424: The Makgeolli Moment Is Now with Alice Jun of Hana Makgeolli

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. When you drink the sur, it's obvious that it's Hanamakali. And if it wasn't for this community and their guidance and encouragement, I don't think that we would have been able to continue or been able to get to the point of creating seven different expressions of the same rice that are all so different from each other, but still same. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel.

0:59Alice Jun is the founder and brewer at Hana Makali, an artisanal Korean rice wine producer based in Brooklyn, New York. She's dedicated her life to uplifting the category as an artisanal drink here in the U.S. using only organic rice, nuruk, and traditional brewing methodologies to achieve complex flavors. And it's so fun to have her on the show to go deep on the special rising beverage category.

1:30Awas Jun, this is Taste. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you for bringing drinks with you. It's the perfect day to drink Omija Makkali. Yeah. Tell us what we're drinking. Omija Makkali was about the fourth or fifth cuvee we ever launched back in 2021. It is our summer suh made with Omija berries or shisandra berries. And a tiny bit of whole hibiscus flowers. It's diluted down to 10 % ABV, lightly carbonated naturally, and a very dry and electric summer wine. I'm taking little sips of it right now. It is the most beautiful kind of, I don't even want to say millennial pink, like blush pink color.

2:19Like strawberry milk. Strawberry milk. Oh, that's much cuter. It's a strawberry milk color. Yeah. And it has this like nice tartness and fizz. For somebody listening who maybe hasn't had makgeolli before, can you just give like a basic overview of what it is? Yeah. You know, it's a niche category. Despite that, of course, many people have lots of different types of definitions. But the way we define makgeolli at Hanamakali is that makgeolli is a fermented style of Korean rice wine characterized by its sediment. And it's typically under 10 % ABV or 10 % ABV and under. and it is but one style of Korean rice wine within the overall category that is su.

3:06In this overall category, like how many different expressions are we talking about with makgeolli being one example? You know, generally speaking, it can be kind of clumped up into a few different styles. There's, of course, makgeollis. There's takjus that are sedimented and imply above 10 % ABV. Yakju's or Chengju's that are clarified styles Soju, which we obviously know as the distillate of the category But also, you know, Yiwhaju's that are a solid type of su Wait, when you say solid Like an edible type of su And there's also Kwahaju, which is a fortified type of su And, you know, in terms of the number of expressions it is actually uncountable or incomprehensible the number of styles if we look back at the entire history or tradition of the category.

4:00Today, luckily, we're kind of at what I think is the beginning of the new age for Sue. And we are already, you know, thousands of producers in the world. Obviously, most of them are located in Korea. I love thinking about this whole kind of kaleidoscope of rice wine. I'm curious, in your own kind of brewing journey, what was the first thing you made yourself and why were you drawn to it? So I started homebrewing as a kid. My dad taught me how to homebrew. And the styles of suhu that we were making were very dry, pungent, slightly oxidative, very acidic styles of fermented suhu. We didn't distill at home.

4:44And they were typically danyangju or iyangju, which is single stage or two stage, which is the most common kind of homebrew recipe. And that's how I started brewing. And is your dad just interested in brewing at home or like what's his deal? This is a tradition that he learned from his own mother and kind of somewhat unintentionally passed it down through me. He wasn't consciously like, Alice, you need to learn how to brew. It was as natural as cooking breakfast at home. I love that. And then you were in college and that's when you started kind of doing more of your homebrewing journey. Yeah. So 2011, I moved away from Santa Maria, California to come to school at NYU.

5:31Very fortunate. And I started brewing in my dorm. What everyone wants their kids to be doing. And that's how it started. You know, I think at that time, I didn't really have a reason to be brewing sur besides the fact that it was nostalgic and comforting for me. It was also like I was brewing based off of muscle memory or intuition. I didn't understand a thing about the chemistry of the ferment or the methodology. Certainly not even remotely close to what I understand now. But I was doing it anyway because that's just what I knew. I think the turning point from which it went from something that I knew and I was just doing it for the comfort of it to being more of a pursuit or the beginnings of a discipline is when I started to learn about the history of the category.

6:31Of course, it's so interesting to understand why products are the way they are. And in particular, Makkali is the way it is at a conventional scale due to historical events, famine, occupation, regulation, industrialization, all these things. But the thing that caught my heart the most was this realization that these disciplines were created and advanced by women that resonated with me greatly. Yeah. And I think like even in terms of where Hana Makali is at today, like your logo is kind of centering like a female body in that way. She is an homage to all those women that advance this category.

7:09Yes. And there's another connection in terms of the shape of the design, right? Isn't it supposed to be like a fermentation vessel? Yeah, or ongi, also known as hangari. Ongi are these large, almost like moon jar shaped earthenware clay pots that are used for traditional styles of fermentation, whether it be jangs like gochujang and tenjang or su. I love that. And I think like even over the past couple of years since we first met and I think Hana Makali was beginning to be something people could drink here in New York. I feel like there's been a huge kind of transformation in the category. I'm curious like how you see here in America, the even like knowledge people have of Makali or the kind that's available to them.

7:54Like how has that changed recently? Yeah. So I think the I was kind of mentioning this earlier, you know, the place at which we're meeting, I think the best way to describe it is the nucleus is forming. Right. You know, there are so many passionate producers, tradespeople, sommeliers, chefs, writers that have some kind of tie to Makkali. And for the last, I don't know, 10, 15 years, at least globally, we've seen this kind of resurgence of interest in Korean gastronomy and culture. And seoul is synonymous with Korean food. And, you know, as a result, it was almost unavoidable that there would be a producer based in New York making cheon tongju.

8:47That is traditional styles of Korean seoul. It didn't even have to be us. Right. it was kind of one of those things that was going to happen by nature. And I feel like at this point in time, the category is really starting to develop its foundations. We are being able to identify different types of philosophies around brewing, whether it be based off of a brewer's school or a certain family recipe or a certain style. Yeah. And from a consumer's perspective, we're starting to see, and this is still very early on, but a general adoption and acceptance and an understanding. I just got back from a week of market work in Los Angeles.

9:35And for the first time, people were asking me only like, hey, what is this? but they're instead saying, I've been wanting to try this for a very long time, or I've tried your suit in the past, but I want to taste it across the entire portfolio. So the conversation is changing. I am acknowledging that I am in a bit of a bubble, right? Because when you operate in a niche space, that's all you know. So as a result of that, I'm hopeful, I think is the best way to describe it. And this market research you were doing in LA, I know you were out there for Raw Wine Fair. Had you been a part of a natural wine fair like that previously?

10:14Yeah. So we're about three years in working the wine fair circuits, starting off in New York and then going to California. And recently we were also in Chicago for Suave. And this is our second Raw. Raw is a big natural wine festival, one of the largest in the world. And it was so nice to be, even though that we're in a different city, receive a welcome that was as warm as we received in New York from the natural wine community. We, of course, have to thank our distributor out in California, Aaron Sylvester of Sylvester Row Vine Selections, for all of their work and effort to get us to that point over the last three years.

11:00so it didn't just like happen overnight but through the raw fair we were able to meet with producers that we have known for years meet new producers where we are able to kind of geek out over like the universal laws of fermentation that apply to rice and grapes and also like talk shop as trades people as manufacturers as producers I personally learned so much yeah I feel like pushing you to tell me one takeaway is probably a cruel line of questioning. But I guess I'm curious about maybe on the flight back from LA, if there were any moments or like kind of ideas percolating in your head that being able to connect with other producers and maybe even in a different city kind of helped spark for you.

11:45Yeah. So Hanamakali, in terms of what we've produced over our last four years, we've produced about 20 different cuvées. This is all with the same one kind of rice that you're working with. Yes, all sourced from Pollitt Farms in the Sacramento Valley for the last four years, which we're very proud of. Thirteen of them are small batch experiment styles or one-off releases. And seven of them are core. And across the seven, we have the wines that are a bit more approachable, like our Takju 16, Huaju 12, Yakju 14. We have two alternative grain ferments using black and brown rice. We have the first fruit co-ferment, the omijamakale that we're drinking now.

12:30And then we have a soju. Being able to show our entire lineup at Raw was one proud moment for me. I think our suit is starting to really develop its identity. There is a common thread across all the wines that I have for so long tasted through other producers' work at festivals like RAW. And finally, we're having a sense of discipline. There's something that when you drink the seer, it's obvious that it's Hanamakali. And if it wasn't for this community and their guidance and encouragement, I don't think that we would have been able to continue or been able to get to the point of creating seven different expressions of the same rice that are also different from each other, but still sing.

13:23And that's because, you know, in sous brewing, there isn't this kind of like community-based or industry-based support. And very few producers are collaborating together to the extent that producers in the wine world are. So their support means the world to us. Yeah, I think it must be really special to just be around like-minded people that have a similar dedication to their brewing. And I think thinking about it in a long-term way is so interesting because that's obviously what you have to be doing when you're working at this kind of scale is like not just brewing for this year, but thinking about how you're going to be doing production in five years or something like that.

14:06Yes. Yeah. And, you know, when we talk about scaling, right, I think especially in the world of heritage based products that are trying to enter the U.S. market as a staple CPG product in this kind of modern industry that we're living in. it's hard to create something new that still is not purely about commodification. And I find myself kind of being challenged between these two worlds, right? Running my business, but also building Hanamakali to be essentially a center for preservation, for sui methodologies in general, right? And education. and actually being able to see producers in another industry entirely and another category entirely commit their lives to growing these grapes year after year, making vintages year after year, and kind of being consistently there and consistently working and making wine, that has actually been one of the most awing.

15:26It's simple, right? It's not like, you know, someone made this amazing product and I'm so inspired by its specific ingredients and things like that. It's just being dedicated to your craft and seeing examples of that everywhere in the wine world is really inspiring for me. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And just thinking about consistency, I find the fact that you're doing so many different expressions of one kind of rice to be so interesting. I'm not sure like how unusual that is for the category, but to me, it does seem like you're pushing yourself as much as you can to like play with one thing.

15:58And then eventually when you introduce another kind of rice in a meaningful way, then your box is just blown wide open of things to play with. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And one day we hope to be using all kinds of different rice, but we are not done with the rice that we're sourcing from Pollock Farms. There's still so much opportunity in terms of flavor, you know. And of course, the want to continue to support Pollitt Farms and their work as a dry farm, no spray rice farm, which is quite rare. I'm curious also, like when I think about natural wine made from grapes, for example, like climate change is a big part of that in terms of like the just crop yield year after year or like how they can possibly be working in the future.

16:43Rice, is that in play as well in the same kind of way? Is that something that you think about? Yeah, absolutely. You know, when we talk about dry farming and rice, you know, that doesn't, that usually makes people quite conflicted, at least in terms of like what their imagination is able to do. Yeah. What should I be picturing when you say that? Dry hay looking stalks coming out of the ground and the fields are flooded intermittently and then drained. And one, you know, for a California farmer to be able to grow rice in a state that had experienced drought for so long, their hand is forced in terms of the methodology of farming.

17:28But also, too, not flooding your rice paddies releases ultimately less methane in there. When you're flooding your rice paddies, what happens is all of that methane, or there's no oxygen permeation into the soil. So as a result, a lot of pollutants come up post-harvesting. And so it's better for the earth in this way. And then, you know, because rice is a pest-prone crop, whether it's dry-formed or wet-farmed, it's very rare that we see any kind a staple grain grower being concerned around pesticides because the consumer isn't going to care. Rice is rice. It is such a staple. It is ingrained into so many different cultures.

18:10People will pay and buy for it, even if it's sprayed. Usually in a brewing practice, or let's say just like winemaking generalized, that shouldn't matter as well. You're ultimately cooking, washing and cooking your grain, or you should be washing and cooking your grain. And then you're using, you know, commercial fermentation agents where cultures are engineered to not be sensitive to pesticides. But in wild fermentation or natural fermentation, in soup brewing, our enzyme cultures, our yeast cultures, our lactobacillus cultures are so resilient. But they can't stand up to a chemical pesticide.

18:53So it's critical for us to just remove that element entirely. but of course there is also this alignment of philosophically wanting to support this kind of farming. Right and also the fact that you're continually buying from them for so many years you're able to like actually help support the kind of farming practices that you want to see. Absolutely. So we talked a little bit about the packaging in terms of your logo but I wanted to talk to you about the kind of larger format bottle that you use. Have you ever considered doing like cans or kind of more of like a single serving size like how is this the packaging that you landed on um so the glass bottles I always wanted to do glass bottles all the producers that I looked up to at least that in Korea or most of them were finishing their products in glass bottles um I just like the look and feel of it yeah it's very sexy um also plastic sucks You know, maybe I should have done plastic.

19:53It's significantly cheaper, right? Maybe my business would be doing better if I wasn't spending so much damn money on glass, because I don't know if you remember like two years ago with the bottle shortages and stuff. Also, it's heavier to ship glass. Everything about glass is more difficult. But for us also, it was kind of like the way we found Pollitt Farms, right? For them, we found a domestic farmer that we love their family, and they didn't spray. For our bottles, we stumbled across bottles that were made from American recycled glass. And they weren't the cheapest things in the world, but they can ship to us easily.

20:35they were close in New York and they were upcycled. So in that sense, once I found that, I was like, kind of like, oh, we're going to do this. It doesn't matter what else, what other options we have at that point. Right. And also like, I mean, there are great canned wines out there and more it seems are coming out every day, but I do think most people expect to enjoy like a nice bottle of like a wild fermented thing that was made with a lot of care in this format and size that you go for. Yeah, there is, of course, when it comes to like design and positioning, the glass definitely helps justify the price that comes along with the more expensive rice, the longer fermentation times, actually making it ourselves in-house.

21:20So, you know, that definitely was a part of that consideration as well. And also thinking about positioning, I imagine that like where you're being sold, whether it's a restaurant or a bottle shop or something helps with that. How do you see like the new customers that are reaching Hanamakali? Are they buying online? Are they trying it in a restaurant? Like what is that experience? With Hanamakali, we were born in COVID, right? Not intentionally. You know, John and I had been working on it, you know, three, four years together prior to COVID. Yeah. Our launch was supposed to be planned March of 2020.

21:57That obviously did not happen. We eventually got to market September 2020. Our hand was a little bit forced in the beginning because back when COVID, you know, we obviously think about COVID for the alcohol business as generally positive. But I'd like to remind people that our wholesale channels almost completely got wiped out. You know, stores took a long time to recover and restaurants were just closed. So we went direct to consumer. That now takes up about a solid quarter of our business. And then 50 % of our production volume is sent into wholesale where we distribute to 22 states. And then the remaining 25 % is for mainly the tasting room in Greenpoint, Brooklyn that's attached to our brewery.

22:48That's generally the makeup of our sales channels in terms of people. It's all kinds of people. You know, I think a lot of people made assumptions when we were first starting out that we were just focusing on the Asian consumer, which we, of course, are right, because this is a cultural product and an Asian product. But I would say that's like a solid 45, maybe 50 percent of our customer base, certainly a solid majority. But there is such a diversity to the remaining half, if not more. Yeah. And it doesn't have anything to really to do with cultural background or ethnicity. It's about fermentation.

23:34Yeah. I do say. The fermentation freaks. Yeah. And, you know, whether that be from a natural wine angle or a craft beer angle or a sake angle or just from a fermentation angle, people are excited about our sewer because they're excited about the way it's made. Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense. There's a meme I've seen somewhere that's like concentric circles of kombucha and like natural wine and like sour ale. And it's all like the same. It's not the same flavor, obviously, but there's a lot of core similarity in terms of like the way that that tastes or that feels to drink it. And I feel like all of the things that I love fit into the exact middle of that category.

24:13So, of course, like this would be a part of it as well. Absolutely. I see ourselves kind of in the center of that diagram as well. So I hope to be able to create our own little part of the Venn diagram one day. I'll send you the meme. You can just like Photoshop it and add on to it. I'd love to. I feel like the tasting room must be a really special opportunity for you to get to connect with consumers because, as you mentioned before, like these are drinks that are kind of made to be eaten with or alongside. side i'm curious if there's any food in the tap room either right now or maybe a pop-up that you just like loved getting to have with the hanamakali product line yeah um so the tasting room is a special place it's 500 square feet in the first 500 square feet of our building that has one entrance and it's in like very industrial brooklyn yeah yeah industrial green point east of the pulaski bridge if anyone knows what i'm talking about like 15 minutes from the closest subway yeah 15 20 if you're me such a slow walker still being californian and all but um anyway uh the tasting room is a special place um we opened the tasting room when was it august 15th 2021 um a year post launch.

25:32The idea was to be able to invite people into our own space and to be able to show them an authentic food experience. And we have, you know, we generally change our menu season to season, but there's a few staples that have always been on our menu from an anju perspective. That's things like scallion pancakes or pajeon, tubu kimchi, which is like tofu and braised kimchi, some kind of pork belly dish always. And, you know, and then an assortment of other, you know, creative ideas going in and out seasonally. That with a cocktail program that incorporates, has a soup component into every cocktail that changes seasonally as well.

26:24And of course, all of our seoul on draft. I wanted to be able to immerse someone entirely with our seoul. And everything kind of points back towards the seoul. So it is a beverage-led program overall. One thing that, you know, when you're in like the thick of it, you don't realize. But one thing that our team has highlighted recently, because we tried to revisit like our front of house handbook and stuff every once in a while. And they said this is still in the last four years the only true chumak in the country. And chumak is just like it's a tap room, right? It's the consumer-facing, guest-facing end of a brewery that is so prominent in Korea.

27:12But especially, you know, prior to the 1900s where there are so many local breweries. And in Korea, that is. And when I heard that, I was like, oh, no, there's a few Makkali producers popping up here and there. And, you know, they either have just launched and haven't gotten to the point of the tasting room or hoping to open a tasting room, but still working, still in progress. And so I was like, wow, that is true. Right. We are the only Suu tasting room in the country. And to be like a proper chumac, you have to be connected to the place that it's being brewed. Yeah. And, you know, you pouring your food on pasteurized, you know, if not directly from the tank, at least on draft.

28:02Yeah. And you have to have food. And so symbolically, the tasting room also is kind of like this educational tool. right it gives our guests the customers who buy online even some of our wholesale accounts a reference point for which we shouldn't be enjoying su and then specifically our su so um i'm really proud of everything that the tasting room has become into it certainly you know didn't we didn't have these like more grand ambitions with it we were just like yeah we want to invite people in and drinks a booze. Yeah. But, you know, there is, of course, we do have to acknowledge the importance of the tasting room to Hanamakali, at least so far.

28:54Yeah, I think it is really important and it is special that it is in the same building that it actually is being brewed, even if you're not necessarily peeking into the back room, that you're so close to where that's happening, I think is special. And it obviously is such a natural fit in terms of like, there's so many breweries, like beer breweries in Brooklyn, where you can go like have a burger and have the three's brewing beer or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. And there's, you know, that's one of my personal favorite experiences is just like going to a brewery, going to a winery, hanging out in the cellar or like hanging out in the tasting room and watch people work in the cellar.

29:29And I'm so glad that we get to host people in that way as well. Yeah, I would imagine that for your team that isn't working front of house to get to feel close to the people that are actually consuming it must be special as well. Yeah. Yeah. And we do tours and tastings too, where that's completely production team led. And you start off in the tasting room and then go into the back and then finish in the tasting room. And it's just a really, it's the most immediate, direct way to answer questions, gauge people's responses and yeah just share what we've learned in our last four years. So I guess looking into the future maybe we don't have to go four years ahead we could but maybe like this summer is there anything like collapse wise or things that you're working on?

30:20Oh right the pop so in the tasting room we have so much programming coming up for the rest of the year because it is already like halfway through yeah and i feel like to remind summer goes really fast too yeah um you know this week we have a very exciting pop-up with baodega um uh charlene luo who has cooked at hanamakali in the past um she is mainly making uh it's a such one supper club essentially that she started out of her house and brought to hanamakali um and we're so excited to have her back because mala flavors and soot are unbelievable together yeah i can imagine the kind of like creamy tingly washing together so good and then um another super exciting also female asian chef um that we're excited to host at the brewery coming up is deborah from soban la oh wow we're fucking stoked to be be able to host such a legendary korean spot from la in new york and so yeah those are some programs that I'm really excited about in terms of you know production and new releases we're constantly working on new things we are in a bit of a pause period though right now because we've been in construction yes and you saw a little bit of this when you came by but we're adding about 4x the capacity to the same space so our tanks are getting larger our Equipments are getting larger to be able to try to finally meet the demand that we've created.

31:55And so been primarily focusing on that. But this additional capacity will allow us to focus more deeply into our special batches. So I think, you know, the most I can share is like there is a line of fruit cup permits coming out. Oh, I'm excited to hear about that. And that's like not just like omija botanical fruit related, but like actual juicy fruit, like contributing significant sugars to the ferment and co-fermenting like that kind of style is definitely in our future. We launched our Hana Soju 60 this past December, which is not that long ago. And we continue to like be able to develop that brand.