In recent years, under the influence of K-pop culture and Japanese culture, more and more people are paying attention to Korean shochu and Japanese sake, and even in the Chinese liquor circle, there are many sake drinkers who occasionally buy shochu and sake to try. Sake drinkers who often buy Korean shochu and Japanese sake have found an interesting phenomenon: the price of Japanese sake is almost ten times that of Korean shochu, and some even reach twenty times, with similar alcohol concentrations.
Why is Korean shochu sold so cheap, while Japanese sake can be sold so expensive? In the face of this problem, a wine friend in Zhihu expressed his own views, he believes that this is because of the real dew, the first drink, good day and other Korean soju, the taste is like alcohol mixed with water, and choking and difficult to drink, from the number of likes of this answer, hate Korean soju friends in the circle of alcoholics accounted for a large proportion.
Although Korean shochu is polarized in terms of domestic reputation due to taste problems, in fact, Korean shochu sells cheaper than Japanese sake, mainly because the brewing process of the two is different, in short, Korean shochu and Japanese sake are not the same type of sake, and the brewing process of Japanese sake is more complex than That of Korean shochu, and the ingredients are more refined.
In terms of brewing process, Korean shochu can basically be seen as being made with edible alcohol. The position of shochu in South Korea is that ordinary civilians can afford to drink. In 1965, in order to alleviate the food shortage, South Korea began to implement a ban on alcohol (prohibition of brewing shochu), but shochu has become a "just need" of people's lives, and Koreans drink more than 3 billion bottles of shochu every year, including super water shochu, Xiwan shochu, zhenlu, maple leaf shochu, etc.
In order to satisfy the people's desire to drink, Korean wine merchants can only abandon the pure grain winemaking method, instead of using cassava, sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes, potatoes and all other starchy crops to brew shochu, in today's parlance, dilute the edible alcohol with water, and then add seasoning spices.
Now in addition to a very few Korean high-end shochu brands, today's large number of cheap Korean shochu, or with this "edible alcohol with water" method of manufacturing, and because of this, the cost of Korean shochu is very low, no matter how to sell it will not be too expensive, after all, this is a civilian "ration wine". In contrast, Japanese sake is positioned as a very high-grade sake brewed sake, i.e. The national sake of Japan. There is a Japanese saying that "sake is a gift from God", which shows that Japanese sake has a very high status in Japan.
The positioning is different, and the production process and materials are of course different. According to legend, the brewing process of Japanese sake is developed by borrowing the brewing method of Chinese rice wine, which is quite exquisite from the selection of raw materials to the integration of production processes, and has a strict grade classification. A bottle of Japanese sake needs to go through refined rice, steamed rice, koji and fermentation and other fine processes to brew, among them, the highest-end pure rice Daigin sake, the polishing rate can reach more than 20%, the process does not know how much rice is wasted, therefore, the cost of Japanese sake brewing is very high.
Overall, Korean sake is not as good as Japanese sake in terms of brewing process, sake cost, and sake positioning, and coupled with the problem of liquor tariffs, Japanese sake naturally sells at a higher price than Korean sake. After all, one is used to buy drunken wine, and the other is used to taste and enjoy wine, and the price difference is understandable.