Cheongju ✦

Cheongju

What it is

Cheongju is the clear wine drawn off the top of a fermented rice mash; stir water into what is left at the bottom and you have makgeolli, so the two are one brew divided. It is the wine of jesa, the rite for the ancestors, which is why it sits in Korean kitchens for reasons that have nothing to do with the pan.

In the kitchen

It is the odour-stripper of the Korean kitchen: a tablespoon over raw beef, pork or fish, ten minutes to sit, then patted dry before it goes near heat. In a galbi marinade add it raw and never boiled, so the alcohol carries the aromatics into the meat and burns off on the grill.

Goes with

Beef Pork Garlic Ginger Gochujang Doenjang Spring onion Pear

Same species

Akazu Arborio rice Rice paper (bánh tráng) Basmati rice Black glutinous rice Black rice

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