In Jeonju, makgeolli comes by the kettle, not the bottle

Right now

1. 1One kettle means one spread of side dishes. The food is not a freebie but part of the kettle price, so if there is something you cannot eat, ask to have it left off when you order.
2. 2This is evening trade. Turning up in the daytime and finding the door shut is common, so once you have picked a place, phone ahead.
3. 3Dropping a pin on Samcheon-dong Makgeolli Alley in a map app can put you on the wrong block. The shops still trading are on the Samcheon 2-dong side, and the landmark is Geomasan-ro.

What to have ready

• Someone to go with: One kettle holds three 750 millilitre bottles of makgeolli. It is not a quantity for one person.
• Cash or a card: Some of the older places have no card reader.
• An empty stomach: A single spread runs to more than ten dishes. Eat dinner first and most of it goes back.
• ID: Moju is alcohol too. You may be asked to prove your age.

Phrases you can copy and paste

Step by step

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   Start at the Jeonju Traditional Liquor Museum to see what you will be drinking

   Where:

   Inside the hanok village, on Hanji-gil

   How long:

   Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 18:00, until 20:00 from 1 June to 31 October

   Cost:

   Admission free. Classes: brewing 25,000 won, moju straining 20,000 won, tasting 20,000 won for four kinds and 30,000 won for six

   A daytime stop here changes what the evening in the alley feels like. It opened inside the hanok village in 2002 and there is no admission charge. The exhibition follows the tools and stages of brewing, and once you have seen the earthenware jars, the steamer and the nuruk starter in person, the kettle you are handed later makes sense. With a booking you can brew your own batch from steamed rice and nuruk, or boil makgeolli down into moju and take it home in a bottle, though both need to be requested at least five days ahead. The tasting programme runs 30 to 50 minutes and covers representative traditional liquors sorted into clear rice wine, cloudy rice wine and soju. It is closed on Mondays, so if you arrive in Jeonju on a Monday, this step is off.

   74 Hanji-gil, Wansan-gu, Jeonju, Jeonbuk State, South Korea, ★ 3.9 (222)

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   Count kettles in Samcheon-dong Makgeolli Alley

   Where:

   A stretch of a little over 200 metres along Geomasan-ro in Wansan-gu

   Cost:

   Priced by the kettle. Each shop sets its own price, so check the menu board

   This is the original alley, designated by Jeonju City as part of its future heritage, with twenty or so makgeolli houses along 200 metres of road. You order by the kettle, not the bottle. One kettle holds three 750 millilitre bottles of makgeolli, and the moment you order, a spread of more than ten dishes lands on the table: savoury pancakes, tofu with kimchi, marinated crab and so on. Here is the part that confuses people. When you order another kettle the side dishes are replaced with a new set, and locals call these rounds the first, second and third cha. It is the same word used for moving from bar to bar over a night, but here it means staying put and ordering one more kettle. Government pages write that the practice began in the 1997 financial crisis, when a customer short of money who ordered makgeolli would be given a basic spread.

   712 Samcheon-dong 1-ga, Wansan-gu, Jeonju, Jeonbuk State, South Korea, ★ 3.6 (328)

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   What makgeolli is has been settled by law

   Where:

   Check the label on a bottle in any shop along the alley

   The Liquor Tax Act defines takju as a cloudy liquor made by fermenting grain, nuruk and water and leaving the mash unfiltered. What separates it from yakju is not the ingredients but whether it was strained. Yakju is the same base filtered clear, and takju has no filtering standard at all. The same goes for strength. Makgeolli is often described as a drink of so many percent, but the alcohol table in the enforcement decree of the Act does not list takju at all. It varies by product, so the only way to know is the label. Unpasteurised saeng makgeolli keeps fermenting in the bottle and gets stronger, and since that really does happen, the decree allows an extra 0.5 percent of tolerance to cover it. Jeonju City puts its makgeolli among the three great makgeolli of the country, and eighteen breweries in the city merged in 1970 to form the Jeonju Brewing Company.

   712 Samcheon-dong 1-ga, Wansan-gu, Jeonju, Jeonbuk State, South Korea

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   Gamaek is beer drunk in a shop, not a bar

   Where:

   Old corner shops in the alleys near Pungnammun

   Cost:

   The beer is priced separately from the snacks

   Gamaek is short for gage maekju, shop beer. Buying beer at the neighbourhood store and sitting down right there to drink it with a quick snack was everyday life that turned into a Jeonju drinking culture of its own, and Jeonju City says the same form is hard to find anywhere else. The sign says supermarket or convenience store, but there are tables inside and you fetch your beer from the fridge, so at first sight it is hard to be sure you are allowed to drink here. You are. The three places Jeonju City names as representative are Chowon Convenience Store at 32-1 Pungnammun 3-gil in Wansan-gu, which serves dried pollack grilled over charcoal, Jangteomok Rest Stop at 27 Sanwol 2-gil, known for its rolled omelette, and Gyeongwon Sanghoe, in the same spot since 1978. Opening hours are not published on the official pages, so check at the door.

   32-1 Pungnammun 3-gil, Wansan-gu, Jeonju, Jeonbuk State, South Korea, ★ 4.6 (99)

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   The next morning is bean sprout soup and moju

   Where:

   All over the city. The original Sambaekjip is near the Gaeksa

   Cost:

   Varies by shop

   In Jeonju, the day after drinking means kongnamul gukbap, rice soup with bean sprouts. There are two lineages. In the Sambaekjip style, the ingredients and stock go into an earthenware bowl and are brought to a rolling boil, then an egg is cracked in. In the Nambu Market style, cooled rice and boiled sprouts are dipped in and out of hot anchovy and kelp broth several times to warm them through. That dipping is called toryeom. The Nambu Market version comes with a separate poached egg drizzled with sesame oil and a sheet of toasted seaweed, which you can eat on their own or tip into the soup. Moju on the side is the Jeonju hangover cure. It is makgeolli simmered with jujube, cinnamon, ginger and other medicinal ingredients, so it is weak at around 1.5 percent, but anything over 1 percent alcohol counts as liquor under the law, and that is what it is. Do not let its sujeonggwa like sweetness fool you into offering it to a minor.

   22 Jeonjugaeksa 2-gil, Wansan-gu, Jeonju, Jeonbuk State, South Korea, ★ 4.0 (2,526)

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The Korean words

막걸리makgeolli, unfiltered rice wine

A cloudy liquor brewed from rice and left unstrained. The law calls it takju.

탁주takju, unfiltered liquor (legal term)

The name used in the Liquor Tax Act. It means a liquor left unfiltered and cloudy.

주전자jujeonja, kettle

The vessel makgeolli is served in. In Jeonju it is also the unit you order by.

안주anju, food eaten with alcohol

Food that comes with drink. In a Jeonju makgeolli house it is included in the kettle price.

모주moju, spiced simmered rice wine

A low alcohol drink made by simmering makgeolli with medicinal ingredients. In Jeonju it is drunk as a hangover cure.

가맥gamaek, beer drunk at a corner shop

Short for shop beer. A Jeonju way of drinking, seated inside the neighbourhood store.

토렴toryeom, warming rice by repeated dipping in hot broth

Warming rice by dipping it in and out of hot broth several times. The mark of Nambu Market style bean sprout soup.

생막걸리saeng-makgeolli, unpasteurized makgeolli

Makgeolli that has not been pasteurised. It keeps fermenting in the bottle.

Easy to miss

• ·The side dishes look free but they are built into the kettle price. If there is an ingredient you cannot eat, saying so when you order is easier for everyone.
• ·First round and second round here do not mean changing venues but adding kettles. If three of you went to a third round, that is three kettles, not three bars.
• ·The alley is shrinking. The last shop in the Samcheon 1-dong alley closed in 2023, and Samcheon 2-dong went from 21 shops in 2017 to 13. Trust an old pin in a map app and you will find an empty street.
• ·Every source lists the alleys differently. The current Jeonju City guide names Gyeongwon-dong, Samcheon-dong, Seosin-dong, Inhu and Ua-dong, while a 2014 government page also includes Pyeonghwa-dong and Junghwasan-dong. Go with an old list and you will be looking for alleys that no longer exist.
• ·Moju is alcohol. It is weak and sweet enough to pass for a soft drink, but anything over 1 percent alcohol is liquor under the law.
• ·Do not cycle after drinking. The Road Traffic Act bans drink driving on bicycles as well as cars. If you rode a Jeonju public bike to the alley, leave it there when you go home.

You can skip this if

• If you are on your own, this alley is not built for you. One kettle is three 750 millilitre bottles and the food is scaled to match. Solo, gamaek is the better fit.
• If you do not drink, the Jeonju Traditional Liquor Museum and a bowl of bean sprout soup tell the same story without the alley. The museum is free.
• If your trip runs on a precise budget, this alley is hard to plan for. No official page publishes kettle prices, and the spread differs from house to house.

Where this comes from

• Samcheon-dong Makgeolli Alley (Jeonju City Culture & Tourism)
• Samcheon 2-dong Makgeolli Alley (Korea Tourism Organization, Visit Korea)
• The taste and culture of Jeonju's makgeolli alleys (Korea Policy Briefing)
• Liquor Tax Act (Korean Law Information Center, Ministry of Government Legislation)
• Jeonju Traditional Liquor Museum
• Jeonju makgeolli alley shops closing one after another as prices rise and locals turn away (YTN)