1st Korean Rice Wine Cheongju Tasting Competition Award Medal/馬山府第一回淸酒品設會会賞牌

Specimen from the collection of Don Pfeifer. Photos courtesy of the owner.

Obverse

賞牌 - Award Medal

reverse

馬山府 - Masan Prefecture /currently an administrative region of Changwon, a city of South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea/

第一回 淸酒品設會 - 1st [Korean Rice Wine] Cheongju Tasting Competition

大正四年六月 - June 1915

 

Cheongju (Korean: 청주; Hanja: 淸酒; literally "clear wine"), sometimes romanized as Chungju, is a clear, refined rice wine of Korean origin.​

The word cheongju (청주; 淸酒) consists of two characters: cheong (청; 淸) meaning "clear" and ju (주; 酒) meaning "alcoholic drink". It contrasts with takju (탁주; 濁酒), as "tak" (탁; 濁) means "turbid". The word takju usually refers to makgeolli (milky, unrefined rice wine). The hanja characters 淸酒 are the same as the kanji pronounced seishu used on the labels of sake.

During the colonial period, only a few alcoholic competitions were hosted by the Government-General of Korea. Most competitions were hosted by regional or national brewing associations. The first Cheongju competition was held in Summer of 1915. There were 73 entries of Cheongju and 51 exhibitors. Each entry was judged 3 times. There were 21 products selected as excellent. Of these 2 were awarded honors, 3 received first place, 6 second place, and 10 third place. The Competition award ceremony was held on the June 8th.​