![]() ![]() As South Korea went from being 95% rural to 80% urban throughout the 20th century, makgeolli gained a place in city culture as a cheap, wholesome drink. Even today, workers in the fields take breaks during harvest time to quaff the beverage. Dating at least as far back as the Goryeo dynasty (918 to 1392), the lightly carbonated brew has long been the tipple of choice of farmers. ![]() Makgeolli is not only a hiker’s drink, though. A lone hiker surveys the view from the mountain peak Were it a bit warmer, I reckon I would have come across groups enjoying boisterous forest picnics accompanied by a few bottles of rice wine. Along the way, I pass several exuberant hikers using poles to pick their way over stones and tree roots. My mountain trek is taking me to this village, where I hope to learn the craft behind traditional makgeolli production through an educational programme that started in 2018 and expanded last November. ![]() Watch as elderly villagers from Busan’s Geumjeongsan carry out a set of timeless rituals to prepare nuruk, a fermentation agent necessary for the brewing of makgeolli The serpentine sentinel also stands as a symbolic protector of the living history in the valley below, where authentic makgeolli continues to flow, unimpinged by the ever-modernising port city of 3.5 million people that lies just beyond the ridgeline. Today, the intact sections stretch for only 4km or so. It fell into disrepair before being partly demolished by Japanese colonisers in the early 20th century. While the wall’s steadfastness was never tested in the centuries that followed, its survival is a victory in itself. So tasty was the creamy, sour-sweet euphoriant that the builders continued to pine for it after the fortress was finished and they’d returned home. Toiling away as a corvée labourer on a project of this scale must have been a thankless task, except perhaps for the inducement of makgeolli – a milky-white, undistilled rice wine of around 6% to 8% alcohol by volume (ABV) – brewed in Sanseong Maeul, or Fortress Village, a small settlement in the mountain’s inner valley. The circular 18km wall was erected following invasions in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. My gaze shifts to a saddle below the peak, where I can make out a stone gate and a wall that resemble a long, undulating tube of dough. Due south, skyscrapers and a gossamer bridge meet a gold-leaf sea that stretches to a hazy horizon. ![]()
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