Rice winery, Nonsan, KR

Naekook has set itself a special task: reviving recipes from old Korean literature. In Nonsan, it creates rice wines that join Korea's classical medicinal-wine tradition with modern precision, above all the Signature line of wild forest mushrooms, the finest of which is the songi.

Songi: Korea's most precious mushroom

The songi (matsutake) grows only in the wild, beneath Korean red pines. To this day it resists every attempt at cultivation. Each mushroom is gathered by hand in the autumn mountain forests, which makes it one of Asia's most treasured ingredients. Korean medicine has long valued it as strengthening and good for digestion; its earthy, resinous aroma gives Songi Yakju a fine, forest-like depth that no other ingredient can match.