Beerlandia: Blueberry Makgeolli
If you’ve sampled your fair share of whiskeys, vodkas, rums, and gins, you may feel well-traveled in your spirits. However, there’s a whole other category out here in the East that hasn’t quite made it onto the shelves back home: rice wines. China has a lot of them, all varying in strength, color, quality, and drinkability. We’ll get to those in time. This week, what we’ve got in front of us in our little tin cups is a mysterious, Star Wars-esque purple liquid called makgeolli. Made from fermented rice and unpasteurized, this is South Korea’s oldest alcoholic beverage. This particular batch is infused with blueberries.
Spirit: Makgeolli
Distillery: In-house restaurant homebrew
Location: Daqing, Heilongjiang, China
Country of Origin: South Korea
Style: Distilled from rice, blueberry infusion
ABV: ~8.0%
Beerlandia Advisory: Looks weird, smells weird, tastes great. Pair with spicy Korean food.
This was placed in front of us at a new Korean restaurant here in Daqing. I had no idea what to expect and didn’t even know what this was until translating its Chinese name back at home. It pours a very milky haze, and would certainly not look appetizing without its purple blueberry hue. The first thing that comes to mind is a purple version of the blue milk from Star Wars. Hm, here goes nothing.
“Okay, so, looks weird, smells weird, and the taste…surprisingly great!”
The smell is…not great. Distinctly sour as you would expect from something that has been fermented and unpasteurized. The experience has me locked in now - pouring a milky purple liquid from a brass teapot into some tin camp cups is unique if nothing else, but the aroma is not necessarily coaxing me to take that first sip.
Okay, so, looks weird, smells weird, and the taste…surprisingly great! The blueberry flavor is immediate, and so is a tangy sourness. These two flavor profiles play off of each other very well - imagine a very sweet, fruity lambic beer. There’s also the slight presence of something I would have never guessed by this drink’s appearance: carbonation. It’s very fleeting, but it’s there, and a pleasant addition to these flavors.
If it weren’t for the carbonation, this wouldn’t be all that pleasant to put in your mouth. It’s medium-bodied but begins to feel syrupy after a while due to its sweetness. I’m a big fan of the complex flavors, but this is not something that I can drink quickly, at least not starting from complete sobriety. That’s not to say it isn’t interesting, which it certainly is.
This is what we’re looking for.
Something I love about the restaurants here in Daqing - there is a wide spectrum of regional Chinese and Asian cuisines to choose from, and there is often a unique homebrew alcohol experience in tow. It’s not something that I particularly would even look for in a shop, but as something to add to the experience, it’s great. Makgeolli looks like someone tried to mix grape Gatorade with milk, but tastes like centuries of history. This is exactly the type of stuff we’re looking for, guys. ◉
Written by Seth Barham
