Beating Boknal 2 (복날) Summer Foods
What do you eat when the memi are screaming and sweat is dribbling down your back and sides? There are numerous seasonal specials (보양식) which fall into the categories of either ‘hot’ or ‘cold.’ The ‘cold’ approach is probably the most popular with westerners and drinking cold drinks, eating ice cream and salads are the methods we are most likely to adopt to remain comfortable. Koreans however, stand this notion on its head when they consume ‘hot’ food to consume body heat hence fighting fire with fire. The ‘hot’ food is generally ‘hot’ in terms of temperature rather than chillies and would be similar to stuffing your face on the hottest English afternoon with a hearty casserole and dumplings; something we’d generally eat only in the depths of winter. In Korea, it isn’t a case of one or the other and most Koreans will mix the two extremes in an attempt to beat the heat. Bo-yang-shik (height of summer foods – 보양식) are seen as beneficial in either improving ones toleration of hot, muggy weather, or in cooling one down.
Boknal (복날)
Boknal (복날) is a period of around twenty days which are based on the lunar calendar and this year began on July 19th (ch’obok -초복). There are three days (sambok – 삼복) which Korean perceive as the hottest and they are ten days apart. This year, 2010, sambok are respectively, July 19th (ch’obok – 초복), July 29th (Jungbok – 중복), and August 8th (malbok – 말복). I hate the heat and especially dislike humidity but unfortunately I live in Daegu, the hottest part of Korea in the summer and the warmest in winter. This week the temperature has been as high as 37 and so the memi are particularly noisy.
Through Boknal, and on each of the consecutive sambok day it is a tradition to eat some form of special food, usually one of the ‘hot’ types such as sam-kye-tang (삼게탕 – chicken ginseng soup), or dog stew (po-shin-tang – 보신탕), but cold meals, buckwheat noodle soup (냉면 – naengmyon), or soya bean milk noodles (콩국수 – kongkuksu), are also popular.
For some, mostly older men, dog stew is a favourite and in addition to the belief it fortifies one against hot weather, it is also one of the numerous foods which are supposed to enhance male sexual stamina. I recently spoke to a friend who is quite adamant that dog stew and dodok (더덕 – codonopsis lanceolata) give him a harder erection. I eat dodok everyday and haven’t noticed anything but then I’m 54 and he’s 25. As for the dog stew, I’ll pass. I ate it for the first time with the aforementioned friend and his father, in 2000. I wasn’t enamored to it. First, I couldn’t get the image of little dogs out of my head and then there was the ‘starter,’ small bits of dog skin wrapped on a bone so that when barbecued they whirled around it. Trying to make a pouch on a platter look pretty seemed to make it more difficult to eat. I have no problem with eating any kind of animal yet have a dormant ethical problem with eating animals – per se! I would imagine many people share this weak-willed position. To be honest, I have to snigger at those waygukins who condemn Koreans for eating dog and yet raise no criticism of their own culture where eating rabbit is accepted. Koreans usually find the idea of eating rabbits distasteful. Tell Koreans you’ve eaten rabbit and quite a few will insist, ‘it’s a pet!’ As Herodotus said, ‘nomos is King of all!’ The dog issue tends to inflame passions but what should be remembered is that it is not the eating of dog that should be the offense, but the alleged manner in which they are slaughtered. And though some may argue dogs have a special relationship to humans, this is a culturally specific relationship and not one of universal, eternal properties. Personally, I’d rather have a pig for a pet than a dog. In 2001, my one room had no air conditioning and the dog stew did nothing noticeable to fortify my constituency against heat and humidity and certainly never stirred my passions.
This is my sam-kye-tang. (Click photo for link to the Queen of Korean cooking, Maangchi) )
Sam-kye-tang is one of my favourites though I prefer eating it in the winter. At lunch time that small chicken, the wadge of gluttonous rice and a gallon of broth, simply bloat my belly and start me sweating profusely. But it is delicious in the Korean sense of the word. I occasionally make sam-kye-tang if I feel tired or have a cold.
Wholesome (Maangchi link)
And I would find kong-kuk-su (콩국수) mightily refreshing if not packed with noodles. I enjoy the icy soya milk broth, with its slightly salty tang but those noodles don’t do me any good. I don’t know why it is but kong-kuk-su always seems to be served in large portions while naengmyon (냉면), for example, is often served in a smaller portion.
Soya broth milk noodles (Link to Maangchi)
Mul-naeng-myon (물냉면) is my boknal baby! I can eat this on a hot lunch time and then walk on into work without breaking into an excessive sweat. I love the tangy combination of vinegar, salt and sugar and have a hard job keeping the broth in my freezer if I have made a batch. I can remember the first time I ate naengmyon; it was on a hot Sunday afternoon, in early August, after a mountain hike in Song-So. I quite disliked it! What a freaking horrid combination; watery broth with a clump of sticky buckwheat noodles that are impervious to mastication and almost impossible to eat without sucking the whole clump up. And then there’s the slice of pear, and the ice cubes and as for the lonely, wafer thin slide of beef, you’d think it had fallen in the bowl from another meal – it’s appearance a mistake! Naengmyon is sweet, and salty, and tangy – is it a dessert or a savoury meal? And as for the vinegar and mustard which are added to it… Since then, mul-naeng-myon, and particularly Pyongyang mul-naeng-myon, have grown on me. If you have never eaten it, it must sound quite gross but when the weather is scorching hot and your covered in sweat, it is one of the most delicious and refreshing meals. Even the sound of the ice cubes tinkling and jingling against the sides of the stainless steel bowl in which it is traditionally served, are refreshing.
Mul naengmyon (물냉면) 시원해요!
I suppose naengmyon is the sort of food you eat at a heightened sense of reality, especially if you’ve just come down from a mountain – a feat which always seems harder than going up, and at a point when you’re body and mind feel good, it’s scorching hot and humid and you’re sweating profusely. Enjoying naengmyon at this point is an integral part of the summer experience and so I never enjoy it, or feel a need to eat it, in the middle of winter. To truly enjoy naengmyon it has to be hot, boknal hot, horribly humid, you have to be sweating and you have to be tired. Naengmyon shares a lot in common with Pimms No 1, that British summer drink, only ever drunk outside under the sun, and accompanied by ice, slices of cucumber, summer fruits and mint. One should never drink Pimm’s indoors or in winter and though this might be deemed snobbery, Pimm’s only really seems to ‘work’ when this is observed.
Finally, and wonderfully refreshing, is patpingsu (받빙수). This is rice cake, sweetened tinned fruits, red beans, and condensed milk on a bed of flaked ice which is often topped with spray cream. There are many variations of this refreshing ‘dessert.’
Patpingsu – usually shared with friends (받빙수) (click photo link to Hangook Summer)
Green tea patpinsu (photo link to Hangook Summer)
Other means of beating boknal
cereal teas
iced coffee
silver summer trousers
handkerchiefs and towels
ice rooms and cold pools
cold showers
hand fans
© Nick Elwood 2010. This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Peaches – Monday market
Looking at the Peaches
Koreans have this habit of eating fruit that I wouldn’t classify as ripe. Of course, it’s cultural but when I bought a ‘box’ of delicious looking peaches I discovered they were like cricket balls – hard! They do the same with persimmon. Yea, I should have poked them before purchase but didn’t. I like peaches soft and juicy. Currently, they’re sitting in my fridge in the hope they might ripen. Putting them on the window ledge is out of the question as it will attracts those annoying little ‘day flies’ which prevent you leaving any fruit or vegetable peelings in the bin for more than a couple of hours. White peaches are really delicious but I haven’t seen any this year and they are always more expensive.
The tomatoes are even bigger than a few weeks ago and are now bigger than the first of the green apples – perhaps it’s because of all the rain.
Massive tomatoes
© Nick Elwood 2010. This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Migwang Bathhouse on a Sunday Morning
Bathhouse view over city
I’ve been in Cambodia for a few days and today was the first opportunity in over a week to wallow in the e-bente-tang (이벤트탕). I was visiting Migwang jjimjilbang in Song-So, Daegu. Though a Sunday morning at 8.45am, it was the quietest I have known it and quieter than the odd occasions when I have been in the bathhouse at 3 or 4 am.
Today it’s 35 degrees and even at 8.15 the memi were screaming from passing trees. At this time of year, with the screaming in chorus, you can hear them in a taxi with the windows closed. As is usual in hot weather, I head straight for the cold pool once I have had a shower and shave, but today I noticed something very special. I often joke to my friends about the e-bente-pool and tell them how I lay waiting for them to start spinning or jiggling up and down, but they never do. The very term ‘e-bente’ is a bit of an anti-climax and in the English use of the word merely adding a smell to the water doesn’t really constitute an ‘event.’ An ‘event’ implies something out of the ordinary or special. The very first time the complex management added an aroma to the water constituted an event which subsequently became a normal feature and a bit of a ‘non-event.’ Today however, I noticed the water has been coloured deep pink to complement the ‘herb’ aroma. So, by-passing the cold pool, I head straight for some pink pampering. Hardly much of an ‘event,’ but after waiting for over a year for something to happen, anything is better than nothing.
As I’m wallowing, I suddenly become aware of other subtitle changes. The ceiling has been cleaned and new pattern section as been placed above the central baths. In the cold pool, I discover a ledge has been built against the far wall and is big enough to sit on. One this, at intermittent spaces of about a meter, big enough to park my fat arse, are various devices which look like various kinds of fountain; I can’t tell as I don’t think it has been finished yet. Above these are multi-coloured light fittings. It looks like the lights and fitting may comprise a new water feature. Migwang is obviously doing well financially as every holiday new items miraculously appear. Several months ago the gigantic tropical islands photos surrounding the cold pool were replaced with new ones, the tiles in the high-powered shower replaced with ones of sunflowers, and a long strip of jagged paving stone, to walk on and stimulate the soles of the feet, a torture Koreans’ seem to enjoy, was installed.
Bathhouse overlooking city
By 11 am, the bathhouse is busier and I’m treated to a display of some guy doing a complete taekwondo workout. Another guy, cooling in the cold pool, directly behind the guy exercising, is treated to a peek up his back passage when, on several occasions, he stretches downwards to put his head between his knees and place the palms of his hands flat on the floor. In the e-bente-tang a teenage boy and his dad are caressing each other. The dad is sitting between his sons outstretched legs while his son pummels his shoulders and massages his back. They wrestles in the water for a while, wrapping their legs around each other and at one point, the boy bites his father’s toe. When they watch the TV together, I notice how close they sit to each , almost like lovers, their heads are almost touching; I notice them later on when they are walking between the pools either hand in hand or with their arms around each other. I wish I could have had such intimacy with my father; I don’t think I ever massaged his shoulders or scrubbed his back and sitting that close to each other, as adults, even when clothed, would have been uncomfortable. If you see anything sexual in such a reflection you’re clearly a dirty waygukin with a perverted mind!
Ohhhhh! Summer’s heavenly haven
There is another teenage boy with his dad, probably about 14 and he has got the most enormous dick: if you watch the faces of other men as the boy passes them, you can see them peek at it. When they’re sitting in the e-bente-tang, the boy makes several visits to the ice-room where collecting a handful of ice, he takes it back into the pool and commences to massage it over his father’s head. In typical Korean fashion, his father makes loud noises to express his pleasure at the sensation.
© Nick Elwood 2010. This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Korean Teenagers' Wacky World of 'Vacation' Fashions
Just when you thought you knew the kids in your classes they turn up with hair dyed red, or sporting the poodle perm. It’s especially worse with the girls as an adult hair style forces you to acknowledge the fact they are young women and not the kids that they’ve appeared as all year. Yes, the summer ‘vacations’ have arrived and through the blurry haze of humidity and the incessant chirping of the memi, a weird wackiness prevails.
Vacation hair fashion
The perms, if that’s what you call them, as I’m not au fait with the methods of metamorphosis used by women, are heavily discounted over the school ‘vacations’ and cost as little as 20.000 W (£10). This year, common trends seem to involve tinting the hair with a touch of burgundy, a summer fashion common with boys as well as girls and of course, the perm, which has been popular for several years. While boys may grow their hair longer, or at least as long as you can grow it in around 40 days ‘vacation,’ girls often paint their nails in quite adventurous and beautiful ways. Along with the various hair styles is a concurrent rise is temporary tattoos. Most of these tend to depict fantasy book characters though unicorns seem to be particularly fashionable on younger girls. Blurred and blotchy tattoos declaring filial devotion to ‘Mum and Dad,’ or the British Bulldog, are as non-existent in Korea as tattoos in Chinese characters declaring the wearer to be ‘female’ (女), this being a frequently observed ‘fashion’ in the UK. And to accompany ‘grown-up hair styles a little leniency is given to earrings, rings and other forms of jewelery bar anything which pierces or punctures the face or drives studs through noses or tongues. The great thing about Korean kiddy vacation fashions is that they are temporary and as such have to wash-off, wash-out, come-off, cut-off or un-clip, which is the destiny they all face once the new term is looming. For kids it provides a period of self-expression and/or momentary madness which helps wash away the stresses and strains of the past academic year.
Vacation fashion - the shaggy perm
A little re-touch needed
I find the perms particularly unattractive. Korean hair, especially on youngsters, is wonderfully beautiful, full of lustre , body and that typically black-blue, black. The perm bakes and frizzles the life out of hair and the ensuing curls and kinks undermine rather than enhance the original appeal. Of course, I’m missing the point! ‘Vacation’ fashions are a symbol of freedom which I understand is precious especially as kids don’t really have a vacation. Only in Korea can you have a ‘vacation’ that isn’t really a vacation but not to worry, you can perm your hair and mutate into a spaniel look-a-like for your ‘vacation’ classes and summer school! Unfortunately, if your destined for a ‘vacation’ boot-camp you’re buggered! Personally, in the muggy sweat of summer the only comfortable hairdo is a number 4 buzz with a pair of hair clippers.
Love those locks!
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Feeling a little Dicky
작은 고추가 맵다! Big things come in small packages
I haven’t been to the bathhouse lately as I’ve been feeling a bit dicky after a mild touch of food poisoning and I’ve been giving some thought to the topic of dicks. It’s the fault of the GS 25 convenience store near my one room which has a tendency to hire attractive students who lure me into their domain partly because of the motto worn on the back of their jackets, fresh, friendly, fun, but also because I usually fancy something hot before bed. The latest boy also wears a pink badge which says, ‘I love you.’ They should pay him extra money to wear the jacket and badge. Those kids are crappily paid, something like 4000 Won (£2) an hour, and I’m aware I could probably lure them with some extra won, if I was in some seedy dump like Tangier or Tijuana, but no one has any free time here and besides, vibrant economies tend to put a damper on the extremes driven to by financial desperation.
Small and hot
Clacton on Sea in Essex, UK! Now there’s a place as seedy as dirt holes like Tangier or Tijuana. You don’t have to travel with a passport to find economic, intellectual and cultural poverty if you’re British, Clacton provides it all. I’ve taught in most of the senior schools in ‘Clacky,’ an experience enough to terminate any interest in teaching as a career. Here’s a snippet from a diary entry for February 2000.
I don’t enjoy my contract day as I feel responsible for the classes. It’s much more fun when I just do cover. It was an okay day but the lads in my last class, Year 10, bottom set business studies (my pet hate) spent most of the time messing around. There were only four of them and I’m sure a couple of them are prostitutes – Clacton is that sort of place and I believe that the Macdonalds in the town center is where you pick them up. The boys sit with their knees wide apart, one keeps tugging at his dick and their conversation is usually about sex.
‘Do you fancy ‘him,’ Paul?’ asked one boy hitching his head to indicate me.
‘If he’s got the money.’ Later, Paul asked me to sign his report. ‘Go on, Sir, give me a good one. Just a few good comments to keep my parents off my back. I’ll do anything you want.’ I looked at him and raised my eyebrows. ‘Even that,’ he replied. A few weeks ago I over heard this boy say he’d like to be a male prostitute. His friend asked if he’d do it with men. He told him he’d do it with anybody as long as he got paid.
I could probably pick up a local faecalapod in Clacky with as much ease as you could in Tangier, except I’m not into dirt or STI’s and the hottest thing I’m going to pick up in GS25 in Song-So is a cup of hot chocolate. The new boy is skinny and he reminds me of a former student. Because of centuries of genetic isolation, Koreans tend to look much more like each other than we mongrel wayukins. Even beyond the black hair and dark eyes, I tend to note similarities in a passing stranger with the features of old friends or former students. I don’t know if there been any research done on the subject but sometimes I think there must be less than 15 basic appearances from which most Koreans slightly deviate.
Phrenology
The skinny lad won’t last long, the students in the store tend to change about every three months. It must be a frigging bore of a job working through the night and I’ve no idea what’s on their pads ‘n’ pods but some of them seem to spend the whole evening on them and will instantly discard them as they jump to attention, when you walk into the store. Some read books but even then there is usually a pad or pod in sight.
'Peter Peppers' or 'Chilli Willies' - though they may be look-a-likes (Yonhap News)
And of course, it’s chilli season. Talking of willies, phallic shaped chillies are probably a freak of nature in Korea but in Louisiana and Texas, USA, a type of chilli, the ‘Peter Pepper’ or ‘Chilly Willy,’ is renowned for producing consistently cheeky chillies. The website ‘Chilli Willy®‘ markets the appropriate seeds, provides growing tips and hosts a regular photo competition. Do they have the same kick? I’ve no idea but in Korea it’s a well-known idiom that the smallest chillies are the fiercest (작은 고추가 맵다). Globally however, Korean chillies are far from the hottest or smallest. For a wealth of information on the world of the hottest chillies visit: http://www.scottrobertsweb.com/scoville-scale.php
A genuine 'Chilli Willi®'
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Season of the Memi
Arrival
I’ve been waiting to hear the first memi (매미) of the season and was particularly eager to note whether my bollocks were stuck to my legs and sweat trickling down my back in rivulets. The memi ‘sings’ from 29 degrees (84 degrees Fahrenheit) and above. Currently, they will be making their way from the ground up into the trees, ready to start their summer song. I’ve only seen the occasional solitary memi moving up a tree but stumbled across a video of several hundred moving up a trunk. (Link to Korean memi video)
I heard the first memi at 1400 as I was taking a photo of a pomegranate tree and when I realised what it was, I made a mental note – my balls weren’t stuck to my leg and I wasn’t sweating. Not surprising really as I’d only been out of my apartment for less than two minutes and my room had been fairly cool!
Midnight memi
I actually managed to capture the very first call before it finished. You can hear the ‘song’ here but I recommend you turn your volume down as I was surprised how loud the recording is. A memi singing in your ear hole, or through your speakers, can have a capacity of 120dB, enough to cause permanent damage to your sense of hearing.
In summer the memi (매미 – cicada) sing with intensity, in actual fact their song begins at 84 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4 C) and dominates the summer. This was a recording of the first memi of the year, I heard on July 8th. When the memi are screaming, you know it’s high summer.
On Hearing the First Memi of Summer 2010: Flicka Video
On Hearing the First Memi of Summer 2010: MP3
Footnote
From the pomegranate tree near my apartment to my school is 3 minutes walk, and by the time I was half way there another memi screamed from a passing tree. At that point, sweat was trickling down my back and face, my nether regions were stuck to one leg. Summer is definitely here!
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Related Articles
Beach Bum Teachers
I took a walk around Keimyung University, Daegu, and passed a couple of plastic professors one of whom wore a three piece suit and the other, white trousers, jacket and a Panama hat. True there were a few casually dressed waygukins kicking about but I assume these to be students so as not to spoil my myopic view of the world.
Keimyung is a beautiful campus and supposedly, one of the ten most attractive campuses in Korea. I was lucky enough to have attended Essex University in the UK, and indeed own a house only 15 minutes walk from the campus. As a first year student in halls of residence, my room looked out over Wivenhoe Park which was the subject and title for John Constable’s 1816 painting. I never really appreciated the importance of beautiful surroundings and university campus life until I subsequently studied in London where the University probably owned one tree – everything else being brick and tarmac.
For a year, this was my view as I ate breakfast
Swanning about in a boater or three piece suit with a dickie bow, even if you’re professorship is plastic, is so much more sophisticated with a beautiful campus as a backdrop. True, Oxford and Cambridge aren’t set in beautifully rural settings but the sense of the numinous imparted by ancient architecture is just as effective and maybe more so.
Keimyung traditional architecture and the distant city
Traditional and modern typify Keimyung campus
Two miles down the road from Keimyung, in Song-So, there are no boaters or dickie-bows. When you’re teaching in a haggwon a three piece suit is an overstatement. Around Song-So’s haggwons the predominate form of dress for teachers is casual and hence cargo shorts, shorts, flip flops, vests and all manner of clothing suitable to a Thai beach, building site or the set of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, are common.
Traditional architecture
Now, I come from Britain where the weather is notoriously shitty and where you can generally wear the same type of clothing all year. The same thickness of jeans material will suffice throughout the year but may be a little warm in summer but the need for three types of clothing, basically, winter, summer and spring/autumn, as in Korea, is not necessary. However, in many parts of Canada and Australia, and definitely the USA, the summer temperatures and even precipitation are not a lot different to that of Korea. I used to play in a military band and have marched through Calgary, Canada, in a temperature of 44 degrees and I wore full ceremonial uniform and not a pair or cargo shorts and flip flops. I remember Washington DC being very uncomfortable and air conditioning, something of a domestic rarity in the UK, was a necessity. What I didn’t see however, were Americans or Canadians going to work, certainly not professional work, dressed like beach bums.
I get annoyed seeing westerners going into schools dressed like they’re on vacation and see it as a form of racism and symptomatic of cultural ignorance. In my high school, and in haggwons in which I have taught, the dress code, set by co-workers, certainly wasn’t beach wear. Eighteen months ago, we hired a Canadian gyopo (교포). He had never lived or worked in Korea and spoke little Korean but would turn up for work wearing torn jeans which he wore so far past his hips his boxers were constantly on display. Meanwhile, his hems were worn away from having been constantly walked on. Dressing like a shit-bag puts immense pressure on haggwon bosses and while some, like bosses everywhere, are tossers and deserve it, many are decent and well meaning. Neither is it fair on Korean co-workers when foreign staff dress for a beach party while they dress, like professionals, for work.
If I were employing a waygukin, I’d certainly want to see a photo and I’d probably want to ask: what they would intend to wear to school? If they can get themselves to school via the shower and shaver, and if they piss it up every evening? But then I’m inclined to fascism! Easier, I’d probably employ waygukin’s with professional teaching qualifications beyond the month long TEFL, ESL certificate and who’d actually had real jobs to both check out references and as a means of assuming they will be acquainted with what to wear to work, and how to behave in work. You read so many gripes about westerners not being treated fairly and while a lot are genuine, many will be the result of waygukins who treat working in Korea as part of a backpacking holiday. It is disrespectful, even racist to treat your host culture with less consideration than you would you own culture, regardless of your personal opinions, more so when there is little or no difference between them in terms of work place etiquette and its associated expectations.
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Monster Tomatoes – Monday Market
Tomatoes
For almost a month now, beefsteak tomatoes, the largest tomato of the family, have been in abundance in the street markets. They are truly enormous though they lack the sweetness of smaller varieties. Compared to Britain, the hotter weather, intense June-July rain fall and a long sunny day, are all factors which greatly increase the speed at which plants in Korea grow.
A box costs between 5000-8000 Won (£2-50-£4)
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The Rainy Season (장마)
The rainy season, known as the changma (장마) has arrived and will last most of June and July after which the hanyorum (한여름), the hottest period of summer with high humidity and temperatures reaching 38 degrees, will set in. The changma will produce 60% of Korea’s annual rainfall in less than 2 months. This period is typified by torrential rain which provides a momentary coolness before the humidity rises uncomfortably. Daegu is the hottest part of Korea during the summer.
Rainy season chaos
Start of Chang ma June 17 2008, Ch'eonan
Rainy season over the basketball courts. June 17, 2008 Ch'eonan
Start of the rainy season, Daegu, June 15th, 2010
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Oriental/Japanese Apricot (매실. 梅實) Prunus Mume, and some uses
- Oriental Apricot/plum (매실)
June, and Japanese Apricot is available in the street markets and in supermarkets. A very large bagful costs about 20.000 Won (£10) and in E-Marte 1-5 kg costs 7.500 Won. The apricot (매실) appears across Asia and is used as a delicious sweet drink, flavours various alcoholic drinks most notably plum wine, it can be pickled or salted,in China it is used in the making of plum sauce and it is also made into a tea. It has plummy-almondy taste. The juice is also common as a household remedy for an upset stomach.
- Around 20000 Won a bag
- Non alcoholic but delicious
Making either Japanese Apricot juice or alcohol is straight forward. For juice, simply put the fruit into a container with the equivalent weight of sugar. Do exactly the same for the alcoholic version except cover it with soju. The sealed container should then be stored for 3 months.
- Pretty boring in this condition
- Homemade alcohol and juice
- Refreshing
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