South Korean women – and some men too – like these low-alcohol drinks

Soju makers in South Korea are targeting women with fruit-flavored drinks. Photos: Reuters

A wave of new, summery drinks is taking over Korea. Marketed almost exclusively towards women, the fruit-flavoured sojus and alcopops are low in alcohol, high in sugar and raise some interesting questions about how women are perceived and marketed to in a country that still has some of the worst gender-equality outcomes in the world.

Soju is similar to vodka, but with about half the alcohol content of most spirits. It is extremely popular in hard-drinking South Korea – especially among men. Keen to tap into the female market, soju makers have for years been lowering the alcohol content and experimenting with different, sweeter varieties to attract women.

Capturing the market

But it hasn't really worked until last year, when soju maker Chum-churum started a revolution with Soonhari, a citron-flavoured soju. Now, the country's major soju producers, Chum-churum and Jinro, are falling over themselves putting out new versions of fruit-flavoured drinks to capture the market. Grapefruit, apple, pomegranate, blueberry and citron are just some of the choices available. Most of them have between 11% and 14% alcohol, as opposed to the 17% to 21% in regular soju.

Grapefruit, apple, pomegranate, blueberry and citron are just some of the choices available in the new sojus and alcopops.

"I like the fruity soju," says Kim Hyeon-seo, a clerk at a 7-Eleven in Ilsan, a city just north of Seoul. "It has more flavour than pure soju, and the alcohol level is lower than regular soju." She says they sell a lot of flavoured sojus, mostly to young women.

A sweeter flavour

Lee Young-jin, the manager of Hanshin Pocha bar in Ilsan, says they sell plenty of the fruit sojus. "Before flavoured soju, people just drank the regular soju," Lee says. "We'd sell six cases of it a day. But with the new soju, we sell eight or nine cases."

He says a table with three women will often put away eight or nine bottles of flavoured soju, as opposed to only two or three of the regular kind.

Along with these fruity sojus are new alcoholic sodas like Brother Soda and Iseul Tok Tok. Both are 3% alcohol by volume, thanks to a white wine base, but you would never know from tasting them. Brother Soda tastes exactly like cream soda. Iseul Tok Tok tastes like "2%", a popular peach-flavoured soda in Korea. You can't taste a hint of alcohol in either.

Lim Jongwoo, a waiter at Yaki Hwaro Galbe, says the sodas are almost entirely consumed by women. Lim says he doesn't drink them, because "the alcohol level is very low".

At a nearby table, Kang Yujin, 27, says, "I like the taste, its sweet flavour. Sometimes I drink regular soju, but mostly the flavoured one." She says that she'll usually drink two bottles in one night.

Soju makers have rolled out a line of lighter, fruit-flavored drinks.

Targeting the trendsetters

Daniel Gray, who runs food tours of Korea and the food blog "Seoul Eats", says the companies are marketing towards women because they "have most of the buying power in Korean society, and tend to make the trends and influence the market on what to buy".

Gray notes this isn't the first time flavoured sojus have been introduced – previous attempts over the last 10 years, including cucumber and green tea-flavoured sojus, died quickly. He predicts that once the trend recedes, Korea will be left with only two fruit-flavoured sojus, probably grapefruit and citron.

Restaurateurs say they are selling more of the lighter-alcohol drinks to women.

James Turnbull, an expat Briton who has written extensively about gender in Korea, thinks the advertising campaigns for the new sojus are overly "cutesy" and reinforce a trend in Korea called "aegyo", where women try to be attractive to men by acting like young children. This contrasts with mainstream soju ads, which in the past decade, Turnbull says, have been emphasizing an extreme sexuality.

Park Solmin is a 23-year-old professional woman and is the exact target the soju makers have in mind. But she has a problem with how the ads reinforce a traditionally Korean view of gender. "They're going to try to appear a very pure and weak image of a woman," she says. "They're trying to show it's OK for those women who are trying to be very girlish, very typically weak."

Park admits, though, that the flavoured drinks do taste much better than traditional ones.

As a middle-aged man, Turnbull admits he's hardly the target for these new drinks. But he also admits he likes them, and wonders why they only market to women. "I think a lot of guys like them, because (regular) soju tastes like crap," he says. – Reuters/Zester Daily/Dave Hazzan