[NYT] Soju for the Soul

June 11, 2015
The K-Town Old-Fashioned (The Korea Times)

The K-Town Old-Fashioned at Ray’s and Stark Bar inside LACMA. (The Korea Times)

Gangnam D (The Korea Times)

Gangnam D at Ray’s and Stark Bar inside LACMA. (The Korea Times)

[THE NEW YORK TIMES] – I took the news badly when my friend Jiwon said she was leaving New York and moving to Seoul. She was a beloved drinking and dining companion, a doting cat sitter and the person most likely to make me laugh until I cried. But she wanted to get to know the country where she was born, and she assured me it wouldn’t be forever.

True to her word, Jiwon returned after three years. What made her time in Korea tolerable to me were the evocative dispatches she emailed regularly (she’s a poet). She joined a hiking club and recounted what happened after a long day’s walk, when the hikers would repair to a cabin and talk until late, over formidable quantities of soju — the popular Korean spirit often distilled from rice.

Those emails introduced me to soju, but I wouldn’t actually taste it until years later, at a restaurant in New York.  [READ MORE]

____

RELATED ARTICLE:  Soju cocktails: Another reason to get out to LACMA