I Regressed and Became Too Good at Brewing - Chapter 7

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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 7. Jujudaily (2)
“Well, we work in this field too. So we do hear things from here and there.”
“No, we’ve been handling this on our end with extreme discretion… Hmm… Never mind.”
Juho began to say something, then closed his mouth.
And for good reason.
Whatever Jujudaily was working toward had likely been kept under strict confidentiality.
I only knew about it because of the Regression.
But even without it, I would have learned soon enough.
“It was the Tasting Service, wasn’t it.”
“Well… I…”
He stared at me in disbelief as I named even the project itself.
Jujudaily’s ambitious Traditional Liquor Tasting Service.
With a Regular Subscription, customers received small samples of recommended spirits from headquarters each month.
In my past life, this service had been instrumental in securing them a commanding first-place position.
For a monthly fee, experts would curate and send three varieties of the month’s finest spirits in small quantities.
But it hadn’t gone smoothly from the start.
“No matter how carefully you guard something, there’s always a leak somewhere.”
That was the problem.
Someone inside Jujudaily had passed the service details to a competitor.
I remembered Juho mentioning how this cost them the chance to capture the market first.
And apparently, various other setbacks had stemmed from the same person’s actions.
Given Juho’s decisive nature about such matters, simply knowing this much would let him prevent the troubles that lay ahead.
“A leak somewhere, you say… Ha. Well, this is quite helpful.”
“I’m sorry I can’t give you more precise details—it’s all secondhand information.”
“Not at all. This has been a great help. As for this matter, it’s separate from our contract, so let me explain the terms first.”
And so began the explanation of the Tasting Service.
Though I already knew the details, I listened attentively.
“For now we’ll focus exclusively on traditional spirits, but we’re planning to expand the range, so this should be a good opportunity for Songhadan as well.”
“So you’re suggesting we include Meari in the Tasting Service?”
“Exactly. And to be honest, before coming here, I had our staff try Meari. Everyone kept pushing me to make the deal happen no matter what. Ha ha ha!”
Unlike me, who already knew what the Tasting Service was, Sejun—still catching up—just blinked blankly.
When he quietly asked me what was happening, I explained. His response was immediate.
“That’s amazing! We should do it right away!”
“Ha! Then if you’ll just sign here.”
To be safe, I read through the contract carefully, but most of the terms were favorable to us.
With a glad heart, I finished signing. Juho then tucked the papers into his bag and stood.
“I’ll stop by next time to confirm quantities. You can meet our order volume, yes?”
“We’ll make it work. It’s a good opportunity, after all.”
“Thank you for calling it that. Well then, I should be off.”
“Oh, wait a moment…”
Sejun stopped Juho as he rose, handing over something carefully wrapped.
Peeking inside, I saw a single bottle of Meari.
“You’ve come all this way, and it didn’t feel right not to send you off with something. I’d hoped to have you taste it too, but since you drove here…”
“Ah… now I wish I had time for that. Ha. I’ll enjoy this with gratitude.”
The contract was sealed in the warm atmosphere maintained to the very end.
So we’d taken another step forward.
I waved toward Juho’s car as it hummed away, and Sejun spoke.
“You already knew this would happen, didn’t you?”
“To some degree.”
“Man… I thought you were just a craftsman, but looking at you now, you’re a full-fledged businessman.”
“Am I?”
In my past life, I would have been quite angry hearing that.
With my heart set on carrying forward my grandfather’s legacy, the word “businessman” felt like an accusation of chasing only profit.
But that was my own stubbornness.
“I’m both a craftsman and a businessman.”
“True enough. You brewed Meari, after all. Anyway, since things have come this far, we really need to work hard.”
“Right. We need to expand equipment immediately. I’ll call the pottery craftsman right away, and we’ll need to build a warehouse too.”
There was no shortage of work ahead.
“Oh, and we really need to start hiring staff now. Honestly, I’m good with hands-on work, but design is way too difficult for me.”
Neither Sejun nor I had much affinity for art anyway.
At least Sejun was handling things better than I could, though it was clear he felt the strain of it.
“Right. Yes, I should do that. Let me put up a job posting right away.”
The workload had grown, and we needed more hands to match it.
* * *
[Bastard: Design Team 3. Everyone, please check your email.]
“Wow. Dogs are using smartphones these days too?”
The woman stared at her phone with a vacant expression, cursing under her breath.
“Damn it. Whatever this email says, they’re just going to ask me to jump through hoops again…….”
She slipped off her glasses and set them down, pressing her fingers into her aching eye sockets as she muttered to herself.
That’s how it always went with the big shots.
‘There’s nothing like that? Something modern yet classical? But also daring?’
‘It lacks character! I wanted something mainstream, not something without character!’
‘Design? Can’t you just make it decent?’
‘Ah. Thank you for your hard work, but this is the seventeenth revision. Let’s just go with the original, shall we?’
“God, I wish they’d all just drop dead…….”
This was what it meant to be a designer at a small business.
A contractor, no less.
Day after day, you worked for clients who didn’t even know what they wanted, drawing things you had no desire to draw, just to keep bread on the table.
A hundred times a day she’d want to quit, but she had to eat somehow.
Still, there was one thing she could be grateful for.
Even under this extreme stress, she at least had an escape.
“Sigh… I could go for a drink…….”
The woman toyed with her phone without checking the email.
In the wardrobe beside her sat not clothes, but rows of liquor bottles lined up neatly.
A true drinker’s closet—or rather, a liquor cabinet.
“Hm… should I just stick with what I’ve been drinking? I’d really like to try something new…….”
As she was muttering this, her phone chimed with a notification.
It was a delivery alert for the Jujudaily Regular Subscription Tasting box she’d requested for her home.
“Oh, this should be worth looking forward to, right?”
She’d been quite satisfied with Jujudaily’s recently launched Regular Subscription Tasting Service.
Of course, economic experts had predicted it wouldn’t be profitable, but as a mere customer, she didn’t much care about that.
“Get a good recommendation and that’s all that matters.”
Lately, she’d been hesitant to take risks.
She wanted to drink good liquor, but the prices were simply too steep for someone who earned a mere salary.
“They said they’d send just small amounts, right?”
The thing was, Jujudaily’s Tasting Service sent different varieties of spirits, each in reasonable quantities.
Since it was a monthly subscription, it didn’t feel like she was hemorrhaging money, and besides, she could sample first and then buy only what she actually liked—it was the perfect service for her.
Humming cheerfully as she wondered what would arrive, she brought the box in from outside.
“Oh, the packaging looks nice?”
A cardboard box decorated in Jujudaily’s signature orange.
Inside were three bottles neatly arranged, along with an informational booklet about each spirit.
She pulled out the booklet first and began reading.
“Let’s see… this one I’ve tried… and this one too…….”
Jujudaily’s Tasting Service selected spirits based on purchase history—sending those she hadn’t yet bought.
But a devoted drinker like her didn’t get all her liquor from Jujudaily alone.
So there was only one bottle she was seeing for the first time.
“Hm? This one I haven’t seen before?”
[Nokpaju, Meari]
▷ A green-hued grain spirit distilled at Songhadan in Yeongwol, South Korea.
Its defining character is the rich, verdant taste of green mountains, much like its name and label suggest.
▷ ABV: 15%
▷ Nose: Grass, pine, earth, woody.
▷ Palate: Clean, refreshing, smooth.
▷ Finish: A gentle, crisp aftertaste that lingers.
It was from a distillery she’d never heard of, making a spirit she’d never tasted—but that didn’t matter.
“Now where did I put that glass!”
This was something she’d never tried before!
With genuine delight, she fetched a glass and reached for the bottle.
Inside the small bottle with its ink-wash-painted mountain label, the spirit sloshed gently.
“The design is a bit disappointing, I have to say. Occupational hazard, I guess.”
It was a label she would’ve ordinarily glanced past, but the clumsy illustration and awkward text placement grated on her eye.
What could she do about it?
As a working designer, her standards had risen higher than most people’s.
Knowing this about herself, she decided to focus on the liquor instead.
“Let’s see if it tastes as good as the description promises.”
The moment she uncorked the bottle, a symphony of forest and grass released itself.
The fragrance was so settling, so enchanting, that she found herself pouring a glass without thinking.
The liquid gleamed as it filled the cup, translucent and luminous.
When she took her first sip, she cried out before she could stop herself.
“Oh!”
She could tell at once, from the aroma alone, that this was a liquor of remarkable quality.
It was like the fragrance that drifts from a narrow path winding through the mountains.
But that was only the opening act.
As if Meari hadn’t yet revealed itself entirely, it shimmered on her tongue the moment it made contact.
“My tasting notes—”
She fumbled for the notebook she always carried with her.
Those who truly appreciated liquor kept their own tasting notes, a record of their journey.
Hers was already half-filled with entries, a treasure she’d been building over time.
Yet she couldn’t write anything now.
She hesitated, unsure what words could capture this taste.
“Grass… pine… wood…”
No. Such words were inadequate to describe this flavor and aroma.
How could she put into language that particular smell rising from crushed grass?
The taste that spiraled along the side of her tongue, playing with the liquor before rising again, becoming a tree that stretched toward the sky?
That warm, slightly bitter fragrance emanating from moistened earth, so welcoming and tender?
“What… is this…”
By the time the glass was empty, she hadn’t written a single word.
Translating sensation into language was impossible.
Instead, what she’d sketched in her notebook was a single landscape.
But even that remained incomplete.
She’d been so absorbed in the taste that the inspiration had been swallowed along with the liquor before she could finish.
The mountain in her mind receded, growing hazy and distant.
“No, wait!”
She quickly poured another glass.
And with that second glass, she began drawing again.
Her pen moved rough and quick, sketching earth and trees and grass.
Clear air and flowing water.
A mountain was taking shape on the page.
The mountain she’d glimpsed in that vision.
And then—
“Oh! No!”
The liquor dripped to the bottom of the bottle.
“No! I haven’t finished yet!”
She shook the small bottle desperately, but only a few drops emerged.
It wasn’t a full 500-milliliter bottle—she’d only received a sample, so there was nothing to be done.
But her drawing remained unfinished.
Just a little more, and she would’ve had it—now she could no longer see that mountain of her imagination.
“Just… a little more… Oh!”
The woman, who’d been clutching the empty bottle, suddenly came to her senses.
Meari was a liquor she’d received through Jujudaily’s Regular Subscription service.
Which meant—
“It has to be for sale!”
She frantically logged into the Jujudaily app.
She went to search for Meari, typing quickly—
But there was no need.
Meari’s image was already prominently displayed on the main banner, clearly being promoted with full force.
[MD Pick! Traditional Liquor Capturing the Mountain Itself, Meari. In Stock!]
“Thank goodness!”
Relieved, she tapped the banner and scrolled through the comments.
“Everyone’s raving about it.”
– Seriously delicious.
– No regrets. For the price, this is hard to find anywhere else. Worth paying more, honestly.
– I bought it as a birthday gift for my father, but ended up eating the whole bottle myself, so I ordered another one^^
That’s when she saw it.
A single line of text printed in bold red, like a warning.
“What! Only five bottles or fewer in stock?”
She didn’t even glance at the price.
She just threw everything she had into beating the clock.
“Agree! Agree! Agree! Whatever, just agree! Hurry! Hurry!”
Perhaps it was her sheer determination that made the difference.
She won.
[Purchase complete. We’ll ship to Yu Hajeong as quickly as possible!]
“Phewwwww…….”
Relief washed over her, and Hajeong collapsed into her chair.
She could finally have that happy experience.
And finish the painting she’d left unfinished.
“It’s been so long since I’ve had fun painting like this.”
She lifted the empty bottle again, inhaling what fragrance remained.
The crisp, fresh scent of mountain air still drifted through her nostrils, spreading through her whole body.
With this alone, she could smile through her boss’s pathetic nonsense for days—her mood was that good.
“If I could do packaging design for bottles like this, I’d be happy working all night long…….”
Even as she mused over it, her fingers were already searching for Songhadan.
And it was only natural that when she saw the job posting that had just gone up, her hands began moving with urgent purpose.

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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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