I Regressed and Became Too Good at Brewing - Chapter 4

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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 4. Meari (1)
Yes, this was it.
Clean and subtle sensation.
A brisk, mountain-wandering taste unfurled across my palate.
Nearly devoid of sweetness, the flavor was restrained, yet the acidity seized the whole composition, banishing monotony and breathing life into it,
and finally a whisper of bitterness tempered the acidity just before it could overwhelm, adding depth.
While I was still marveling, Se-jun drank again in silence before his astonishment broke free.
“Wow! How is this—! Wow! We actually made this?”
I didn’t need to taste it again to know.
The aromas already rising from the glass had already joined hands and were dancing together, laughing with joy.
Yes, this was it.
This was the Nokpa-ju we’d perfected at Songhadan.
And yet…….
“Something feels missing.”
“What? You’re saying this is lacking?”
“Yeah. It’s missing something.”
It was unmistakably the same taste as the Nokpa-ju we’d made before the regression.
Unmistakably, this was good enough to earn praise anywhere.
Grandfather would probably have complimented us if he’d tasted it.
But why did it feel subtly incomplete?
“Could it be… I’ve become more sensitive?”
I’d always had confidence in perceiving taste and aroma better than most.
It was natural that I felt more acutely what others couldn’t detect.
But now it was different.
Not just feeling it more keenly, but acutely, almost irritatingly so.
It must be that my senses sharpened when I received Song-ha’s abilities.
If that’s the case, then this is an opportunity.
An opportunity to make even better spirits.
“The mountain’s so clean and pure it almost looks empty. Like… how do I put this…….”
Too perfect, too clean a mountain took shape in my mind—mountains alone, without flowers or trees, creating a strange hollowness.
The direction was certain enough to guarantee flavor, but it lacked something distinctly our own.
In other words, a well-built house but disappointing interior design.
“Do you follow?”
“Hmm… now that you say it, I think I sort of see it…….”
Se-jun tilted his head, sipping the Nokpa-ju.
He didn’t seem to sense the subtle difference, but in that moment he was worrying alongside me nonetheless.
<It’s a fine spirit. Though hmm…….>
Song-ha appeared beside me and spoke.
<I too find it somewhat lacking. Like watching a noble scholar without companions…… A mountain exists, yet it seems bare, does it not?>
“A mountain exists but seems bare… Ah!”
The moment I heard those words, a thought struck down from above.
Before that thread could slip away, I bolted to the storage and grabbed materials.
“Why the sudden rush? Did you figure something out?”
“The mountain! It was the mountain!”
And what I set down was none other than pine needles.
“A mountain can’t exist without trees!”
I could see it clearly with both eyes.
The aroma rising from the pine needles reaching out its hand to the Nokpa-ju’s aroma, yearning to be together.
“This was it.”
What dwells in a mountain?
First and foremost, there is the earth rising grandly.
Land climbing high into the sky, clouds draped upon its peak.
But one does not call a towering expanse of earth a mountain.
Upon it grow trees, and grasses holding morning dew—that is what makes a mountain a mountain.
“Let’s try using this.”
“This? But weren’t we saving that for an aromatized spirit later?”
There was no reason a distillery would normally keep pine needles on hand.
But Se-jun and I had a different goal: to craft spirits unique to Songhadan.
We’d bought various materials for all manner of experiments, and the pine needles were one of them.
“When making the secondary fermentation liquor, we infuse a small amount of these young pine needles and brew it. We’ll increase the water ratio relative to rice to create a lighter texture.”
“Hmm. I’m not entirely sure…….”
“No. It’ll work.”
Even now, the scent of Nokpa-ju and pine needles were gazing at each other tenderly, reaching out to clasp hands.
And Song-ha added his voice to it as well.

So I applied this new method and brewed the Nokpa-ju, and a month passed.
“Huh… this…….”
“It worked! Yeon-woo! It worked!”
The completion of the pine needle-aromatized Nokpa-ju, guaranteed by Song-ha the spirit, defied imagination.
Se-jun bounced around like a child, delighted.
But I was too stunned to react in kind.
Fragrances wearing wildflowers and berries in their hair circled the alcohol in leafy robes, wandering at leisure.
They breathed in deeply as if drawing the crisp mountain air of deep dawn, their shoulders linked, playing together in the fragrant dance.

“Yes, truly.”
“Hm? Right? It’s seriously incredible!”
I’d answered Song-ha, who was marveling alongside me, but it was Se-jun who received my words.
Song-ha himself was buried face-first in the liquid like he might dive into the bottle itself, sniffing away.
“Man. This is seriously no joke.”
Se-jun repeated his catchphrase “no joke” while sipping the Nokpa-ju.
Soon enough, after draining an entire glass and smacking his lips at the loss, he turned to me with a question.
“So what are we going to call this?”
“A name? Already?”
“This will definitely sell. I’m serious.”
I agree with Se-jun’s conviction that it will sell without question.
But isn’t naming it this soon premature?
There’s quite a lot of process involved in launching a spirit, after all.

But it seemed only I was thinking such things.
Song-ha beside me was already deliberating over a name as well.
The fragrances in fairy form were smiling happily, surrendering their bodies to the mountain breeze together.
Yes, a foolish thought.
It’ll definitely be a bestseller, so why not name it boldly from the start?
We’re starting anew here.
The very name my grandfather had preserved, the one released before—once more.
“Meari. Let’s keep it as is.”
“The same name as before? But the taste has changed?”
“Yeah. Even if it’s changed, you still feel the mountain in it. That’s why Meari.”
“Oh! That’s perfect!”
From there, the conversation moved quickly forward.
With these two dreamers together, all manner of ideas arose.
Everything from labels to production volumes.
Se-jun was the most excited of all, surprisingly.
“Your name has to be on it.”
“Mine? Why? Me?”
“Because you made it, that’s why!”
“But you helped make it too?”
I deflected the uncomfortable proposal of putting my name on the label, but Se-jun was relentless.
To make such a spirit and not give the maker’s name was poor form, he insisted.
Of course, there were other matters to discuss as well.
“But how are we actually going to sell this?”
“I’ll take care of that.”
Se-jun thumped his chest and promised me to trust him.
“Registration should be quick, and I just need to figure out distribution channels. This will definitely work. And…….”
“And?”
“I think I can handle that too. Just trust me.”
Se-jun grinned widely as he spoke.
Yes, if I don’t trust my partner, who else would I trust?
“Of course I trust you.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Hehe.”
And so, in that moment, the first spirit of Songhadan Distillery was born—Nokpa-ju, christened “Meari.”
* * *
“Look. See this? This is how you click.”
“I know that much.”
“The way you’ve been acting like an old man lately, I thought you didn’t.”
Se-jun’s solution was to register the product on the Korea Post Shopping Mall.
Though he hadn’t been the one to do it, of course.
“Grandfather had already set all this up ages ago anyway.”
“Well, that’s true.”
Se-jun scratched his closely cropped hair, looking sheepish.
In fact, listing items on the Korea Post Shopping Mall required a rigorous screening process.
Not only did you need to prepare the required documents, but there was also an internal review and product registration.
All of this had been made easy because Grandfather had registered everything beforehand.
“I didn’t expect them to conduct another review just because the flavor had changed.”
“Well, that’s only natural. It’s practically a different spirit.”
Still, since both the production method and taste had changed, the shopping mall side had conducted another screening.
Fortunately, the response had been good—it passed through smoothly.
“But how did you know they’d conduct another review, Yeon-woo?”
“Well… if the taste changes, it’s basically a different spirit, right?”
I was caught off guard by Se-jun’s sharper-than-expected question, but managed to brush past it naturally.
Se-jun himself seemed to think nothing of it, just resting his chin on his hand as he stared at the screen, muttering.
“Still, it’s not selling yet though.”
“Well, that can’t be helped. We’re not famous yet.”
It was only natural.
Back in Grandfather’s day, they’d only sold about a hundred bottles during holiday seasons.
For the most part, they’d been satisfied with simply supplying the local restaurants in the area.
That’s why the money needed to operate Songhadan now was being covered by what Se-jun and I had scraped together through hard work.
“We need to expand our sales channels.”
“Expand from here?”
“If we keep going like this, our account balance will be in trouble. You know that.”
The numbers had crossed into a new order of magnitude—it wasn’t something we could dismiss as merely “risky.”
“That’s true. Hmm… but I have left some samples with people around here.”
“Around here just means the local folks—there’s no one else.”
“I gave one to each of the bar owners I used to frequent. Just in case, you know?”
“That was a good move.”
“Hmm. I wonder if there’s any other way…”
Se-jun, who had been bragging about trusting only himself until recently, seemed unable to find a clear path forward.
That was understandable.
How could a business that had just started possibly go smoothly?
But I was someone who had directly witnessed the flow of the next ten years.
“Did you submit an application to Jujudaily?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I submitted it right away. But will it make any difference?”
Jujudaily.
A spirits platform that circumvented the alcohol laws, which permitted only face-to-face sales, by becoming the nation’s first to establish itself using a smart order system.
Though not universally known, it was a company as famous among spirit enthusiasts as any major corporation.
Of course, they hadn’t maintained that glory.
Regardless.
“But they don’t mainly handle traditional spirits, do they?”
“These things exist. Once you’ve submitted, that’s done.”
Thinking of what had happened in my previous life, maintaining a good relationship with Jujudaily was important.
Truthfully, we’d had a good relationship in my past life too, but there had been a slight sense of being too late about it.
If everything went according to plan, there would be a good response.
“So for now, let’s focus on brewing the spirits.”
“Understood.”
No matter how much I told myself I’d live differently from my previous life, keeping the taste of the spirit pure was the right thing to do.
* * *
It is difficult to see stars in the Seoul sky.
The street lights shone brightly late into the night, which was part of it.
Yet despite this, there were places that offered a comfortable darkness—one such place was a bar.
Especially here, famous for being selective about its patrons, one could enjoy a particularly quiet respite.
A man sitting on such a stool, heaving a long sigh.
“Ugh, this really doesn’t sit right with me…….”
He looked like nothing more than an easygoing middle-aged man, with a round, pleasant face.
But anyone working in liquor distribution would know him without question.
Yun Ju-ho, CEO of Jujudaily.
He shifted in his chair, muttering to himself.
“How could anyone try to peddle something like that…….”
He’d just come back from another distillery.
He’d thought it was merely a social gathering, but it had been arranged to make a request of him—that much was clear now.
The man must have believed that if Jujudaily, which was doing better than most these days, would simply accept liquor made at his distillery, his fortune would be made.
The memory of that man fumbling to pull out a bottle made his expression crumple.
“It really had no taste at all.”
The moment he compromised on flavor to lower the price, his fate was sealed.
Damp and murky, with nothing but off-flavors clinging to it.
It was shameless—how could anyone have the nerve to call such a thing liquor and ask him to sell it?
“I need to rinse my mouth out. Boss, do you happen to have anything good?”
“Looking for traditional spirits these days, are you?”
“Ha. Word travels fast, does it?”
“Indeed.”
The bartender answered while drying a glass.
It was common knowledge among anyone who mattered in the industry lately.
For some reason, Yun Ju-ho, CEO of Jujudaily, was searching for traditional spirits.
“Would you happen to have any decent recommendations?”
“I have one. I doubt you’ve ever tasted it before.”
“Me, is it?”
Who was he, after all?
Yun Ju-ho, the man who couldn’t resist a good drink.
A spirit he’d never tasted before? Impossible.
Curiosity bloomed in that instant as the bartender continued.
“A regular customer gave it to me. I asked where they’d gone, and they said they were brewing spirits in Yeongwol now.”
“Yeongwol? You mean Songhadan?”
“You know of it.”
“I thought the owner passed away and it wasn’t operating anymore.”
“I heard their grandson took it over. Here it is.”
Mid-conversation, a single glass was slid toward him.
The spirit it held.
Even now, Ju-ho held no particular expectations.
He simply thought it would surely be better than that dreadful taste from before.
The moment he took a sip.
“Mm!”
The glass was suddenly empty.
“This. What’s the name of this spirit?”
“I heard it’s called Meari.”
“Meari…….”
He began to turn the name of this spirit he’d just tasted over in his mind.

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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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