Dish · korean
Soju
A clear distilled spirit, traditionally made from rice but often stretched with sweet potato or other starches, drunk neat in small glasses and passed around the table.
Where it comes from
Soju was originally rice-based, but a government ban on using rice to make alcohol, imposed during food shortages, pushed distillers to sweet potato and other cheap starches, a substitution that stuck even after rice returned.
What cooks argue about
Drinkers argue over rice-based soju, rounder and slightly sweet, versus sweet-potato-based, sharper and more neutral, though most mass-market bottles today blend neutral alcohol with either.
Nobody has published a soju recipe yet. The page stays out of search until one exists, which is the rule for every thin page here.