Makgeolli bowl, It’s a 2,000-year-old beverage from Korea called Makgeolli. Craft makgeolli brewery Hana Makgeolli co-founder Alice Jun states, “Makgeolli bowl is an alternative to craft beer, natural wine, and sake.” It’s at the crossroads of these three groups.”
In Korea, a rice-based beverage known as Makgeolli bowl, pronounced “mark-oh-lee,” has an alcohol content ranging from 5 per cent to 8 per cent. Milky white in colour and a rich, slightly bubbly feeling, the rice-based beverage is well known for its sweet and tangy flavour profile. The Colt 45 of Korea is in terms of cost, availability, and capacity to induce coma-inducing intoxication.
Jun explains that making Makgeolli bowl is easy enough. A cake-like Korean fermentation starter comprised of yeast, grains, and microbes, nuruk, can be formed by combining water, rice, and nuruk. Pouring from a kettle into rounded, shallow bowls helps to keep the rice from separating from the liquid.
Farmers have relied on Makgeolli bowl for millennia. It’s simple to make, full, and somewhat nutritious as far as alcoholic beverages go. Lactic acid and lactobacillus bacteria found in yoghurt and fibre are preserved in makgeolli since it is largely unfiltered. On the other hand, today’s mass-produced versions are loaded with sugar and artificial preservatives, making them more like a Gatorade-type beverage.
Makgeolli has long been available in Asian groceries and Korean eateries in the United States. Nevertheless, just as in South Korea, people are always looking for new and better-for-you drinking options.
Makgeolli sees a revival in returning to its roots while Carol Pak was in Korea, the founder of canned artisan makgeolli brand Makku explains. “The younger generation is starting new brands and putting a greater emphasis on providing high-quality goods. Many of the drink’s core qualities resembled what was popular in the United States.”
Makku, which launched in 2019, has had a profound impact on the perception of makgeolli. The 12-ounce can have taken the place of the wine-sized plastic bottle. As mentioned by Pak, the larger bottles were well-suited to Korea’s drinking culture, where people would gather to partake in a drink together. However, cans were more popular with American and Asian American consumers.
With Makku, Pak wanted to produce a drink for everyone, not only fans of makgeolli. Pak claims that because makgeolli is created from rice, some people might mistake it for forsake, a Japanese distilled alcohol. Sake, she claims, would automatically disqualify makgeolli from a person’s consideration.
Fortunately, hazy is currently popular. Naturally fermented beers from New England have overtaken traditional lagers, and non-chill filtered whiskey is keeping things hazy in the world of brown liquor. For a change of pace, makgeolli is there for the consumer. In addition, the drink’s popularity is rising at the same time that Korean culture is becoming increasingly prevalent in everyday life in the United States.
The Billboard charts are dominated by K-pop artists like BTS and Blackpink, while films like “Parasite” and “Minari” have won or been nominated for Academy Awards. Another evident trend in the United States is the growing number of Korean eateries popping up around the nation.
In light of the expansion of Korean cuisine and the popularity of sake in the United States, I felt it would be a good idea to offer a Korean alcoholic beverage,” Pak explains.
Sake, on the other hand, was spared a pandemic. This epidemic has made it more difficult for Hana Makgeolli to educate the public about Korean beverages. In Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Jun and her business partner, John Limb, opened Hana in November 2020 as a brewery and a taproom in tandem. They had hoped to use the taproom more than they have.
“That’s the most difficult part of coronavirus, in my opinion. We’re seeing that despite many visitors to the brewery, we don’t have the time or resources to converse with them in the manner we’d like to. “Jun believes this.
Jun and Pak don’t want it to ruin their celebration despite the pandemic. Pak feels it’s pointless to speculate about what might have been. As a result, the two are happy that people embrace makgeolli as a part of their daily brew. So much so that Jun is eager for Hana to introduce a couple more products into the company’s product line in 2021. She also hopes that Hana will be able to broaden its distribution so that you can be able to enjoy artisan makgeolli shortly.
WHAT IS MAKGEOLLI’S FLAVOR LIKE?
This milky rice wine from Korea has a diverse flavour profile that includes sweet, sour, and even bitter notes. It is filling and delicious but even better when paired with Korean cuisine.
Histories of Makgeolli
Koreans have been drinking this wine since the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1320), and others believe it dates back even further to the Three Kingdoms era (57 BC to 668 AD). Traditionally, Makgeolli is produced with only three ingredients: rice, water, and nuruk. This rice wine is alcoholic because of the unusual fermentation starter, Nuruk, which contains yeast and bacteria that break down the rice to make alcohol.
This white-coloured drink was served in a small bowl () to farmers and construction workers during their afternoon breaks as a child. When my mum offered a construction worker some red bean pastry and milk for a snack, he gave her an earful.
But now that I think about it, this was more than just a drink; for these hardworking Koreans, it was a necessity. Makgeolli’s nutritional and health benefits allowed the workers to extend their workday by a few more hours.
ALCOHOL CONTENT IN MAKGEOLLI
The alcohol concentration of makgeolli marketed commercially ranges from 6 to 9 per cent. Because traditional brews often start with a 12- to 18-per cent alcohol concentration, but in recent years, brewers have started diluting their wine with water so that they may sell the product more widely and export it more easily.
Drinking and storing Makgeolli properly
- Provide SERVING TEMPERATURE WHITE WINE in small, shallow bowls or only partially filled cups
- Sediments at the bottom of the bottle usually indicate that the solution is mixed. Make a few gentle turns of the bottle to incorporate the ingredients. If it’s unpasteurized, it could burst into flames. Repeat the process of opening and closing the cap to release the gas but not the contents gradually.
- The top clear liquid, free of rice sediments, is preferred by some. Don’t mix but carefully pour off the clearer liquid accumulated at the bottom. Also, the calorie content of the beverage will be reduced.
- Pasteurized products have a longer shelf life than unpasteurized ones. The Saeng (Draft) ones, which are unpasteurized, are unique. The shelf life of some draught wines can range from 30 days to 60 days. Refrigeration is required for all of them; even if refrigerated, the taste will change over time.
MAKGEOLLI IS CREATED BY WHY?
To make basic makgeolli, you need to steam rice, combine the cooked rice with water (often in a 1:1 ratio) and nuruk. After brewing for seven to ten days, the tea is filtered. It may be consumed neat or diluted 1:1 with water before consumption. However, the precise ratio of rice, water, and nuruk in each recipe can vary. My current experimentation with various recipes has shown me that even if I’m using the same recipe, I’m getting different results — even if I’m trying with the same technique!
Just so you know, these are two bottles prepared from the same recipe, but by two separate people, during a Makgeolli-making session in Seoul. If you’re planning a trip to Seoul and want to learn how to make makgeolli, I highly recommend this seminar.
The Gooksoondang export wines no longer contain Aspartame, as I was able to check on 6/4/2018 (by phone call to headquarters! – oh, the things I do for you all!) For domestic wines, however, I couldn’t verify that this was the case
Prices are ranked in the order shown in the table above (in Korea). The last three makgeolli’s are from craft breweries that claim to use no Aspartame and only high-quality ingredients in their brew. These seven are more expensive than the preceding six, ranging in price from $1 to $2 each in Korea. The middle three are priced between $2 and $4.
Conclusion
Makgeolli is traditional homebrew of Korean rice wine. All Korean meals, especially Kimchi and Korean BBQs, are perfect for this drink’s deep and powerful flavour profile.
FAQS
Why do Koreans consume makgeolli in a bowl?
Jun explains that making Makgeolli bowl is easy enough. A cake-like Korean fermentation starter comprised of yeast, grains, and microbes, nuruk, can be formed by combining water, rice, and nuruk. Pouring from a kettle into rounded, shallow bowls helps to keep the rice from separating from the liquid.
A makgeolli bowl is what?
Describe the product you’re selling. Traditional Korean Makgeolli bowl. Drinking Makgeolli in one of these transitional bowls is a traditional rainy-day activity in Korea. For those who enjoy Asian culture, this is a wonderful present. This bowl can be used for any beverage, and the experience will be enjoyable.