Episode 226: Soju (with Dr. Hyunhee Park)
/We talk a lot about the ghost type of spirits on the show, but what about the liquor kind of spirits? We’re joined by Dr. Hyunhee Park to talk about the global history of the distinctive Korean drink: Soju. Hint: It all comes back to the Mongols.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of colonialism, conquest and war, disease/illness, and wealth disparity.
Guest
Hyunhee Park is an Associate Professor of History at the City University of New York, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and CUNY Graduate Center and author of Soju: A Global History. A native of South Korea, she received her BA in Asian and Western history at Seoul National University in 1997, her MA in East Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2003, and her Ph.D. in history at Yale University in 2008. She specializes in the history of cross-cultural contacts in East Asia, Islamic World, the Mongol Empire, and global intellectual history focusing on information/knowledge transfers including geographical knowledge, foodways, and distillation.
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Transcript (Intro and Ad-Break Coming Soon)
Amanda: We were so excited to see a book all about the history and origins and significance of soju. And we are so delighted to have author Dr. Park with us today. Dr. Park, hello. Please let our audience know who you are and what you study.
Dr. Park: Hello. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Hyunhee Park. I'm an associate professor of History at the City University of New York, John Jay College and the CUNY Graduate Center. As you can guess from my last name, I'm originally from South Korea, the country of soju’s origins.
Julia: So, Dr. Park, can you tell us a little bit about your background and maybe your interest in mythology, and history, and folklore?
Dr. Park: Yes. Thank you for your good question. My major field was History, but my husband majored in Comparative Folklore. So, he has studied many folktales, legends, and myths and has told me many interesting stories related to his own research. I don't know if I can tell you my stories as well as he does, but I will try my best. Many stories like these legends and folktales have been transmitted orally from an ancient period when it was not so easy for people to leave records. These orally transmitted stories are indeed important and are sometimes the only available sources to explore many topics in history, particularly ordinary people's lives lived in the past like, like foods and alcohols.
Julia: That's awesome. That's such a good relationship that you can have with your husband and be able to tell each other these stories.
Dr. Park: Thank you.
Julia: So, for our audience, what exactly is soju? I know that you wrote a whole book about this. But can you give them kind of the, the basic rundown of what it is?
Dr. Park: Yes. I wrote in my book that soju is the distinctive spirit of Korea. But, in fact, it's not easy to explain soju quickly because soju evolved over time reemerging in different forms, in different historical context. This is why, as you said, I wrote a book about it and other short article. As you see, I see the book title is Soju: A Global History and not History of Soju. I did this to show that we can only understand soju’s developments properly from the broader perspective of the developments of spirits, those distilled liquors we are enjoying, and distillation technology in world history. Not only does this book trace the origins of soju in Korea, but it also discusses controversial issues of the developments of spirits in the world that preceded the rise of soju in Korea because the spirits of other countries like China surely influenced the soju.
Amanda: So, I have been drinking soju for several years. And I think, for a lot of people in the US that are not familiar with the spirit from their background or their family, it's something that we can have now in bars or buy at stores that we weren't able to a few years ago. So, what is the kind of rolling popularity of soju today?
Dr. Park: So, first, let me clarify that soju, which is easily found in the US markets and become popular in many other places, is produced on a mass scale in factories using modern technologies. Many other modern spirits today like brandy and – yeah, those are similarly mass-produced in factories. But Korean soju companies brought a new innovation to soju production that was not achieved in other countries: namely, the jumboizing of production. For example, most soju companies produce 600 bottles of soju per minute. A soju factory I visited two years ago was like that. Some big soju companies even run lines that produce 1,000 bottles per minute, which is huge.
Amanda: Wow.
Dr. Park: Yeah. So, they have produced one of the cheapest distilled liquors in the world by accelerating the soju-bottling process to combine ethanol spirit, water, and flavors. So, the price of a bottle is around $5 to $6 in US market. And, even in Korea, we can buy it at $1 to $2 a bottle.
Amanda: Wow.
Dr. Park: In Korea, rather than just drinking the soju, people mix it with beer to drink it as a bomb shot. Yeah, also people in the US do that. And this culture of drinking “bomb shot” or “bomb cocktail” at people’s gathering at Korean restaurants is also gaining popularity as a special characteristic for Korean drinking culture. And I was very laughing when I found a soju glass at an American supermarket that had a scale helping us mix soju and beer in desired proportions.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: [laughs]
Amanda: Yeah.
Dr. Park: Yeah. So, they were really funny. But, prior to the development of the mass-produced industrial soju in Korea, there was a rich history of the development of traditional soju using the traditional distillation method. So, in my book, I really wanted to argue that, in order to understand modern industrial soju, we should look at the history of traditional soju. And, to understand it, we should also look at the big historical changes involved in the development of science and technology, the industrial revolution, and colonialism. So, the modern soju machines were introduced from Japan to Korea during Japanese colonial rule in the first half of the twentieth century, and the technology goes back to the earlier scientific and industrial revolution. If we look back in history like this, we even see that the distillation idea itself goes back to ancient times. And we can also see that traditional techniques were transferred and exchanged among different societies through the cultural exchanges involved in pre-modern cross-cultural contacts. Well, I would like to say, people who really like spirits, they don't like the modern soju, industrial soju. Yeah.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: It was the Medieval Mongol Empire that diffused spirits in Eurasia. Korean soju was introduced through, through Korea’s close connections to the Mongol empire at that time. In other words, the History of Soju in Korea is closely linked to the development of global spirits. Because my main research interest in history is in the history of cross-cultural contacts, this topic has engaged me so much for these past few years. I also thought that my case study of Korean soju would contribute to studies of spirits in global history. To give you a little more detail about the soju, soju is a clear and colorless liquor with a taste similar to vodka and some other spirits. As you know, spirits are alcoholic drinks produced by the distillation of grains, fruits, or vegetables that have already gone through the alcoholic fermentation. So, yeah, your blog name is Spirits. Yes. So, yeah. So, whiskey, you know, whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverages made from fermented grain mash or by distilling beer. Brandy is based on grape wine and vodka is based on fermented cereal grains. There are different kind of spirits. Maybe you know some Asian spirits, like baijiu in China and shochu in Japan. And Soju and shochu was influenced by baijiu. It was called shaojiu in, in earlier period and even is known as shaojiu too, the same Chinese characters. And many of you have probably heard about a very well-known brand of baijiu, Maotai, one of the famous spirits. So, soju is not as famous as these spirits yet. But it’s interesting that it’s currently become popular in the last one or two decades on the international market. It is thanks to the recent pop-cultural phenomenon of Korean Wave, Hallyu, represented by the growing popularity of K-Pop, Korean dramas, and Korean foods in today’s globalizing world. So, many people are familiar with this. So, my friends and colleagues in the US told me that they began to drink soju after watching Korean dramas and going to Korean restaurants.
Amanda: [laughs]
Dr. Park: So, some of you probably have tasted soju in a green bottle at a Korean restaurant. I believe that you will have different likes and dislikes for the taste of this soju. It’s because preferences vary from person to person. One of the reasons why the soju is rising fast in the US is its low price. So, in particular, the modern industrial soju mass-produced in factories doesn’t have a high percentage of alcohol. It’s around, like, 20 percent even if it is officially a spirit. According to an American journalist, a shop can sell it without having a special alcohol-selling license. So, it has become more widely available on the market than other spirits like vodka.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: Anyway, this new style, industrial soju, seems to have gradually spread through word of mouth at Korean restaurants, even receiving journalism's attention outside Korea.
Julia: What I really liked was you talking about the popularity of soju because of the price point and also because certain places that have limited liquor license can sell it. Like, the first time I ever had soju was at a dive bar in New York City—
Dr. Park: Oh.
Julia: —because they had beer, wine, and soju because that was – they were able to serve it. And I was like, “Oh, I really like this. This is very good.”
Amanda: [chuckles]
Dr. Park: Really? Oh, that’s so interesting.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: They didn't serve vodka or brandy, maybe. Mhmm.
Julia: No. New York liquor licenses are very strange.
Dr. Park: Mhmm. Yeah.
Julia: But it managed to get soju on their menu and it was delightful.
Dr. Park: Oh, I see.
Amanda: Yeah, it's a different license to sell hard liquor—
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: —like whiskey, vodka, you know, brandy and things like that. So, I think that's maybe a happy side effect of very stringent liquor laws that, if you're interested in something a little bit stronger than either beer or wine, soju is available to you. But you said it was classified as a spirit as well. So, I think it's a really interesting just kind of, like, Venn diagram between those two spheres.
Julia: Happy medium.
Dr. Park: Oh, yeah. I was talking about this. There's an issue about authenticity. Yeah, it's not just about soju—
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: —but mainly alcohol. So, which one we can define as spirit or distilled liquor? Because soju, in order to popularize it, they had to lower – companies lower and lower the alcohol content.
Amanda: Oh, really?
Dr. Park: And, so, people begin to bring new definitions and we should be flexible. You know, there are all these interesting stories. And I also kind of argue that it's better to be more flexible. Yeah, because we're – there are new kinds of foods emerge when we try, like, new things based on different context.
Amanda: I think so too.
Julia: Yeah, let people get a taste for it. And then they can kind of move up the scale of, like, you know, the base level stuff and then the very authentic stuff.
Dr. Park: Right. Yeah.
Amanda: Can you tell us a little bit about traditional distilling of soju. We know about the industrial style now. But how – when people are snobby about authenticity, what do they miss? Like, what used to be different?
Dr. Park: First, let me tell you that I didn't know anything about this kind of technology. And, when my dear colleague, Dr. Paul Buell, asked me to join his Comparative Distillation Project, I didn't know about the terms. And he said like, “What's the Korean still like?” Still. What, what do you mean? Still – I – and I didn't know the term still is the distillation device. Koreans use a specific kind of still to destill soju. And I had to study everything from the beginning. And it was really interesting that this is really basic term, but I didn't know this very technical term for the – this part of science. And, also, yes, the Korean use a special still called soju gori, gori of soju. And, to understand all these technology, I had to study from the very beginning what is distillation. And I realized that it has very interesting history. And distillation, also, changed a lot of things in global history. Distillation is a technique used to separate a liquid’s constituents using boiling and condensing. So, the boiling method takes advantage of the variant boiling points of components to create a vapor free of other impurities. Then it collects the purified vapor after it returns to liquid forms, like liquid drops. And freeze technology – freezing distillation applies the same logic. Well, it’s difficult to even explain that. And, so, I actually drew a lot of pictures to show how people distill, you know, the alcohol – fermented alcohol to receive more – higher alcohol content drops.
Julia: That was one of my favorite parts about that chapter.
Dr. Park: Oh.
Julia: It was the amount of, like, diagrams and stuff. And you can see they're all achieving a similar or basic concept, but they all have very different styles. I thought that was very interesting.
Dr. Park: Yeah. So, well, the diagrams show, like, different kinds of stills and how they’ve evolved. Of course, there are a lot of theories and different opinions about this. But, basically, it's interesting. Compared to just fermented wines like wine and others – sake, they have lower alcohol content. So, those things, it was easier for people to understand the logic. And, from the nature, they found how things fermented. And – but, distillation, they had to take advantage of this special technique and scientific theory. So, it seems like it took some time for people to develop. And it seems like, based on what we had, like, as sources, distillation was invented in many places. But, at least, we can argue – we can see that distillation was invented in some areas like the Middle East and Mesopotamia, China, and Ancient Greece. And, even India, there are, of course, a lot of debates about this. Another interesting thing is distillation is a technique and technology, but, compared to other technologies, it’s quite simple. So, once they found that it’s not difficult for them to spread. But they had to find the reason to make it. In the Ancient Period, some people distill things, like fermented things. But, mostly, they used distillation to produce mercury or perfumes, not distill alcohol. Yeah. So, it's only in the Medieval Period and, more specifically, the Mongol Period from, like, 13th to14th century that distilled alcohol as a liquor. And they begin to spread. In my book, I connected this technology to the social need and big cultural changes, the Mongols. Nowadays, people begin to learn about this Mongo Period. The Mongol empire that stretches from the Pacific to Hungary. And they conquered so many places, including China and the Middle East. And, of course, previously, scholars focused on a lot of brutal conquest and destructions. Recently, scholars began to see a lot of – kind of some positive effects, like cross cultural context. It just connected societies that were far from each other like China and the Middle East and even some European travelers like Marco Polo in global history. And there are alot of those travelers. Students know about Marco Polo. So, yeah, it’s interesting. And Marco Polo also talk about the Mongols, yeah, drinking habits and rituals. So, so, the Mongol Period, the Mongols had to move faster. And they drink a lot. And, and, so, the drink – drinking was very important. And, also, they provided alcohol as a gift to their generals. And, yeah. So, as a – for – they use it as a ritual. So, it was very important to have those alcohols all the time. But, when they move fast, sometimes, it get bad. They'll just fermented the liquor. So, historically written as, as kumiss is fermented mare's or cow's milk. And it's like, like wine. It’s fermented drinks. And – but, when they were drinking to distant places for conquest or whatever, it gets bad easily.
Amanda: Yeah.
Dr. Park: And then, when we look at the historical context, they encounter the distillation usually performed in, in China. Not in the a large, large scale, but they saw that. And it seems like they – during that period, the China was under Mongol rule. And distillation spread. And the Chinese also distilled their own shaojiu. It seems like they had it a little earlier. There are a lot of debates about the origins of distilled liquor in China. I also tried to give some convincing explanation in my book. It’s very complicated. Anyway, so – and the Mongols adapted it. And then – so, once they distilled their own fermented drink, kumiss, and they could preserve it. So, sometimes, they, they call this like a good liquor [Chinese name]. This kind of good liquor became a spread. And the great thing is the Mongols were able to bring it to many places because it doesn't get bad. And, just one interesting episode I tell you, I went to a museum in Andong. It’s famous for its traditional Andong soju. I bought, like, traditional soju bottle and I asked the seller, “When is the expiration date?” By when I can drink it? There’s no expiration date.
Julia: [laughs]
Amanda: [laughs]
Dr. Park: Oh, wow. I was surprise. I was stunned. And, and then he said, “Actually, as time goes by, the taste gets better.”
Amanda: Wow.
Dr. Park: Wow. How great invention it is. Yeah. So, imagine, like, when people didn't have a refrigerator, and, so, it was really kind of great invention. And, once people understood the advantages of distilled liquor, they were able to, to use it. Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Dr. Park: To bring it to other places. And, so, we have also other evidence, other pieces of evidence that show they also spread their liquor to other places and one place, which was quite well documented, is Korea.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Now, it, it makes so much sense to me that distillation, because it requires equipment and because it, it takes so much time or it's at least probably more expensive to make that it will be limited to stuff like mercury and perfume. But, for a culture like that, which, you know, priced as being able to pick up and go and can't refrigerate, you know, a milk-based wine, that makes complete sense. So, that's—
Dr. Park: Yeah.
Amanda: —that’s, absolutely, fascinating.
Dr. Park: One other episode related to the preservation, so, the Koreans continue to develop the soju once they adapted it from the Mongols. And the Koreans performed ancestral rice and ancestral worships. They follow the Neo-Confucianism, Modified Confucians. So, let's just call it a Confucianism. And it's very important to worship ancestors. And they have to follow very strict rituals. And they have to use start – specific alcoholic drink. And it's like just fermented wine. And it's because, when Confucius created these rituals, in Ancient Times, there was no distillation. It’s really Ancient Times. And, even later when Confucius – Confucianism developed, distillation really began to flourish from 13th and 14th century. People didn't allow distilled liquor of for the rituals. But some special Confucian text – ritual texts began to say that, actually, you can use distilled liquor for these kinds of rituals in the summer because it doesn't go bad in the summertime in intense heat. So, it was really interesting. Yeah.
Amanda: Fascinating.
Julia: Change in religion because of technology, that's so fascinating. You don't see that too often.
Dr. Park: Yeah. So, they are very flexible. Yeah. So, I was very interested in this topic because, frankly, speaking, I didn't drink much. Yeah, even soju is quite strong. And I not drink – especially I like cocktail. And – but I was really fascinated by all this, this kind of technique, technological aspect. And, also, people use it as a medicine. People in the pre-modern period, they didn't have many different kinds of medicine. But they thought that soju would be a good medicine. And I also talked about some alchemists in China and I also read interesting book about the European religious group, Franciscan using alchemy to make elixir. Yeah. So, I didn't talk too much. And – but, also, in Korea, they, they thought soju would be a good medicine. And there are some interesting stories in some literary works in early modern period. A nobleman had his servant. And he had started strange disease. And the nobleman let the servant drink soju and then he was cured.
Amanda: [chuckles]
Dr. Park: That kind of story. Yeah.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: So, Dr. Park, how did soju come to Korea? Like, what were Koreans drinking before soju entered the scene? And then why did it switch over to soju as the popular drink?
Dr. Park: So, as I told you about how the Mongols brought soju to Korea, so, Korea was part of the Mongol Empire like many other societies. And, so, I also gave kind of historical details about that. So, Korea was able to enjoy some autonomy. The dynasty name is Koryŏ, Koryŏ Dynasty. Not many people know, actually, the western name Korea is from the dynasty’s name.
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: This dynasty is interesting. Especially at the end of the dynasty, it was influenced by the Mongols. But it has also some kind of positive influences because it was connected to the broader Mongol Empire. And it's not just Chinese cultures, but many other cultures or aspects in the Middle East and the wider broader Mongol Empire were introduced to, to Korea. Soju is one of them. It’s at Mongol period that Chinese shaojiu and also arak. It was also called arak in Chinese document. And the first document that introduced arak as distilled liquor and explained, like, distillation, like, is Chinese document in the Mongol Period, the 14th century.
Amanda: Hmm.
Dr. Park: So, through these connections with the Mongols, the Korea was the son-in-law's country and also vassal state. But thing was honestly laws of the Mongol Empire. So, they were able to enjoy some kind of privileges. And, at the time, the first Korean documents began to talk about soju. There's a Korean transliteration of shaojiuo. Chinese. Yeah. And, also, arak in, in Korean. But, actually, it's the same. And, so, we know soju began to be popular from the Koryŏ period. And, before that – so, I had to trace, like, what kind of drinks the Koreans drank before the soju because, in earlier period, we don't have the documentation. And we have some interesting documents and some earlier stories involved. They’re, like, very interesting and some strange folktales. There's no specific evidence that shows they had distilled liquor, but we can see it's like fermented liquor wine or not the great wine. And – but, like – because the Koreans, like Chinese, they fermented grains in general; so, like, rice and, for Chinese, sorghum, but not distilled alcohol. So, it has a lower alcohol percentage.
Julia: So, you mentioned this great story in the book about this Korean liquor whose origin had to do with the god of the Eastern Sea kind of overturning a liquor jug and creating this type of wine. Can you give a little bit of background on that? And then maybe kind of tell us how that kind of reflects the types of alcohol that nobles were drinking versus more of, like, the common folk.
Dr. Park: Yeah, for the very early periods of Korean history, we have some documents about alcohol. And some stories are very mythological. Yeah, very mythical. So, this god of the Eastern Sea is difficult to believe. Yeah.
Julia: [chuckles]
Dr. Park: Yeah, but very interesting. And, actually, this one, there are some other Korean sources, but this particular story is written in Chinese encyclopedic work. The Chinese and Koreans also had contacts at the time. So, Koreans were often influenced by the Chinese alcohol making, but then also some documents also hinted that Koreans also developed their own alcohol. And this story, the Eastern Sea story is interesting because it says – so, this Eastern Sea is in Chinese side. It was greeting a lady from Korea, one of the Ancient Korean kingdoms. And he courted her and she probably was beautiful. And – but she declined his offer. So, he was very upset.
Amanda: Oh, no.
Dr. Park: And he overturned the liquor jug and the content flow into a lake called Qu’e. Later story says – so, this is how the water became wine in the region called Qu’e. And the water that became wine is very tasty. So, some scholars interpret it like maybe that wine, special wine called Qu’e had a special brewing technique that originates in the kingdom of Korea, the origin, original place of the lady.
Amanda: Yeah.
Dr. Park: So, probably one of Korean kingdoms developed this special alcohol brewing technique. So, some Chinese poets also say, “Oh, she likes another Korean kingdom, but their wine is very good.” So, some Chinese like it. But, also, if we look at some other historical texts, on one text is from the Koryŏ period of people the Mongol influenced. And, so, one Chinese envoy as a historical person called Xu Jing visited Koryŏ for a diplomatic mission in the 12th Century. He didn't like Korean wine very much. And explains that the Koreans have two kinds of wines. One is for the normal people. It's more strained and clear. The other one is more milky. It’s for ordinary people before they compress and make, like, clear wine. Also, the Korean documents talk about different kinds of wines.
Julia: It must have been really good wine despite what this Chinese envoy was saying. Because, if you're giving the reason that it was created to the gods, “This is so good the gods must have made it,” that has to be pretty good. That has to be pretty good alcohol.
Dr. Park: Yeah.
Julia: You know.
Dr. Park: Yeah.
Julia: [chuckles] Not to diss this Chinese envoy who passed away probably 800 years ago—
Dr. Park: Mhmm.
Julia: —I have to disagree with him.
Dr. Park: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, people have different tastes. So—
Julia: That's fair.
Dr. Park: The wine for ordinary people was turbid unstrained liquor. And, so, the color should be a bit white. And the Korean documents say farmers consumed this turbid unstrained wine in their fields, and travelers drank on the road, like common wine.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: This could have been similar to modern-day makkŏlli. Have you heard about makkŏlli?
Julia: No.
Dr. Park: It’s getting popular. And, actually, some for foreigners, non-Korean people, they’ve really begin to like it. Yeah. And the difference is milky, off-white, lightly sparkling wine – it’s rice wine – that contains a slightly sweet, tangy, bitter, and astringent taste. And it’s easier to make. And there are different kinds of wine. Soju, nowadays, is quite the same, you know. Yeah. So, the—
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Yeah.
Dr. Park: So, the – many companies try to make distinctive soju brands, but, in general, they kind of mix ethanol and other flavors. But they say they'd bring some technology – techniques to make something special. But, anyway, the makkŏlli, there are different kinds of methods. Maybe you only have a chance to see this makkŏlli, too. As far as I know, it’s becoming quite popular in Japan, Korea's neighboring country.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: Cool.
Dr. Park: Yeah.
Julia: From what you described, it sounds really good. I like a lightly sparkling drink. So—
Dr. Park: Oh, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Ethanol tastes like ethanol after a certain point.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: So, having something that is, you know, distinct even if it is a little bit astringent or a little bit unique, like, that is what is exciting about drinking if that's the thing that you do. It’s you get to develop an appreciation for each flavor even if, at your first sip, you know, it isn't necessarily all, you know, very palatable right away.
Dr. Park: Yeah.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: So, just one other interesting story makkŏlli, my husband is Japanese. And he loves drinking beer. And, once he tastes makkŏlli in Korea, he really loved it. So, for a while, he just drank makkŏlli.
Julia: I like that.
Amanda: I – we are all peasants here. We can appreciate a peasant liquor. We love it.
Dr. Park: Yes, indeed. Yeah.
Julia: Save the real nice stuff for the rich folks. We'll take the common man's drink any day.
Dr. Park: So, the rich folks, they also use it a lot for the rituals. So, yeah. And they thought maybe the strange – like clear strange wine is more purified better. Yeah. But it's interesting that, because it's not written in the Confucian ritual text, they didn't try to replace it with the distilled liquor, soju, because they had to be very strict with original text. But, certain point, only the summer, they, they wanted to be practical. Yeah.
Amanda: That makes so much sense.
Dr. Park: They didn't want their clear stains, like, rice wine to be bad when they present it to the ancestors.
Julia: That makes sense.
Dr. Park: Yeah. And you also asked me about how soju was introduced to Korea from the Mongol Empire.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: We have three interesting passages that explicitly talk about soju and arak, another liquor. The first passage is about a soju group. So, they were called the soju group at the time. It appears in the biography of a famous general at the end of the Koryŏ dynasty. And one of the subordinates of the general loves drinking soju. And he always drank soju with his group. Soju was soju gang.
Amanda: [laughs]
Julia: [laughs]
Dr. Park: Yeah, they were very famous as a soju gang. And then, later, the famous general realized they were not doing their duty and just drinking soju. So, they were punished. So, there’s one very explicit document.
Amanda: Wow. Soju was too good.
Dr. Park: Yeah, interesting story. Yeah. Another story is an edict from the Koryŏ court, the government. They banned some expensive, like luxurious goods like silks, gold, and jade, and soju.
Amanda: [laughs]
Julia: Wow.
Dr. Park: Yeah. So, we can see soju was very expensive goods. So – and it makes sense because they make soju using rice. Rice was very precious. And, sometimes – often there is, like, drought too. And, yeah, in later period, there are a lot of bans that prohibit the soju and, also, alcohol because they use a lot of grain and people are starving to death. But – so, people—
Amanda: It makes sense.
Julia: Yeah.
Dr. Park: Yeah – are making soju. And, sometimes, they even made it in secret.
Amanda: [chuckles]
Julia: Hmm.
Dr. Park: Anyway, so, so, soju, we can see at the end of the Koryŏ dynasty, became already popular. So, it's not just the soldiers. The previous theory was that the Mongol soldiers brought soju and distilled liquor and soju and arak to Korea during their military expedition. But, in my book, I showed there are many other routes. There are many other routes like merchants and scholars. And, so, merchants brought a lot of soju. And even – we can guess that maybe not ordinary people at a time. But, when the soju was introduced to Korea at the end of the Koryŏ period, probably rich people, wealthy people, nobles, they were able to enjoy soju. And maybe it was too much like luxurious good.
Julia: [chuckles]
Dr. Park: And, so, they were – it was banned. And, the merchants, they were also selling these kind of things. And, and also I showed that it's not just soju but many other cultural things. Foods like meat. Korean barbecue, I believe many audience tasted Korean barbecue—
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Dr. Park: —at the Korean restaurants. It’s also another kind of popular thing. And, and some scholars argue that distilled liquor and soju worked very well with the meat. And, even now, if you go to Korean restaurant, people drink soju with this barbecue. And soju became popular from the end of the Koryŏ period and later to Chosŏn period. And, actually, the meat eating practice was influenced by the Mongols too. So, before the Mongol’s influence, the Koreans were more vegetarian because of the Buddhism. Buddhism was a major – a dominant religion and people didn't eat much meat. That's why the Xu Jing, the Chinese envoy, he did like Korean drink. And, also, he didn't like the Korean meat because—
Julia: He wasn't used to it.
Dr. Park: Yeah, they, they just put me in a boiling water. And they – so, we have some interesting stories like that. So – but, anyway, soju was strong liquor. So, it works better with the meat.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: So, that became popular more. Another – just one more story about arak, scholar at the end of the Koryŏ period talks about arak in his poem. He studied in China, in Beijing. Daidu is modern-day Beijing, the capital city of the Mongol Empire. He was very lonely. He talks about this. But he had a lot of communications with the Chinese authority. And, yeah, so, we can guess they exchange many things to Koryŏ. People are studying was residing in China brought many cultural things to Korea. And that includes even new form of Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism and astronomy from the Middle East and all different things. But a lot of food cultures we can guess – we can imagine that they launch, like, new food culture; meat eating, distilled drinks. And he describes the arak as exactly like a distilled liquor. So, he says, “Forming like autumn dewdrops, and dripping down at night. So, after drinking half a cup of the liquor, a warm feeling spreads to the bone.” So, yeah.
Julia: [laughs]
Amanda: That’s so beautiful.
Dr. Park: Can you imagine the—
Julia: I'm familiar with that feeling.
Dr. Park: Yeah. So, smoothly, the people made arak liquor by a distilling process, extracting a strong spirit from the fermented alcohol. And Korean people also called soju as noju. It means dewdrop liquor.
Amanda: Wow.
Dr. Park: Yeah, that's very Korean term. I, I never – I haven't been able to find this term in Chinese. Yeah. So—
Julia: That's beautiful.
Dr. Park: They introduce soju like this. And the next dynasty that replaced Koryŏ dynasty is Chosŏn Dynasty. They lasted by the end of the 19th century. It spread so quickly. And scholars didn't pay attention to the spread of soju at the time. And we know more about soju in later periods. But, a lot of that – I found that a lot of chronicles and documents say that soju was used as a, like, diplomatic gift.
Julia: Wow.
Dr. Park: So, when the foreign envoys came, they gave many – 50 bottles of soju along with other fermented wine. And we have a lot of documentation about soju. In the middle of the Chosŏn Dynasty, we also see a cookbook written by lady, woman, women author and was the head of the household taking the entire job of the ancestral rituals. And she wrote a cookbook and it explained how to make soju.
Julia: Cool.
Dr. Park: And, so, it's not – the writing is not very clear. It's not – it’s different from the rest of – previously, in the modern day cookbooks because they knew how to make it. And, so, like, A, B, C, D, E, then she skipped like B and D and started it from one.
Julia: [laughs]
Amanda: She's like, “You know what to do.”
Dr. Park: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah.
Dr. Park: Yeah, but, clearly, we can see how they make soju. So, actually, the interesting thing is that – so, the still I mentioned earlier, the Korean distillation apparatus. So, later, it became more sophisticated. But, previously, they just use a pot. So, I think we can also—
Julia: Wow.
Dr. Park: —try. Yeah, just pot and then put the fermented liquor and then boil it. But, inside the pot, they put the small bowl.
Amanda: Oh, interesting.
Dr. Park: And then they put the lid upside down. So, they can sometimes put cold water and then the vapor became drops and falls down to the – to the bowl inside the pot. And, later, they take out it. Yeah, it takes time. And they receive this precious drops. Yeah. And then, later, they take out the drops from the pipe that goes outside the apparatus. And the famous scholar – I, I showed you the diagrams, the complicated diagrams.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: And, based on just our convention, so, we can divide it into a few categories, especially for the AGR, Agent style, Asiatic stills, Chinese style and Mongol styles. The Mongol style is simple. Like, it's just one pot-like thing and, inside, they put a bowl. And the Chinese one is more complicated. And I actually have a drawing in my book. And, also, Chinese used both kinds and the Mongols. Nowadays, in modern Mongolia, they make arkhi, this Mongolian distilled liquor, based on fermented mare's milk or cow’s milk.
Julia: Mhmm.
Dr. Park: So, arkhi is Mongolian. And, definitely, the name came from arak, the Middle Eastern liquor. We just call the two types of stills just for convenience. Yeah. And then, the Koreans, they brought – the Mongols brought the simple Mongolian style still. So, I argue that actually, because they had a simpler still, it was able to spread more quickly. And—
Amanda: Yeah.
Dr. Park: And, exactly, there are several documentations that explain this, this distillation process.
Amanda: Yeah.
Dr. Park: So, they use this pot. And—
Amanda: It sounds like there's so much more that our listeners can look into about soju and all kinds of other liquors. Mongolian history, I love that there are so many things that I want to research after having this conversation with you.
Dr. Park: Yeah. So, thank you. So, there are – also, in my final chapter in Conclusion, I said – where I had to focus on soju, especially for the later period. But, really, there will be many interesting stories about how arak, yeah, was influenced. The Middle East arak—
Amanda: Yeah.
Dr. Park —was influenced by the Mongols. And, of course, arak itself is from the Middle East. The term arak means perspiration or sweat. Yeah. And – but, in the Middle East, very few documentations talk about arak as distilled liquor and maybe some religious reasons. But scholar think that it was not very popular. The arak liquor was transferred to China through the merchants, Indian Ocean trade. And the Chinese called arak as a foreign or southern barbarian that means foreign shaojiu, foreign distilled liquor, I believe, they thought is similar to shaojiu. But it’s a little different. And, and then the arak began to appear in many Chinese and Korean documents and then, after the Mongol period, also, in Iran and Turkey. In Turkey, they have raki. It’s from arak too. Like, a kind of distilling. And also arkhi in Mongolia. So, it just kept spreading. The European distillation, the Europeans spirits also began to flourish more from the 14th and 15th century. So, compared to other wines, spirits has a shorter history, but, actually, it goes back to ancient period if we consider this distillation technology. I called for more studies. And one of my colleagues, Alexander, he wanted to study the history of vodka. He read my article and very – he wanted to also study the history of vodka. So—
Amanda: That's amazing.
Dr. Park: Yeah.
Amanda: I think we can all agree that liquor is a good idea. That's what I'm taking away from this. That distillation is an amazing chemical process. And, you know, most cultures and most people have reason to distill spirits.
Dr. Park: Yeah.
Amanda: Dr. Park, thank you so much for sharing all – I'm sure just a fraction of your knowledge about soju with us. I cannot wait to read the book again with all of the knowledge that I have now. Thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Park: I should thank you so much for inviting me to talk about my new book and share more stories with the readers interested in various stories in our life. And, yeah, it was really fun. And it was my absolute pleasure to talk with you.
Julia: Of course.
Amanda: Aww. Thank you so much. And, everybody, remember.
Julia: Stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil