Often found at theaters and museums, Kwon Mee-yoo has covered a wide range of cultural fields from K-pop and dramas to theater and fine art for over a decade. Now as K-Culture Desk editor, she tries to connect Korean culture with global readers through fresh perspectives.
Koreans drink 100 bottles of beer a year
By Kwon Mee-yoo
The average Korean consumes more than 100 bottles of both beer and soju a year, according to industry estimates, which provides a firm grasp of the obvious that Koreans love to drink.
According to numbers by the Korea Alcohol and Liquor Industry Association (KALIA), a total of 1.7 million kiloliters of beer was distributed in the country last year. This translates to 3.5 billion bottles, considering that 500-milliliter bottles are standard size.
Simply dividing this with Korea’s 39 million people over the drinking age of 19, and it could be said that the average adult drank 89 bottles of beer last year. KALIA believes the real number could exceed 100 bottles per head when only counting those who actually drink regularly.
There were about 3.2 billion bottles of soju distributed in 2011, which translates to 84 per head when divided by those over 19. When restricting the estimate to real drinkers, KALIA says the consumption for soju would also exceed 100 bottles per person.
Drinkers here often mix the two beverages as ``poktanju,’’ the local equivalent of a ``boilermaker.’’ The ratio between beer and soju differs based on personal taste, but it generally has more beer than soju, as the latter is heavier in terms of alcohol content.
As poktanju became popular, the country's leading liquor maker Hite-Jinro provided special glasses to stores instead of plain beer mugs. The soju-beer cocktail glasses have illustrations depicting the ratio between beer and soju on them, so customers can easily adjust the proportion between the two.