Add these Atlanta-made gins and sojus to your home bar

This story is part of a partnership between “City Lights” / WABE” and Rough Draft Atlanta called “The Beverage Beat with Beth McKibben.” As a “City Lights” contributor, McKibben joins the program monthly to highlight her most recent Rough Draft story on Atlanta’s cocktail, wine, coffee, and non-alcoholic beverage scene. Listen to this “City Lights” episode on Nov. 19.

While Metro Atlanta includes distilleries producing whiskey, bourbon, and vodka, few focus on making gin, amaro, and even Korean spirits like soju.

Minhwa Spirits out of Doraville not only produces two types of soju but also the milky white brewed beverage makgeolli and a chai-infused gin. Over in Scottdale, Murrell’s Row Spirits is the company behind GinGin, Tulsi Gin, and Eno Amaro. 

You may have seen these two brands on the back bars at restaurants throughout Atlanta over the last year, including Gene’s in East Lake, Kimball House in Decatur, Maypeel in Midtown, and Sweet Auburn BBQ in Poncey-Highland. 

But you should consider adding these locally-made spirits to your bar at home. 

Minhwa Spirits 

After launching Minhwa Spirits last year in Doraville, James Kim and Ming Han Chung partnered with Asian-American-owned Postern Coffee to open a coffee shop and cafe on Van Fleet Circle. 

They plan to split the space in the coming weeks, expanding into a tasting room serving cocktails and pours of soju and gin, and eventually makgeolli. The Doraville tasting room and coffee shop already serves food from Korean pop-up Ganji. 

Minhwa Spirits takes its name from a form of Korean folk art created by amateur artists. 

“It’s art for the people, by the people,” Kim explained, who said he and Chung found parallels between these amateur artists and their passion projects and what they’re doing at Minhwa. 

“We’re not bourbon or whiskey guys, or grew up in the industry, we’re just two friends making Korean and Asian spirits for the people,” Kim said.

Kim and Chung want to shine the spotlight on lesser-known, but equally important spirits from Asian countries like Korea. This includes soju. Chung said people often associate the colorless distilled Korean spirit made from fermented rice with being cheap and mass-produced. 

Not so at Minhwa Spirits.

The pair take a traditional approach to making soju – an 800-year-old  Korean spirit distilled from rice – with just four ingredients: rice, north Georgia spring water, yeast, and a wheat-based fermentation starter called nuruk, which contains enzymes to break down rice starch into sugars. 

Named for two mischievous goblins, Minhwa Spirits makes lower-proof Dokkaebi at just 17 percent. But despite its lower alcohol content, Dokkaebi could sneak up on you if you’re not careful. Hence the name.

At a hefty 40% ABV, Minhwa’s Yong won a double gold at the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition and is a more traditional style soju. 

As for the taste, while some people liken soju to vodka, Kim describes Minhwa’s sojus as featuring subtle sweet, toasted rice notes, offering vegetal terroir from where the rice is grown in Arkansas. 

While you can sip Yong neat, the fuller body and texture of this higher ABV soju lends itself well to making cocktails, especially mules, highballs, and milk punches, all cocktails Kim and Chung will serve in the Minhwa Spirits tasting room when it’s up and running later this year.

As for Minhwa’s Queen Huh chai gin, Kim and Chung collaborated with Monica Sunny, the owner of The Chai Box in Marietta. The gin combines notes of fresh juniper, citrus, and other traditional botanicals with delicate floral and warm notes from the chai spices, including cardamom. 

Timothy Parker, beverage director at Sweet Auburn BBQ in Poncey-Highland began using Minhwa Spirits’ soju and chai gin in cocktails earlier this year, most recently during a pop-up with Indian fusion barbecue pop-up Dhaba BBQ.

A riff on fish house punch features Queen Huh gin and lower proof Dokkaebi soju, jasmine and black teas, pink guava and citrus oleo saccharum. The Pataka Highball mixes Queen Huh gin with lemongrass, Thai basil, makrut lime leaves, lime juice, and simple syrup. 

Minhwa’s sojus and gin are sold at local bottle shops like Elemental Spirits Co. in Poncey-Highland and Marietta Bottle Shop. 

Murrell’s Row Spirits

Bo Brown, Ferrol Lee Mayfield, and Nathan Evick founded Murrell’s Row Spirits in 2015. The three friends and bartending colleagues share a love and appreciation for botanical-based spirits like gin and amaro. 

While other spirits makers were focusing on bourbon, whiskey, and vodka in Atlanta, Brown, Mayfield, and Evick saw a need in the market for locally-made gin and other botanical-forward spirits.

They named their company Murrell’s Row after an infamous area north of Decatur Street between Peachtree and Pryor known in the mid-19th century as Atlanta’s seedy red light district. 

The brand officially launched in 2022 at Kimball House, and can now be found on the back bars of restaurants across Metro Atlanta. 

Mayfield believes gin’s bad reputation, especially in America, simply comes down to a lack of understanding of what it is and how it’s made as well as recalling less than pleasant experiences with gin, including in high school and college. It’s hard to shake those memories and wash away the taste of bad gin in your mouth. 

But like Beyonce, gin is experiencing its renaissance moment, with bartenders taking their spirits education more seriously, honing their craft, and giving gin a second or third or even fourth chance to shine.

Don’t give up on gin, especially Murrell’s Row. 

Related Story: The Martini is never out of fashion. The Martini is forever.

“I believe gin has come back into favor amongst people, the exposure of different styles of gin and other botanicals shining through has opened the door for the general populace,” Mayfield said. “It’s one of the most versatile cocktail spirits that adds a beautiful element to whatever it’s mixed with or even enjoyed neat or on the rocks.”

The company works with farms like Love is Love, Stellar Roots, and Gentle Harmony to source botanicals and other ingredients for the gins and amaro. The trio also procure spices from Chef Meherwan Irani’s company, Spicewalla. 

GinGin is what Mayfield describes as the gin lovers’ gin. A classic juniper-forward dry gin with notes of citrus and celery seed perfect for making a Martini or Negroni. 

The trio is especially proud of the Tulsi gin – it took them nearly a decade to get the formula right. 

This is “new world” gin, infused with tulsi or holy basil native to tropical and subtropical regions throughout Asia and the western pacific. 

Tulsi gin features eight botanicals: Tulsi basil, green cardamom, lemon, coriander, lemon, angelica root, grains of paradise, and juniper. It includes notes of warm spices, fresh herbs, and hints of subtle sweet red fruit. 

Mayfield said Tulsi gin is perfect for mixing in bright citrus drinks, even a gin and tonic, or a white Negroni. But his favorite cocktail to mix up with Tulsi Gin is the classic Martinez, made with sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur, and orange bitters. 

A forebear to the Martini, possibly invented in the late-19th century in San Francisco as a drink to perk up miners headed to the town of the same name, the Martinez was made with Old Tom Gin (or Dutch genever), sweet vermouth, curaçao, and orange bitters. 

Brown, Mayfield, and Evick recently launched a brand new gin for Murrell’s Row called Mignonette, which they infused with olive oil, bay leaves, and Vidalia onion. This savory take on gin was specifically produced to whip up martinis perfect for pairing with oysters on the half shell, able to stand up to the brine and salt from the meat of the bivalves.

Like Minhwa Spirits, you can find Murrell’s Row Spirits at bottle shops around Metro Atlanta, including Elemental Spirits, My Friend’s Bottle Shop, Total Wine, and Tower Package.