Cheongju- Punishing Korean Rice Wine

Thinking about Korea one imagines odd little despots full of hubris stuffed into stiff pant suits along with a terrified public struggling to simply find food. And while that is undoubtedly true of both North and South Korea- there is more than just painful regimery at play here- these two irascible nations sear with a poetic hatred for each other. But blood drunk as they may be, there is one passion they share that may just unite them after all: Cheongju, Korean Rice wine.

Cheongju punishes all who seek it with a hellish burn, and horrible odor. It reeks like mixture of kerosene and horse shit. Each gulp makes your throat clench and stomach buckle. But my good god- if you can hold this toxic brew down you are rewarded with a heady, rich intoxication that borders on sublime. You simply feel better, stronger, more alive.

Behold the brutal mistress:

Rice wine is an alcoholic beverage made from rice. Unlike normal wine, which is made by fermentation of naturally sweet grapes and other fruit, rice "wine" results from the fermentation of rice starch converted to sugars. This process is akin to that used to produce beer; however, beer production employs a mashing process to convert starch to sugars whereas rice wine uses the different process.
Alcoholic beverages distilled from rice were exclusive to East and Southeast Asian countries, with knowledge of the distillation process reaching India and parts of South Asia later through trade.
Rice brew typically has a higher alcohol content (18-25%) than wine (10-20%), which in turn has a higher alcohol content than beer (3-8%).