Pairings | Kimchi

What wine - and other drinks - to pair with Korean food (NEW)

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on April 2 2025 at 10:10

If you’ve developed a taste for Korean food - as so many of us now have - you may still be struggling with what drink to pair with it - and whether that should include wine.

The flavours are certainly not subtle. It’s richly spicy and umami, accompanied by fermented and pickled side dishes most notably kimchi, that present their own challenges.

Except in more modern Korean or Korean fusion restaurants dishes tend to be served at the same time so it’s useful to find a drink that will take them all in its stride.

That needn’t necessarily be wine which is just as well as many restaurants offer a limited selection, by the glass at least. But there are a wide range of Korean drinks including soju, which is apparently the world’s best selling spirit and makgeolli, a fermented rice-based drink.

Here are the beverages that you could drink throughout a Korean meal - or at least switch to half way through plus some pairings for popular Korean dishes you might eat on their own.

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