Korea and soju; the two are pretty intertwined. My dad likes to tell the story about how he once had a bad bottle of soju in South Korea. When I asked him why he thought that particular bottle was “bad,” he replied, “It was my third bottle in a row and it just tasted off. It made me sick.” Yeah, probably not the fact that it was his third bottle, right? Ha.

In 2014, Jinro soju was the largest selling alcohol in the world with sales of 71 million cases world wide. In 2015, they really brought the ruckus though with flavored soju. 

Yes, we’ve been flavoring it ourselves by mixing it with soda or juice, but last year was the first year that we could buy pre-bottled flavored soju in the store. And, it’s addictively good. I don’t like “blue” (blueberry?) or “red” (pomegranate?) -but I’m all about the flavors grapefruit, peach, or pineapple. It’s drinkable on its own but it’s especially refreshing mixed with Sprite (or Korean Cider).

I just can’t believe that soju has been around since the 1300s but it took until the year 2015 to sell flavored soju. 2015! Unbelievable.