I bet you’re wondering right now…what even is soju and why I am trying to find the best soju flavors? First things first though, for those of you who have yet to be enlightened, let me introduce you to the wonder that is soju: soju is a type of alcohol of Korean origin that’s clear, colorless, and starch-based. So, basically a lot like vodka, but with around half the alcohol percentage — and minus all the bad memories. In fact, regular soju tastes pretty much like diluted vodka.
Flavored soju, however, is amazing. It’s basically alcoholic fruit juice, and for those of you who are anything like me and have the tastebuds of a five-year-old, I promise you won’t want to get drunk off anything else from now on.
#SpoonTip: Spoon does not promote binge or underage drinking. Stay safe!
The Process
To come up with this ranking of the best soju flavors, I went to two liquor stores in Koreatown and grabbed a bottle of every single soju flavor available. I came back home with a total of 9 flavors (from L-R in above image): Pomegranate, Peach (Good Day), Peach (Chum Churum), Grapefruit, Citrus, Pineapple, Green Grape, Apple, and Blueberry. I put some friends to a blind taste test of all the best soju flavors and here’s what we got:
The Results
9. Pomegranate
This came in dead last because it tasted like alcoholic cough syrup. No thanks.
8. Blueberry
Not really a fan of this one because it had a bad aftertaste and tastes more like blueberry-flavored gum or toothpaste rather than actual blueberries.
7. Citrus
This was probably the one with the strongest alcohol flavor, so if you like that, you might like this one more than we did. Being citrus-flavored, it has a slightly bitter aftertaste but is quite refreshing.
6. Grapefruit
The grapefruit flavor was definitely better than we thought it would be. We thought it would be quite bitter, but it’s a lot more fruity than we expected.
5. Pineapple
It smelled and tasted fine, but it was slightly artificial. Definitely not bad though, a solid middle.
4. Peach (Good Day)
There were two peach flavors in our roundup and this one had a stronger alcoholic bitterness than the other, hence the lower placement. This was still really good, though.
3. Apple
We are starting off our top 3 now! We loved this one, it’s very smooth and tasted and smelled a lot like the actual fruit.
2. Peach (Chum Churum)
This was probably the sweetest out of the bunch, which really helped to mask the flavor of alcohol. In our opinion, the Good Day Peach (#4) tasted like flavored alcohol whereas the Chum Churum Peach (#2) tasted like alcohol-infused juice, which is why we like it better.
And our absolute favorite:
1. Green Grape
We all agree this was our definite favorite! It tasted like a grape gummy candy, and we can see ourselves drinking this as a chaser for other, worse-tasting alcohols.
Conclusion
Despite the fact that some flavors ranked lower than others, I’d still gladly take any flavored soju over most other alcohols any day. Flavored soju goes really well with savory bar foods and also makes for a pretty great chaser tbh.
#SpoonTip: Try mixing different flavors together and making your own flavored-soju cocktail concoctions, because why not?