I Regressed and Became Too Good at Brewing - Chapter 32

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 32. Sweet Palace, Dalbord (2)
“It’s already this hot out.”
“Well, it’s July now—of course it’s hot. Ha ha.”
Time truly moved swiftly.
January’s snow seemed like only yesterday, yet here they were past the halfway mark, July’s verdant greens already flourishing in abundance.
A government-affiliated institution where the Sensory Evaluation of the Korean Traditional Liquor Evaluation Conference took place.
Even Man-hu didn’t know exactly what kind of place this was.
He’d participated as an expert in the Conference several times before, but the venue always changed.
Yet there was always one thing in common.
“Everything’s white.”
“We chose a setting like this for fair and objective evaluation, you understand.”
“I’m well aware.”
Man-hu answered with a knowing smile at the guide’s words.
The obsessive, all-white interior design was actually for the sake of liquor evaluation.
The lighting, wallpaper, and floor colors could all interfere with judging a spirit’s hue.
By the same principle, the interior temperature and humidity were strictly controlled to ensure the spirits’ flavors remained unchanged.
“This way, please. The others should be waiting inside. Then.”
“Thanks for showing me. Ha ha.”
When he stepped through the door, several people sat conversing, just as the guide had mentioned.
Among them were faces he’d already seen before.
“Oh! You’re here too?”
“Ha ha! Well, who do we have here? Professor Man-hu, isn’t it?”
“Come now. Forget the ‘professor’—just call me by my name.”
The bald man shaking his hand was a professor teaching at the Hotel Culinary Department.
And those seated beside him were hardly lightweights either.
Sommeliers, professors, liquor critics, and owners of renowned distilleries were gathered together.
The Sensory Evaluation of the Korean Traditional Liquor Evaluation Conference was a stage where renowned experts scrutinized submitted spirits’ tastes, aromas, colors, and textures piece by piece.
Naturally, only those with some genuine expertise in spirits could participate.
But there was something Man-hu hadn’t anticipated…
“What! Surely not!”
A man sitting quietly in one corner, spectacles on, engrossed in a book.
White hair swept back neatly, dressed in a formal suit—he looked like he’d stepped out of a film scene.
Though years had passed, his commanding presence still seemed nearly twice the size of others around him.
But it wasn’t these things that made Man-hu nearly rush toward him.
“Arthur Brook!”
“Why, yes. That would be my name.”
He closed his book and adjusted his glasses at the sound of his name, answering with evident good humor.
Arthur Brook.
A Master Distiller from Scotland.
Not only had he personally blended famous whiskies, but he now traveled between distilleries, passing on his accumulated expertise and offering consultations—a mentor figure in the world of whisky.
His reputation and skill were so renowned that people frequently spent fortunes collecting old whiskies bearing his signature, a living legend in the field.
Regardless of his title as a Korean university professor, of course Man-hu was delighted to see him.
And beyond that…
“I’d been meaning to visit you, but I heard you’d already left the country. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was.”
“Ha ha. Man-hu. You know what I’ve been doing lately, don’t you?”
“Traveling through the developing world, sharing your expertise? Of course I do. But…”
“An old man indulging his ambitions as a hobby, nothing more. Don’t worry yourself. Ha ha.”
“It’s only natural for a student to be concerned for his teacher.”
“Student? No, we’re simply colleagues walking the same path.”
Man-hu was indeed one of those who had studied under Brook.
Man-hu had earned his name as a Traditional Liquor Sommelier in Korea largely thanks to Brook’s Tasting methods.
Given his personal debt of gratitude, Man-hu couldn’t help but worry.
But Brook simply laughed heartily in response.
“I never heard where you were headed—I never imagined it was here!”
“Ha ha! A surprise. Did I startle you? My plan worked, then. Truth is, I’ve been curious about Korean traditional spirits for some time now. I watched you all challenge whisky too. But whisky here…”
“Didn’t seem to satisfy you?”
Reading the expression on Brook’s face, Man-hu inferred as much.
And he was right.
It wasn’t that he looked down on the young distillers’ passion and abilities.
They simply lacked time.
Whisky is a spirit that demands far more time than most other drinks.
And it isn’t merely the aging.
To craft a truly excellent whisky, one must learn through the accumulated experience of a distillery’s long history.
But Korea has only just entered the whisky market—a complete novice.
Surely it’s premature to expect remarkable whisky to emerge already.
“Still, who knows what might happen in the future, yes? Much like Kavalan Distillery, for instance.”
Kavalan Distillery, built for the first time in 2005.
The Solist Vinho Matured, featuring Master Distiller Ian Chang, proved its worth when it won World Best Single Malt at the World Whisky Awards.
Brook believed that while difficult at present, Korea too might one day produce such a spirit.
After all, whisky requires time—both in the making and in the aging.
“In any case, if you were going to come all this way, you might have given me some advance notice.”
“I couldn’t very well announce myself before attending an evaluation conference.”
Man-hu was well aware that in recent years, as the globalization of Korean traditional liquors and export competitiveness had become focal points for the conference, the judges’ scope had broadened considerably.
As a result, foreign spirits critics, sommeliers, master distillers, and even overseas buyers had begun attending with increasing frequency over the past few years.
“I thought you didn’t care much for these sorts of gatherings? The man who wouldn’t even attend when the San Francisco World Spirits Competition called….”
SFWSC—San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
The San Francisco International Spirits Evaluation Conference.
Ranked among the world’s three greatest spirits competitions alongside the United Kingdom’s IWSC and Belgium’s Monde Selection, it boasts unmatched prestige and authority, particularly in the distilled spirits category—the undisputed number one in the world.
Receiving a gold medal at this venue is the ultimate goal for any distillery.
“That was indeed the case.”
Perhaps owing to his standing and achievements over the years.
Each year, the organizers earnestly invited him to grace the judges’ panel with his presence.
Yet every time, he had maintained his refusal.
The reason was simple.
‘Good spirits make themselves known naturally—that’s where their true worth lies.’
A philosophy most could not fathom.
In fact, he had long disapproved of several prestigious spirits competitions.
“Heh heh. Even a man like me can change his mind, you know.”
“Arthur Brook changing his thinking? There must be a reason.”
“What else would change an old drinker’s mind, I ask you? Heh heh.”
“Surely not….”
“I discovered a spirit I had never encountered before.”
It was a single glass.
Before touring traditional distilleries across Korea and attending the Korean Traditional Liquor Evaluation Conference, he had stopped by the home of a young acquaintance from years past.
To be honest, this trip to Korea had partly been driven by concern for that friend.
Seeing him crushed beneath the weight of performance pressure, unable to realize his full potential—it was like watching himself from long ago.
But the man he found seemed transformed.
As though he had shed every burden that had constrained him, his eyes blazed with the fire of creative passion.
This friend welcomed Brook warmly and offered him a glass.
“At first I thought he was being stingy—just one glass!”
“And then?”
“But it was worth it.”
The moment he tasted it, his finely tuned senses revealed a wealth of secrets.
A gin aged in virgin oak, yet retaining the verdant brightness of grass and ripe fruit.
With a nutty character and a clean, crisp sharpness that lingered pleasantly throughout.
But in that instant, Brook’s mind rejected all analysis.
He simply thought:
“It was a glass of autumn.”
When he came to his senses, he had already drained his young friend’s precious bottle entirely.
Leaving the friend in tears of regret and consternation, Brook hastily examined the label and at last discovered where this remarkable spirit had been made.
“Have you ever heard of a place called ‘the house beneath the pine’? That friend said that’s what it meant.”
“A house beneath the pine? Could it possibly be Songhadan?”
“That’s it! That was the name!”
Songhadan.
A spirit created by a new distillery in Korea.
It was unthinkable.
That an aged spirit from a fledgling distillery could possess such direct, intuitive complexity of flavor and aroma.
Though he longed to visit, the schedule of the Korean Traditional Liquor Evaluation Conference prevented him from doing so at that time.
“And that is why I resolved to come. This old man has only just learned that the world is still vast. Heh heh.”
Hard to believe, perhaps—but that is nonetheless the truth of it.
Without knowing it, he had distilled such a magnificent autumn at this new distillery.
Then might there not be such distilleries elsewhere as well?
The moment he thought this way, he found himself unable to focus on anything else.
It was truly the instant when a single glass of autumn moved a master’s heart.
“It may sound strange that I agreed to the evaluation panel position because of that spirit. Ha ha!”
“Not at all. I don’t think that way in the slightest.”
“Hmm?”
Man-hu, who had worn an expression of bewilderment until moments ago, now nodded as if he understood.
It was Arthur Brook whose curiosity only grew at the sight.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd?”
“Not in the least. Had it been any other spirit, perhaps—but this is from Songhadan. I can understand it. And if you’re speaking of autumn, it seems you’ve tasted Echo: Autumn.”
“Ah, yes, exactly. That was the name. Echo: Autumn… Truly, isn’t it a fantastical name?”
As the two conversed, the hall continued to fill.
Not merely with experts from Korea, but with those who had flown in from abroad as well.
Everyone greeted those already seated and engaged in pleasant discourse with one another.
Yet without exception, none of them appeared ordinary.
“I hear this is Korea’s finest evaluation conference, and there seem to be quite remarkable people here.”
“Ha ha, how embarrassing. I’ve heard they’ve been making efforts toward globalization of late, but even I didn’t realize it would be to this extent.”
In the tasting hall, arranged so that three people could be seated per table, titans of the spirits industry and rising talents had claimed their places.
On one side sat a Master Distiller whom distilleries across the globe sought to recruit; on the other, a major distributor of considerable influence.
“I believe our table is this way.”
“An honor. To be seated together like this. Ha ha.”
“There’s no need for such formality. But then again…”
Yet that pleasant mood was short-lived.
Upon glimpsing the person at the neighboring table, his expression darkened considerably.
“Oh. Who might this be? Arthur Brook, is it not?”
“Ha ha… I didn’t expect to see you here, Murata Naguchi.”
And this was not Man-hu’s reaction alone—Arthur Brook’s face, too, had grown visibly cold.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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