Colonial Korea’s Liquor Tax Ordinance Restricts Home Brewing

In 1916, the Japanese Government-General of Korea promulgated a liquor tax ordinance that required brewing licenses and made alcohol produced for household use without a license subject to enforcement as illicit liquor. The system converted longstanding domestic production into taxable, regulated activity and sharply narrowed the legal space for household fermentation. The ordinance affected a broad Korean alcohol culture that included cloudy grain beverages made with nuruk starters. Its importance lies not in claiming that tradition vanished at once, but in showing how colonial revenue policy criminalized practices through which brewing knowledge had been maintained and transmitted.