Before K-Pop, There Was Yonsama. Then Came Makgeolli.
Before BTS filled stadiums around the world, another Korean man had Japanese fans boarding planes to Korea.
His name was Bae Yong-joon.
They called him Yonsama.
And somehow, if you follow the story long enough, you eventually arrive at a cloudy bowl of Korean rice wine.
This is not really a story about a celebrity.
And it isn’t really a story about alcohol.
It’s about how the world learned to experience Korea.
First, people watched.
Then they visited.
Then they tasted.
Then they bought.
And now?
They want to make it themselves.
Before K-Pop, There Was Yonsama
If you only know today’s Korean Wave, it’s easy to imagine that Korea’s global cultural boom began with K-pop, YouTube and Netflix.
It didn’t.
In the early 2000s, a Korean television drama called Winter Sonata became a phenomenon in Japan.
At the center of it was Bae Yong-joon.
Japanese fans gave him an affectionate nickname combining his name with the Japanese honorific -sama:
Yonsama.
For many Japanese viewers—particularly middle-aged women—he became much more than another foreign actor.
He became one of the defining faces of the first Korean Wave.
And the fascination didn’t stay on television.
People wanted to see the Korea they had watched.
WATCH KOREA
Winter Sonata was filmed in places including Chuncheon and Nami Island.
Soon, those places became destinations.
Fans traveled to Korea to walk through landscapes they recognized from the drama.
They stood where characters had stood.
They photographed snowy paths.
They searched for restaurants, cafés and pieces of everyday Korean life.
Today, traveling because of a K-drama hardly sounds unusual.
Twenty years ago, it felt different.
For many visitors, Korea was changing from somewhere they had seen on television into somewhere they wanted to experience for themselves.
WATCH KOREA became VISIT KOREA.
And once you visit a country, something else inevitably happens.
You eat.
TASTE KOREA
Kimchi.
Bulgogi.
Pajeon.
Bibimbap.
And sometimes, a cloudy white drink served from a kettle or large bowl.
Makgeolli.
Makgeolli is one of Korea’s oldest alcoholic drinks, traditionally made by fermenting rice with water and nuruk, Korea’s fermentation starter.
It doesn’t look much like wine.
It’s cloudy.
Usually lightly sparkling.
Often slightly sweet and tart.
And traditionally, it isn’t treated like something that requires a crystal wine glass and a sommelier.
Makgeolli belongs at the table.
With people.
With food.
And perhaps most famously, with pajeon.
Ask Koreans about a rainy day and someone will eventually mention:
“Pajeon and makgeolli.”
There’s even a popular explanation that the sound of pajeon sizzling in oil resembles falling rain.
Whether that’s really why the pairing became so deeply associated with rainy days is difficult to prove.
But culturally?
The connection is very real.
For many Koreans now over 40, makgeolli isn’t a newly discovered K-food trend.
It may remind them of hiking trips.
Traditional markets.
Small countryside restaurants.
A rainy evening.
Parents or grandparents.
Or a bowl passed around a table among friends.
And eventually, people outside Korea started wanting that taste too.
BUY KOREA
Something remarkable happened around the end of the 2000s.
Makgeolli began booming in Japan.
In 2009, Korea exported roughly $5.4 million worth of makgeolli to Japan.
In 2010:
$15.6 million.
And in 2011:
about $48.4 million.
In just two years, exports to Japan had multiplied dramatically.
At the 2011 peak, Japan accounted for roughly 92 percent of Korea’s total makgeolli exports.
Makgeolli even appeared among Japan’s notable hit products of the year.
The Korean Wave was repeatedly cited at the time as part of the reason.
Japanese consumers had become more interested in Korean entertainment.
Then Korean travel.
Then Korean food.
And makgeolli arrived at exactly the right moment.
The progression almost looks obvious in hindsight:
WATCH → VISIT → TASTE → BUY
But booms rarely last forever.
Then the Makgeolli Boom Collapsed
The numbers fell almost as dramatically as they had risen.
Japan had become such an enormous part of the export market that when Japanese demand weakened, the entire makgeolli export business felt it.
Changing consumer tastes played a role.
Currency conditions mattered.
Relations between Korea and Japan changed.
And perhaps makgeolli had also been carried partly by a cultural moment that couldn’t remain new forever.
By the middle of the 2010s, exports were far below their 2011 peak.
If the story ended there, makgeolli might simply be remembered as another product that briefly rode the Korean Wave.
But something interesting happened instead.
Korea changed.
Makgeolli changed.
And so did the people interested in Korean culture.
The People Who Loved Yonsama Grew Older Too
Here’s something we don’t talk about very often.
The first Korean Wave generation aged.
A Japanese woman who discovered Winter Sonata in her 30s or 40s in the early 2000s may now be in her 50s, 60s or even 70s.
The Korean actors aged.
The Korean audience aged.
And Korea itself became a very different country.
Meanwhile, another generation discovered Korea through completely different doors.
BTS.
BLACKPINK.
K-dramas on Netflix.
Korean fried chicken.
Ramyeon.
K-beauty.
Convenience stores.
YouTube.
TikTok.
But eventually, something similar happens.
You watch Korea.
You become curious about Korea.
You visit Korea.
You taste Korea.
And then curiosity goes one step further.
MAKE KOREA
Search for Korean experiences today and you’ll find something that would have sounded rather unusual during the first Yonsama boom:
Makgeolli-making classes.
Visitors can sit down in Seoul, combine rice, nuruk and water, learn how fermentation works and begin making their own Korean rice wine.
Some take what they make with them.
The tourist is no longer simply buying a bottle.
They’re learning the process.
The same thing is happening throughout Korean food culture.
People don’t only search for Korean restaurants.
They search for:
Korean cooking classes.
Kimchi-making classes.
Market tours.
Temple food experiences.
Traditional alcohol workshops.
Korean food is slowly becoming something people don’t just want to consume.
They want to understand.
And sometimes, they want to reproduce a little piece of Korea when they return home.
So perhaps the progression has gained one more step.
WATCH → VISIT → TASTE → BUY → MAKE
Twenty Years Changed the Korean Wave
This may be the most interesting part of the story.
The first Korean Wave largely asked the world:
Would you like to watch Korea?
Today’s Korean Wave can ask something much bigger:
Would you like to participate?
Cook the food.
Learn the language.
Wear the clothes.
Visit the neighborhood.
Make the drink.
Understand why Koreans do something instead of simply photographing it.
That’s a very different relationship with a culture.
And maybe that’s why searches for things like “Korean cooking class” are worth paying attention to.
They suggest curiosity is becoming participation.
And About That Winter Sonata–Makgeolli Connection…
There’s one tempting story we should resist telling too neatly.
Winter Sonata brought Japanese visitors to places such as Chuncheon and Nami Island.
Makgeolli was already deeply rooted in Korean regional and everyday drinking culture.
Then, several years later, makgeolli exploded in Japan.
It’s tempting to draw a straight line between those events.
Winter Sonata → Korea tourism → makgeolli boom.
Maybe those trips helped some visitors discover the drink.
It would certainly make a beautiful story.
But history is rarely that tidy.
There isn’t enough evidence to say those filming-location pilgrimages directly caused Japan’s makgeolli boom.
What we can say is more interesting anyway.
The same broader Korean Wave that made people curious about Korean dramas also helped make Korean travel, food and drinking culture more familiar.
And sometimes cultural change happens not through one giant event, but through thousands of small encounters.
A television drama.
A plane ticket.
A restaurant.
A rainy afternoon.
A bowl of something unfamiliar.
Then, years later:
“I wonder if I can make this myself?”
From Watching Korea to Making It
Twenty years ago, many people discovered Korea through a television screen.
Today, they can sit at a table in Seoul, mix rice, nuruk and water, and make a small piece of Korean culture with their own hands.
That may be one of the biggest changes in the Korean Wave.
Korea is no longer simply something to watch from afar.
You can taste it.
Visit it.
Learn it.
And make part of it yourself.
So if you’re planning a Korean cooking class on your next trip, here’s a suggestion:
Don’t stop at kimchi.
Try making makgeolli.
Because sometimes a simple bowl of cloudy rice wine carries much more than rice and nuruk.
It carries memories, travel, tradition—and the story of how curiosity about another culture can deepen over time.
Maybe the next chapter of K-food isn’t about what Korea exports.
Maybe it’s about what the world wants to learn to make for itself.