Ihwaju Nuruk-beop (Pear-Blossom-Wine Starter Method)

History

Ihwaju (이화주, 梨花酒, "pear-blossom wine") is a thick, cake-like unfiltered rice wine that Korean sources trace back to the Goryeo period. Its name comes from timing and color: the wine — and above all its distinctive starter — was prepared around the season pear trees blossom, and the finished drink is pale white like pear blossom. That starter, a rice-flour nuruk called ihwaguk (이화국, 梨花麴), is what sets the wine apart. Nonglutinous rice is washed, soaked overnight, finely ground, shaped into fist-sized balls, wrapped, and left to mold on a warm ondol floor before being dried and powdered — the method that opens Jang Gye-hyang's ihwaju cluster in Eumsik dimibang (음식디미방, c.1670). Because it is built from rice flour and its own rice nuruk with almost no added water, ihwaju ferments into a dense, porridge-like mass eaten with a spoon rather than poured, earning nicknames like "flour wine" and "spoon-eaten wine". Made only from costly rice and demanding much labor, it was long a wine of the yangban and wealthy rather than of farmers. Its renown reached the court: Joseon records describe ihwaju sent as a diplomatic gift to Ming envoys in the early 15th century. Eumsik dimibang, the oldest surviving Korean-language cookbook, is one of a series of Joseon manuals — from the mid-15th-century Sanga Yorok onward — that preserve the recipe, placing Jang's version within a long, well-documented tradition rather than at its beginning.

Ingredients

• mal white rice

Instructions

1. Wash 3 mal of white rice clear, soak overnight, rinse again, and grind to fine powder.
2. Shape into fist-sized balls, wrap in straw, pack into empty straw sacks, and set on a warm ondol floor.
3. Turn frequently; when they ferment to a yellow color they are ready.
4. To use, peel off the outer skin and grind to flour. (Do not use too much water when first making them, or they spoil.)