It was sunny and beautiful on our 2nd day here, and we were very excited about all the activities which were going to happen. We had a private tour to go to Pocheon City to visit a brewery of makgeolli (or "makkoli" - Korean cloudy rice wine).
Pocheon is almost 2 hours from Seoul by car, situated in a
far north-eastern mountainous inland region of Korea, so it’s much closer to
the border with North Korea. On
our way there, we enjoyed our conversation with our tour guide, Yoo-san. Once we were closer to Pocheon, the
scenery turned into a beautiful mountainous countryside with lots of
nature. Yoo-san said Pocheon is
historically known for its mineral-rich pure quality spring water, so there are
traditional makgeolli producers there.
We got to the makgeolli brewery, Sansawon, and had a tour of
its property. There were hundreds
of big vases to ferment makgeolli in the wide-spread outdoor area. The view was really beautiful.
It was my dream to take a bath in makgeolli!
Inside of the building is a Korean liquor museum, where many
traditional liquor and rice wine equipments as well as historical documents are
displayed. After the museum tour,
we were taken to a tasting room, where there were about 2 dozens of makgeolli
and rice wine/ liquor products to taste!
There were also traditional snacks to sample along with makgeolli,
including makgeolli-pickled vegetables.
I enjoyed tasting all the makgeolli drinks. There were many interesting kinds,
including grape makgeolli, dandelion rice wine, herb rice wine, etc. My favorite among all the makgeolli we
tasted was raw makgeolli, which was just bottled a day before. It was so rich and extremely fresh! It was such a fun tasting, and we even
got bottles of different makgeolli as souvenirs.
Next stop was a fresh tofu restaurant which was not far from Sansawon. We got to try making
our fresh tofu in the traditional way by grinding soybeans (to make soymilk) in
a stone grinder by hand.
Once the soybeans were ground to soymilk, it was heated, and
nigari liquid was added at the table to make tofu. The fresh warm tofu was so comforting.
We also got to cook our own kamja jeon (potato pancakes).
Our lunch also included make-your-own bibimbop with barley
rice, freshly-pressed tofu, and cheonggukjang (fermented soybean stew). And, we had more makgeolli! It was a lovely rustic lunch.
On our way back to Seoul, after tasting good amount of
makgeolli, both Mom and I had a nice nap in the car. Our next stop was Kimchi World in Insa-dong district in
Seoul. We took a cooking class
there.
We made kimchi again.
The style of kimchi we made was different from the kimchi-making class we took last year, but it was also fun and interesting.
We also made traditional tteokbokki(rice cake) dish. The kochujang sauce was hot and tasty.
Our full-day private tour ended with shopping for some
souvenirs. What a great tour it
was…we had a blast, and also had great experiences learning about Korean
culture!
