The Sool Gallery — Attraction in Seoul

The gallery itself is, as far as I understand, an initiative by the government to promote traditional alcohol to both Koreans and visitors.

The location is slightly out of the way, but with a bit of map work it is easy enough to reach. At the goëlery itself you will find three thugs. A small display on the kinds of booze in Korea and its history, a tasting session and a small shop/wall of drinks.

The display on the kinds of alcohol and the historic information is rather underwhelming, but for someone new to Korea this might be very helpful.

Their tasting sessions is a highlight though. They present you with 5 drinks that you can taste, just taste. Usually it is a makgeolli, a soju, a yakju a wine and then something as a filler. Along with a sample they give you a short description of the what, how and who. Best part, it changes every month.

After you are done with the tasting you can buy, if you wish to, what you tasted or whatever else strikes you fancy, at the small shop.

The shop has a nice collection of drinks you don't often see and so far I've bought something each time we went for a tasting session.

Definitely worth the money (free) and time (less than an hour...

Great that The Sool Gallery is relocated to Bukchon area, easily accessible from Anguk Station (Line 3, Exit 2).

Sool (sul) in Korean, is sort of a term for traditional liquor. Sool Gallery, is government MAFRA initiative to promote traditional liquor by local producers to both locals and tourists.

The gallery displays a large showcase of Korea Sool makers. It conducts daily guided English tour and registration details are on their instagram. Take note the gallery closes on Monday.

During the tour, the guide explains the ingredients and distillation processes of making 4 types of liquors: makgeolli (takju), yakju, soju and gwasilju. Also the different type of liquors made in different seasons.

After the short tour of about 20mins, a complimentary tasting session of 4 selected liquors which were chosen monthly.

It is a good place for both locals and tourists to be exposed to sools and also to sample them. Some featured brands are available for sale, close to wholesale prices!

The gallery could also advise on touring Korea Sools producers in different regions.

Worth a visit if you are into Hansik and sool, but ensure you go...

Heavily recommend emailing them to make a reservation for the English session, it's free but they have limited space. Arrive early and get a lesson/tour of Korean cuisine before heading further into the building to get to the Sool Gallery. They provided 5 different alcohols divided into three categories, cloudy/clear/hard (this was some really heavy paint thinner tasting booze @40%), for us to try. It's a rotating selection but I'm not sure the frequency it is changed, we had second place winners...but I don't recall for what. The guide was really sweet and she gave us some explanation on where the beverages were from, what they were made of,...