Dish · korean
Makgeolli
A milky, lightly fizzy rice wine made by fermenting steamed glutinous rice with water and yeast, then straining the mash while it's still cloudy with sediment. Mildly sweet and tangy, low in alcohol compared to distilled spirits.
Where it comes from
Makgeolli is one of Korea's oldest alcoholic drinks, brewed in farming households for centuries as an unrefined, unfiltered rice wine, historically associated with rural and working-class drinking rather than the more refined clear rice liquors served elsewhere.
What cooks argue about
The real variable is fermentation time and temperature: a shorter, warmer ferment gives a sweeter, more effervescent batch, while a longer, cooler ferment turns drier and more sour as the yeast consumes more sugar.
Nobody has published a makgeolli recipe yet. The page stays out of search until one exists, which is the rule for every thin page here.