Soju: what it is, how strong it is, and how to drink it

Soju (소주) is a clear Korean spirit, and the green-bottle kind most people mean is diluted ethanol rather than rice liquor, sold at around 16 per cent alcohol. Chamisul Fresh, the best-selling bottle, went down to 15.7 per cent in June 2026. It is poured into small glasses, for other people, with food on the table.

How strong is soju?

Mainstream soju in South Korea now sits between 15.7 and 20.1 per cent, and the lower number keeps moving. HiteJinro’s Jinro went to 15.7 in February 2026, Lotte’s Saero was already there, and Lotte set the same figure for Chum Churum from mid-September. A bottle bought abroad may not match the one in Seoul: HiteJinro’s American site still lists Chamisul Fresh at 16.0.

The slide is easiest to see in one brand. Chamisul launched in 1998 at 23 per cent. The Fresh version was 19.8 in 2006, 17.8 by the end of 2014, 16.9 in 2020 and 16 in 2024. Behind it is a country drinking less: liquor shipments in 2025 were the lowest in 27 years, 21.5 per cent below 2015, according to National Tax Service figures.

What is soju made from?

Not rice, in the bottle most people buy. Soju was distilled from grain until 1965, when a government food policy banned grain in liquor to save rice. Producers moved to ethanol distilled from sweet potato, molasses and tapioca, cut with water and sweetened. Saccharin was the usual sweetener until the late 1980s; stevioside replaced it.

That base spirit comes from one place. A single company, Korea Ethanol Supplies, sells the ethanol to every soju maker in South Korea, so the big brands all start from the same spirit.

Several regions went back to distilling soju from grain from 1999. That smaller category is a true distilled spirit: Hwayo, for one, is made from 100 per cent Korean rice. In Korean the two kinds are 증류식 소주, distilled soju, and 희석식 소주, diluted soju.

Where soju comes from

Distilling reached Korea with the Mongols in the thirteenth century, during the Goryeo period. The technique had come east from Persia, and distilleries were set up around Gaegyeong, the capital, today’s Kaesong. Andong, where the Mongols kept a supply base, turned it into a household liquor, and Andong soju is still made. By the 1920s there were more than 3,200 soju distilleries across the peninsula.

The green bottle is newer than it looks. Doosan introduced green 360 ml bottles in 1994 to make its soju look clean and fresh, and the rest of the industry copied it.

Soju vs sake, and where shochu fits

The three names get mixed up constantly, and only two of them are close.

Sake is a brewed rice drink, so calling soju “Korean sake” gets both the method and the country wrong. Shochu is the real cousin: a Japanese distilled spirit from the same root word, usually stronger than green-bottle soju. Korea’s own rice drink is makgeolli, a different thing again.

Soju flavors

Fruit soju has only been around since 2015, when Lotte Chilsung put out Soonhari with citrus yuja. HiteJinro makes a grapefruit version too, and Jinro’s export line now runs to grapefruit, green grape, plum, strawberry, peach and lemon. Jinro Peach is 13 per cent.

That is less than three points under plain soju. A bottle of peach soju is still a bottle of a 13 per cent drink.

How to drink soju

The etiquette is about who pours. The youngest person at the table pours for the elders, and in a work setting rank counts the same way as age. Pouring your own glass is considered rude, so you fill other people’s and wait for yours.

When someone older pours for you, hold the glass with both hands, left palm underneath. When you drink in front of an elder, turn your head away from them and cover your mouth and glass with a hand. The glass then goes back to the person who poured, and you pour for them.

Soju mixed into beer is its own drink, with its own ratio and its own rules: that is somaek, the soju bomb.

Food is part of the arrangement. Anju (안주) is the Korean word for food eaten with alcohol, and a soju table usually has it: grilled pork belly, as at a palsaik grill, fried chicken, jokbal, pajeon or dried pollock with peanuts. The Korean table assumes the two arrive together.

Jinro, the best-selling spirit in the world

By volume, no whisky, vodka or rum brand sells as much as Jinro. The trade magazine Drinks International ranked it first for the 25th year running in June 2026, on 94.5 million nine-litre cases over the previous year.

Soju turns up in film as well. The end-credits song of Parasite is “A Glass of Soju”, sung by Choi Woo Shik, and it made the December 2019 shortlist for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards.

Questions people ask

What does soju mean? Burned liquor. The first character, 燒, means burn and refers to the heat of the still; the second, 酒, means alcoholic drink. An older name, noju, means dew liquor, after the drops that gather in distillation.

Is soju Korean or Japanese? Korean. The mix-up comes from shochu, the Japanese spirit whose name starts with the same character.

Is soju the same as makgeolli? No. Makgeolli is brewed from rice and left cloudy. Soju is a clear spirit, distilled or made from distilled ethanol.

Why does soju keep getting weaker? The makers say demand for lighter drinks keeps growing. HiteJinro said the new strength for Chamisul Fresh came out of research and consumer surveys, and pointed to an industry-wide move toward lower alcohol.