Introduction

Summary

Soju, the “national” distilled alcoholic drink of Korea, has now become one of the world’s most popular drinks, most recently 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. Clear and colorless, with a taste similar to vodka, soju is a kind of spirit, or distilled liquor, which obtains a high percentage of alcohol content by means of a distillation technology that separates alcohol from the water and other compounds of fermented material. Though not as famous as such spirits as whiskey and vodka, soju currently enjoys increasingly widespread popularity worldwide. Like many other modern spirits today, the companies behind many modern soju brands produce on a mass scale in factories using modern technologies. As a consequence, few people today are aware of the drink’s ancient origins or how it became popular in Korea.