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Korean · VI The Beverage Tradition

Sikhye — Sweet Rice Drink (식혜)

Korea

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I

Origin

Sikhye (식혜) belongs to the Korean table of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1897), where it is recorded as a drink of the court and of the festival calendar, and it remains a drink of Seollal and Chuseok. The Korean cook worked out the method by observation long before enzymes were characterised: malted barley water, held warm, turns cooked rice sweet, and the rising of the grains shows when the work is done. The tradition is carried in the household, where the drink is made in quantity for holidays and offered to guests at the close of a meal.

II

Description

Sikhye (식혜) is Korea's traditional sweet rice beverage — cooked rice saccharified by yeotgireum (엿기름, malted barley water) at controlled temperature, producing a naturally sweet, faintly rice-flavoured drink with floating grains. The process is enzymatic: alpha and beta amylases from the malted barley convert rice starch to maltose over 4–6 hours at 60°C (140°F). When the rice grains float to the surface, saccharification is complete. The drink is then boiled briefly to stop enzyme activity, chilled, and served with a few floating pine nuts or jujube. Sikhye represents one of the oldest examples of controlled enzymatic fermentation in Korean food culture.

III

The Thread

—Both turn cooked rice sweet by enzymatic saccharification held at a warm temperature, giving a low-alcohol or alcohol-free rice drink with its sweetness drawn from the grain itself. Amazake takes its enzymes from rice koji, the mould Aspergillus oryzae, and keeps the grain soft in a thick body, whereas sikhye takes them from malted barley and is thinned to a clear, chilled drink. Japanese
—Mizuame is made on the same principle, cooked starch converted to maltose by the amylases of malt, and then reduced to a clear syrup. Sikhye stops at a drinkable liquid, while mizuame is concentrated by long cooking into a viscous sweetener. Japanese
—The brewer's mash holds crushed malted barley in warm water so that its amylases convert starch to fermentable sugars, the same step on which sikhye rests. In brewing the sweet wort is then fermented with yeast into beer, whereas sikhye is boiled to halt the enzymes and served sweet and unfermented. German
IV

Flavour Context

Sikhye (식혜) is the sweet drink that closes the meal at Seollal (설날) and Chuseok (추석), served ice-cold after the rich dishes of the holiday table. Its clean rice flavour and gentle sweetness set against the salt, fat and chilli of the preceding dishes, and it is served in the manner of a soft drink, with a few pine nuts or slivers of jujube floating in the glass.

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