VICE News
By Tae Yoon
Nov 8 2015, 9:00am
As South Korea’s most popular alcohol until 1988, makgeolli was favored among farmers and the working class. It's recently made a comeback among Korean youth and even celebrities who put creedence in its reputation as a healthier booze.
The name of almost every Korean booze ends in the suffix -ju, which unsurprisingly translates to "alcohol." Beer is maegju, whiskey is yangju, and soju is well, soju.
There's also nongju, which literally translates to "farmer's alcohol." Better known nowadays as makgeolli (meaning "roughly strained"), this unfiltered rice wine is Korea's oldest liquor. Made from nothing more than fermented rice, yeast, and water, makgeolli typically contains 6 to 8 percent alcohol, is often milky and semi-sweet, and slightly fizzy from the fermentation process.
…