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Best bars in Gangnam. From the fanciest bars to warm izakayas. The very best bars in Gangnam provide a broad option.

Expert’s Guide to Drinking Soju in Seoul:

Soju is Korea’s most popular alcohol. You’ll find it everywhere from corner store to elegant restaurants. However "soju bars" are rare. Here’s your guide to Korean drinking culture, and where you can discover soju in Seoul. Julia Mellor has actually made it her mission to bring traditional Korean alcohols into the global spotlight. She has actually studied traditional fermentation approaches at a few of the nation’s best-known institutes, worked with artisanal breweries, and acquired a fly-on-the-wall viewpoint of the country’s sool (the Korean word for "alcohol") industry. She’s likewise a co-founder of The Sool Company, a service promoting standard Korean alcohols, including soju.

"The green bottle [mass-produced, commercial soju] is very renowned to Korea. Everyone believes that it’s the most traditional representation of Korean alcohol, but it’s in fact not," she says. "The green bottle was just presented to Korea in the 1960s when there was a rice starvation during the Korean War." If you return to more standard distillation designs, and there’s an universe of sojus out there– if you know where to discover them.

In Seoul, soju is all over. But discovering more "traditional" styles isn’t often as easy as going to a bar; in fact, the concept of a "soju bar" is fairly alien to most Koreans. You ‘d be hard-pressed to find one in the South Korean capital, Mellor explains. There are 2 crucial reasons why.

Firstly, Koreans often drink in a very different way to Westerners. Soju is drunk throughout the night and is usually paired with food in a dining establishment. Mellor explains. "It’s not actually selected for its quality … It’s generally the conduit to be familiar with somebody." Second of all, it’s not all about soju. Korea is home to a host of other alcohols– in particular, makgeolli and cheongju, the latter of which was when the preferred drink of the royal court. These beverages are less popular abroad; they are harder to export, as they’re drunk fresh and have a much shorter life span.

For a good quality soju experience, you’ll want to hit the standard alcohol bars. They’re all over Seoul, and they’ll usually serve the complete variety of Korean liquors, consisting of soju, makgeolli, takju and cheongju. Mellor keeps in mind that "the challenge is not where to go. The obstacle is what to order". Soju is not strictly defined, indicating that it has plenty of variations. Typically it’s made through rice fermentation. But mass-produced sojus normally utilize another starch such as sweet potato– a hangover from the Korean War, when scarcities triggered the federal government to prohibit making use of rice in liquor production. If you’re merely looking to get drunk, then you can’t go wrong with mass-produced, green-bottle soju; blend it with beer (a mix referred to as so-maek) if you need to soothe.