Sul of Korea – An introduction…
You might recognise Korea for many things, but do you recognise it for it’s alcohol?
Sul is synonymous with Ju, the Sino-Korean* word for alcohol. Literally translated, Sul means fired-water because it is derived or maybe I can say compounded from the elemental words, SU (water) and BUL (fire).
So just how is alcohol anything like fired-water? Well simple, it needs to go through the brewing process which means water is ‘fired’/boiled, hence fired-water!
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The equation for Sul
Now for the etymology of Sul:
Jewang-Ungi, is one of Korea’s historical archives. It was written in 1287 during the Goryeo Dynasty and in it was the first debut alcohol made into the pages of history. Briefly, the story was about a King who used alcohol to seduce a woman into having his child. They had a son and his name was Sul!
Now depending on your source, you will find that Korean liquor made up either of 5 or 6 kinds. Over here I’m going to say that there are basically 6 and they are:
- Yakju -refined pure liquor fermented from rice
- Soju -distilled liquors
- Takju -thick, unrefined liquor fermented from grains fruit wines
- Flower wines**, and
- Medicinal wines
*Sino-Korean are words in the Korean language vocabulary that either originated from, were borrowed from or were directly influenced by the Chinese language. Note that Ju is also a Chinese word.
**If your source says that there are only 5 kinds of Korean alcoholic beverages, then it’s likely that he has ignored this one.
I’ll be giving more details and pictures on the 6 different kinds of Korean liquor in an upcoming series of posts so please stay tuned…
Originally posted 2008-10-21 00:09:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
[...] Sul of Korea – An introduction…Jewang-Ungi, is one of Korea’s historical archives. It was written in 1287 during the Goryeo Dynasty and in it was the first debut alcohol made into the pages of history. Briefly, the story was about a King who used alcohol to seduce a … [...]
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