If something is good, let’s mess around with it and try to make it better seems to have been the call to arms down South as the always reliable Busan Saengtak Makgeolli underwent a makeover and lo and behold both a ‘Premium’ and a ‘Mild’ version were conceived. The ‘mild’ is something I may never drag myself to blog about but I was intrigued to see how they would take a makgeolli that has slowly grown into one of my favourites and make it better….spoiler alert….they made it 1% stronger.
The 1% is not the only change to this version as they also went for solely Korean rice instead of a variety of different ones which, it would seem, earns it the “Premium” tagline. Saengtak is already a very good makgeolli so it was always going to be difficult to improve upon it. Thankfully neither that extra 1% or the change of sourced rice has impacted negatively in terms of the taste as can so often happen with beers for example, Tennent’s Super I’m looking at you. I’ve seen a few “premium” rice wine upgrades of late and most seem to be increasing the 6% to 7% , as a Scotsman I’m all for that extra dash of alcohol but quite whether I’d call that making it “premium” is another question.
- Busan’s now “premium” local rice wine
- Expect to pay around 2000W
- Goes well with most things but always good with jeon
- Alcohol – 7%