On the edge of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is Hana Makgeolli, a brewery and tasting room in a league of its own. Opened in 2020, the airy, industrial space is the first brewery of sool (Korean alcohol) in America. Variations of sool include takju, yakju, and, perhaps the best-known Stateside, makgeolli—a Korean rice wine that looks like milk. It’s most commonly thought of as a sweet, gulp-ready beverage sold in green plastic bottles. Hana Makgeolli’s founder, Alice Jun, is working to change that.
“The daily misconception we are fighting is that makgeolli should be light and sweet,” says the 30-year-old Jun. “But in no other beverage category do you see wine or alcohol fermented up to 20 percent A.B.V., then diluted by more than 75 percent.” Unlike traditional Korean rice wine, the kinds sold in America are cheap and sweetened with aspartame. “This was the only type imported into the U.S.”
