I Regressed and Became Too Good at Brewing - Chapter 40

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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 40. Korean Traditional Liquor Festival (1)
“It’s time.”
A week before the Korean Traditional Liquor Festival was to begin.
I announced it calmly in the office with everyone present.
My staff turned to look at me, their expressions blank and searching.
“Time for what, exactly?”
“Well, you have to tell me what time you mean for me to understand, Yeon-woo.”
“That’s what I’m asking!”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Neither do I…….”
Each staff member chimed in with their own complaint about my vague statement.
Hollowed by the rush to prepare for Hongya’s launch, exhaustion lay heavy beneath everyone’s eyes.
“Now we launch Hongya.”
“Ah. That’s what you meant. But we’re already working on that, aren’t we?”
“Huh?”
“You mentioned it yesterday—that we should be ready to move forward today. That’s why everyone’s been coordinating their schedule around this.”
It seemed clear: a person really does need to sleep, even a little.
Despite the minor confusion, the promotional campaign for Hongya that we’d been preparing all along rolled out in a coordinated wave.
It was like opening floodgates and letting everything we’d accumulated pour out at once.
The first salvo came with an exclusive photo and description of Hongya posted on Songhada’s website.
“It really does look lovely each time I see it.”
“Hehe…….”
If Ha-jeong’s aesthetic sense lay in creation, Ye-eun’s lay unquestionably in composition and placement.
The introduction photo—Hongya with its elegant label arranged against Songhada’s tranquil panorama set in Yeongwol’s serene landscape—struck straight at collectors’ desire to own.
“Next comes the interview with JuJu Daily.”
JuJu Daily had wasted no time either.
They posted the interview I’d done with them beforehand and began selling Hongya on their site.
They’d even branded it “Songhada Showcase,” featuring Meari and Dalbord alongside it.
And once the YouTube video we’d scheduled for premiere release went live—?
“It’s up!”
The upload had taken longer than expected even after editing, since there was so much content.
That’s why we’d set it to post at an exact scheduled time.
“I never imagined a reaction like this.”
– ??? Is this for real?
└ Who the hell showed up there?
└ ???
└ Am I reading this video title right?
└ Why did those two even come to Songhada?
That was relatively tame by comparison.
– Holy crap there’s new stuff dropping again?
└ Eddie Brook? Naguchi Murata? This lineup is real? I’m getting chills
└ Who even are these guys, you obsessive nerds
└ In all my days I never thought I’d watch Eddie Brook lose his mind over K-traditional liquor and start babbling like an idiot lmaooo this domestic pride hit so hard
└ Okay but logically speaking that’s something that shouldn’t even be possible
Various online communities, too, were beginning to burn up…….
[(Must Read) There are still newbies who don’t know these two? Here’s a quick rundown—memorize it.]
1. Eddie Brook
Just the god of the whisky world and a living legend.
He’s the Master Distiller, and the Single Malt lineup that’s come through his hands moves the needle on worldwide whisky auction prices.
He’s not just good at making spirits—his ability to work with casks is genuinely monstrous, off the charts.
Even if you hand him some mediocre raw spirit, the moment he lets it rest in a Sherry cask for a few years, hits it with some Peat Balance, and works his magic on the Finish, it transforms into a 95-point transcendent whisky.
In this world, when Eddie Brook says “this oak is stellar,” that cask’s price shoots up ten-fold the next day.

2. Naguchi Murata
The Yama of whisky criticism and the absolute sovereign.
The most demanding and influential tier-one critic in the world, infamous for his viciously cynical tone and stingy scoring.
This guy leans hard on Western and Japanese whisky, but look up the TrueWiki controversy for the rest of that story.
There’s too much to list here.
Even when famous distilleries bring him hundreds-of-millions-of-won limited editions, if they don’t suit his palate he’ll call them “overpriced sugar water” or “oak-barrel sap” and slap them with a 70-point score, bankrupting distilleries left and right with his savage critiques.
But this man brought his nose close, held the liquid in his mouth—and then smiled?
And gave it a score of 90 or higher?
Then that whiskey would see resale prices skyrocket by 500% as collectors worldwide scramble to hoard it—that’s the official outcome.
Summary:
Eddie Brook = The god who creates whiskey.
Naguchi Murata = The judge who holds the power of life and death over that whiskey.
And now these two—who tasted our traditional liquor and had their minds blown?
It’s like Messi and Ronaldo showing up to a casual neighborhood game, drinking makgeolli, and raving about it. I mean, come on.
└ Eddie Brook really is a magician with Peat Balance… any Independent Bottling he’s touched is unobtainable now
└ Naguchi, that crusty old bastard, normally treats anything that isn’t Scotch whisky as garbage—a total Japanese snob. And now he tried traditional liquor and gave it a good review? Either it’s fabricated or we’ve got an earth-shattering spirit on our hands
└ Exactly—no matter who Eddie Brook and Naguchi are, the idea that they’d be blown away by a traditional liquor made by some young nobody is just absurd viral nonsense, right?
The video of foreign experts—two world-renowned specialists, no less—tasting traditional liquor and pouring out admiration climbed rapidly in view count.
Interest in Hongya, the newly released spirit, surged along with it.
“Wow! The reaction is insane!”
“Right? Yeon-woo, at this rate we could run out of stock in a flash.”
“Already?”
“Director Yoon keeps pressing me—wants to know if there’s any more. If this keeps up, we won’t be able to keep pace within a week.”
I’d thought we’d prepared well, stocking more than enough initial inventory.
Apparently that wasn’t enough either.
Songhada’s new spirit had become a phenomenon, pure and simple.
Ring, ring, ring~
The office phone at Songhada began ringing incessantly.
Ha-jeong, answering without thinking, kept muttering things like “I’ll look into it” and “I’m afraid I can’t give you an answer right now,” then hung up with a heavy sigh.
“Distributors are already calling. They want to know how much more we can supply.”
“Sigh… I’m afraid that will be difficult. It’s a spirit where meeting demand immediately is simply impossible.”
Hongya had to undergo fermentation and aging in Grandfather Gyeong-sik’s special Onggi, and because of those very characteristics, it was equally hard to bottle automatically.
Which meant that even at maximum effort, we could produce no more than 200 bottles of Hongya per day.
“And we made 5,000 bottles before launch, giving it our absolute best effort, right?”
“That’s a week’s worth at current demand.”
Even rough math showed we were moving at least 700 bottles a day.
Utterly inadequate production.
I could already predict demand would keep climbing, so a decision had to be made now.
“This won’t do. We have to expand our production facilities, no question.”
“We just expanded last time—are we doing it again?”
“No, this time we need to expand the Fermentation Room. Let’s set it up as a separate space.”
Songhada was a small distillery; the building wasn’t large, and it didn’t have separate structures for different stages of production either.
Most of the manufacturing process happened in one space.
The only separate area we had was the Aging Facility where the Oak Barrels were stored.
“Part of why Hongya is hard to mass-produce is the Onggi, but it also requires careful attention during fermentation.”
“While I’m at it, I should ask Grandfather Gyeong-sik to make more Onggi.”
“Let me handle that request, Se-jun.”
Ring, ring, ring~
The phones rang so relentlessly that conversation became nearly impossible.
Everyone was soon busy fielding calls at their respective stations.
I also reached out to Grandfather Gyeong-sik, requesting additional Onggi.
“Phew. Glad to hear it.”
<So he’s making the Onggi for us?>
“Yes. Fortunately. And even better—he says he’s already made more with identical specifications.”
Apparently, while crafting the Onggi we’d ordered before, he’d found it so enjoyable that he’d fired several more batches.
Grandfather Gyeong-sik had made traditional ash-glazed Onggi and unglazed Onggi several more times over.
“I’ve contacted the architectural firm as well.”
<So the Fermentation Room is finally being built?>
“Yes. They said they’ll get started right away.”
The same company that had handled the Aging Facility expansion and the staff quarters would be taking on this project too.
Speed of construction mattered more than price.
And since they were a firm that didn’t compromise on solidity, we could trust them with confidence.
“Whew. That’s one worry off my mind.”
At least that was fortunate.
We might not be able to ramp up production immediately, but if the Oak Barrels came through, we could boost output as quickly as possible.
“I nearly wasn’t going to be able to bring Hongya to the Korean Traditional Liquor Festival.”
<You were planning to take it there?>
“Of course.”
If one were to name the most authoritative tasting evaluation in South Korea, it would be the Korean Traditional Liquor Tasting Evaluation—and conversely, the Korean Traditional Liquor Festival was the venue where the greatest number of brewers gathered to showcase their work.
It meant that plenty of experimental spirits emerged to spark inspiration, and skilled craftsmen often unveiled their finest creations.
But what truly set this event apart was the opportunity to taste spirits not yet released to the market.
“Of course, we’ve already launched Hongya, but the more avenues we have to build awareness, the better, wouldn’t you say?”
<I’ve always trusted a friend’s choices.>
There was a quiet confidence in Song-ha’s smile as he spoke.
* * *
Construction on the Fermentation Room began to progress steadily.
Of course, this wasn’t a project that could be finished in a day or two.
The Fermentation Room had to maintain strict cleanliness given its purpose, and ventilation and drainage systems had to be properly installed.
Attention to the positioning of the fermentation vessels—the most critical element—meant that design and construction took considerable time.
“At least we secured the completion permits ahead of time, or we’d be in real trouble.”
When we’d conducted renovation work previously, we’d had the foresight to obtain the completion permits in advance, which proved its worth now.
Even so, we couldn’t dramatically increase Hongya production right away.
“Still, it’s a relief we have more Onggi vessels.”
“We managed to produce just enough to bring to the festival.”
We’d decided to expand Songhada’s scale aggressively.
At first, when the risk had been too great, we’d handled things reactively—solving problems as they arose—but we’d long since outgrown that approach.
Meari and Meari: Autumn were steady sellers, moving consistently.
Dalbord was doing just as well.
“In times like this, you have to set aside reinvestment funds and expand systematically.”
“We should hire more staff, too. There’s too much work.”
“I feel the need for it as well.”
Even after bringing on the twin siblings Ye-hyeon and Ye-eun, Songhada still suffered from a labor shortage.
What good was hiring more people when the volume of work was multiplying far faster than our capacity?
“And I want to improve employee benefits.”
“Oh, nice. Boss, definitely increase our benefits. You hear that?”
“Ugh. Why do you have to be so shameless about it?”
This was something I’d been considering for a while now.
The fact that everyone genuinely loved the spirits meant they could endure it—but the schedule of the past several months had been absolutely relentless.
If people worked that hard, they deserved to walk away with real gains.
That way, they’d develop greater affection for Songhada.
“Anyway, those are all good ideas. But listen, Yeon-woo…”
“Hmm?”
“Does reinvestment really only apply to the distillery?”
It was Se-jun, who’d been listening attentively to my plans up until now, who voiced this observation—not before giving me a deliberate once-over from head to toe.
I was confused by his reaction in the middle of all this chaos, but the revelation came not from him but from Ye-eun, who had been watching me quietly the whole time.
“Boss… your fashion sense…”
“What?”
“It’s… destructive…”
“You’re the face of Songhada, Yeon-woo.”
“Me?”
“Of course. Aren’t you the owner?”
“Well, yes, but…”
Maybe that was why Eddie had suggested I get a custom suit tailored.
“You’re not planning to go to the Korean Traditional Liquor Festival dressed like that, are you?”
“…”
“No, this won’t do. The festival is in the Yangje area, right? Let’s at least pick up a ready-made suit before we go.”
※ Please note that all events and plans appearing in this novel are entirely fictional.

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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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