Who's drinking all the whiskey in Korea?
Bottles of whiskey are displayed inside a large-scale supermarket in Seoul, Monday. The variety of liquor being sold in the country has been increasing in step with rising local consumption habits. Yonhap
Choi Min-su, a Seoul office worker in her 20s, who proudly speaks on behalf of the country's trend-setting MZ generation, has been in love with highball (a mixed alcoholic drink) since it became a mega-hit last year. During after-work drinks with her senior colleagues, she often observes them drinking soju and beer, while she sips her favorite whiskey-based cocktail.
"When I get together with my friends, highball is all we drink," Choi said. "There are various selections for highball wherever we go for drinks nowadays so that kind of makes it fun to try them all."
The trend is now extending beyond just younger drinkers. Park In-suk, a foodie in her 50s who recently tried a Suntory highball pint at a restaurant, on the recommendation of her daughter, and admits it was to her liking.
"My husband is an avid soju lover and, being beside him all these years, I never cared to try a new liquor," Park said. "But that highball was something else. As someone who enjoys food and drinks, I was very pleased to have discovered it."
On the back of the highball's rise in Korea, whiskey sales have soared off the charts.
In 2023, Korea’s imports of whiskey-based liquors like scotch, bourbon and rye stood at 30,586 tons, according to the data released by the Korea Customs Service, Tuesday, a national record. It was a 13.1 percent year-on-year increase and the first time the country saw imported whiskey products amounting to over 30,000 tons.
Whiskey imports surged in 2022, reaching over 27,000 tons, a drastic increase from the previous year's 15,622 tons.
At the center of the trend are whiskey products, with products at various price tiers. The majority of highball drinkers, however, consume affordable whiskeys mixed with tonic water, flavored soda or other savory additions. Drinking premium whiskey itself seems to be a bygone trend.
Imported whiskies sales last year stood at $259 million, a 2.7 percent decrease, thus increasing low- and medium-priced whiskies market share.
Soaring whisky consumption has also reduced the consumption of wine. Some 56,000 tons of wine were imported last year, a 20.4 percent year-on-year decrease. It was the biggest downward trend the industry has seen. Wine saw its boom here in 2021 when its import peaked at 77,000 tons. Since then, the figure has continued to fall.
Observers said that the rise in highball drinks consumption came as people started filling restaurants and getting together again after COVID-19 quarantine measures were increasingly lifted. Wines were increasingly sought among people who drink at home during the pandemic but the change of disease control regulations and social sentiment brought with it the new trend.