North Koreans have also always enjoyed homemade moonshine, or nongtaegi. For the majority – especially those in the countryside with little or no disposable income – this remains the only option. Typically, homebrewing will be rudimentary, using corn, fruit or ginseng left to ferment in a bottle or jar, and buried under a pile of clothes for warmth.
A world away in the capital Pyongyang, the growing elite means that new bars and restaurants are springing up all the time. There are several microbrewery bars that produce their own lagers and ales on site.
Interviews with defectors also suggest that North Koreans are not serious consumers of marijuana. The drug of choice is, in fact, something much more pernicious: crystal meth. …Meth, known colloquially as eoreum or bingdu (both mean “ice”, a name by which the drug is also known in the US) is a drug unfortunately suited to the realities of life in North Korea: it is cheap, requires no elaborate equipment or specialist knowledge to make, and keeps the weary and hungry on their feet – at least until they become addicts.
—Daniel Tudor and James Pearson writing in The Guardian about the recreational habits of North Koreans, from smoking to homebrewing to coping with crystal meth.
from Longreads Blog » Longreads Blog http://blog.longreads.com/2015/06/28/celebrating-and-surviving-in-north-korea/
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