A local craft distillery is hoping to create a community center that showcases Korean spirits and provides a platform for other businesses.
Ming Han Chung and James Kim make up the team behind Minhwa Spirits, which is featured in more than 15 Georgia restaurants and stores.
“We’ve always thought about certain ways we could make our work more meaningful in life,” Kim told What Now Atlanta. “We have families now. You start thinking about your legacy and that kind of stuff and what you can leave behind and things your children can grow into and be proud of. One of the things we talk about is a better representation of Asian culture. We landed on soju, the Korean spirit.”
Soju is a distilled grain-based alcoholic beverage with a long history in Korea.
To get started, they tapped into long-standing knowledge of the craft: Kim’s uncle made makgeolli, a rice wine, in a makeshift brewery connected to the family home off the coast of South Korea.
“I reached out to him and got the family recipe,” Kim said. “Ming and I went into the laboratory and experimented with it, did a bunch of research on it and thought, ‘This could be a thing.’”
They blended their knowledge of the craft and modern know-how to create their brand of soju, which now offers two products.
Minhwa Spirits uses only North Georgia mountain spring water, nuruk, yeast and rice – no artificial sweeteners, preservatives or additives.
“We wanted to build our company with an ethos of trying to take it back to the roots,” Kim said.
After a little over a year of operating out of a production-only distillery, Chung and Kim started thinking about how to take things a step further. The culmination of that desire: a tasting room in the works in Doraville.
They envision it to be a community center, hosting events, showcasing local artists, and serving as an incubator for other food and beverage concepts. They want to take it a step…
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