Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, is an ideal place to learn about the distinct historic home-brewing culture of South Korea.

Located in the far northeast of the region, Sansawon, which means “hawthorn garden,” exhibits various rice-based alcoholic drinks and offers opportunities to learn about them.


Rice, the main ingredient for most of the country’s traditional liquors, water and whole-wheat yeast, or nuruk, are used to make the country’s traditionally crafted adult beverages.

Run by local brewing company Baesangmyun Brewery, Sansawon also displays the process of making the yeast for soju, one of the most popular drinks here, which involves washing the wheat, mixing it with water, then filtering and fermenting it later.


At the gallery, wooden tools and artifacts are also displayed that were once used at home to make rice-based alcoholic drinks in the country’s long history of brewing alcohol that goes back as far as the Goryeo kingdom (918-1392) and Joseon era (1392-1910).

Historians estimate that the country has over 600 different traditional liquors, while some ways of making traditional brews were lost during the time of the Japanese colonization of the peninsula from 1910 to 1945.


Photo by Park Hyun-koo
Written by Bak Se-hwan