glass is empty the polite thing to do is fill it back up. Generally the younger person will fill the older persons shot glass full of soju, the older person will drink it and then fill the younger persons glass. Repeat until desired effect is achieved. There are more rules and exceptions of course that I won’t list but you might be wondering how with the above system you don’t spend all your time pouring and drinking. Well you can always refuse a refill obviously and this is common. The other way is simply not to finish the drink; you don’t refill a glass that isn’t empty. You can enjoy your soju with anything but common snacks are dried anchovies, peanuts and dried squid.

Laura and I don’t drink a lot of soju. For me it is mostly because beer is just as cheap and you can find rum and vodka for just a little more at the Home Plus. Laura and a lot of other people say soju gives them a terrible headache the next day. I don’t know if it is because of the way soju sneaks up on you, being low in both alcohol and taste, or because of how and what it is made of. Probably both as I am sure there is a similar preservative that gives wine headaches as well. The times that we do imbibe in the soju offers some other popular, if not traditional, ways to drink it. At my teacher dinners all the male teachers mix it with their beer. You pour about a shot of soju into your glass and then fill it up. This is called “somak”, a mix of soju and mekju, the Korean word for beer. I don’t know why they do this but it certainly makes the beer a lot stronger and you can’t taste the soju at all. When Laura is out with the ladies she will sometimes drink ‘soju smoothies’ which are just soju and a fruit juice. Mango, orange and kiwi are popular choices. We also witnessed two young couples, in Busan, mix their soju with a coffee drink (like a Starbucks cappuccino) and cider (like 7-up) in the original soju bottle and then drink out of standard shot glasses. You can pretty much do with it whatever you can do with vodka.

So that is a quick guide to soju. I suggest you try it the traditional way a couple times and then just mix it with whatever you prefer. In Korea cheers is ‘gun bae” similar, but not the same as the Japanese ‘kom bai’. When you clink glasses, you touch according to age, the younger person touching lower on the glass. The kind I’ve sent home is called maple soju, don’t be fooled though, maple is a brand not a flavor. Don’t worry we sent you the good stuff. Here is a picture of the maple soju spokes model. Very risqué shoulder bearing. 

Another quick soju fact is that it is sold everywhere in every possible format. At the Home Plus you will see it in 10 Litre containers and in juice boxes. Last fun fact is a popular way to shoot soju is a ‘love shot’. This is when you link arms with the person and then drink the soju together. I don’t know why this is so popular as it most commonly done with the same sex. Just a Korean thing.