Overview: Namu Distilling Company has established itself as New England’s first soju distillery with the opening of a facility at 89 Heath Street on Mission Hill. Co-founded by scientists Will Blessing and Josh Moss, the location features fermented rice-based spirits alongside Korean snacks and cocktails.
The Full Story
The Boston building at 89 Heath Street has long had beverages in its bones. For years, a soda and beer equipment company operated out of that Mission Hill address. In the neighborhood, more drinks: Canada Dry bottled ginger ale down the block; the nearby nexus of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury was once home to many breweries. So it’s fitting that legacy continues with the opening of New England’s only soju distillery, Namu Distilling Company, a new destination for scratch-made spirits (including fermented rice-based gin), anju (Korean drinking snacks), and cocktails.
The founders are married cofounders Will Blessing and Josh Moss, who met about eight years ago while earning graduate degrees. “Once upon a time, we wanted to be professors,” says Blessing, who studied chemical biology. Moss, meanwhile, studied chemical engineering as an undergraduate and atmospheric chemistry in graduate school, giving him a very relevant-to-distillation background in, as he explains, “separation of compounds based on volatility, boiling point, and things like that.” They both decided to pivot and took corporate jobs. “That got old pretty quickly,” says Blessing. “We were really missing that creative element. Then, the pandemic happened, and we were all looking for hobbies.” Blessing, who has Korean heritage, was a longtime home brewer of makgeolli, Korean rice wine, so the duo really leaned into the process, and a path forward became clear.
The Namu concept is two-fold: There’s the actual distilling operation, which takes place in a sun-drenched room to the right as you enter, and a large cocktail bar. In the distilling room are round silver fermenters where glutinous rice slowly ferments with water and nuruk, a Korean fermentation starter, over two to three weeks before it goes into the gleaming copper still to become soju or, with added botanicals, gin—that part only takes about six hours. Nearly all of the other cocktail ingredients are made from scratch in-house, too, partly because the distillery license prohibits the team from using other branded liquor products.
Production & Profile
The Namu Distilling Company produces soju and gin and features a large cocktail bar with Korean small bites. The core products are fermented rice-based soju and gin, distilled onsite. In addition to soju, Namu produces fermented rice-based gin featuring botanicals from New England and Korea. The two regions have a bit of shared terroir since they’re not too far latitudinally apart, as Blessing points out. “It’s a really unique blend of botanicals” that includes citrus peel, angelica root, perilla, jujube, a wildflower called mullein, and more, giving the gin floral, fruity notes, says Moss, adding that he and Blessing are growing some of the botanicals themselves. (There’s juniper, too, of course—that’s the definition of gin—but don’t expect the traditional juniper-forward taste of, for example, a London dry.)
The distillery setup includes a large copper and stainless steel still in the center, surrounded by multiple stainless steel fermentation tanks on the left. The room has high ceilings, large industrial windows letting in natural light, and a red concrete floor. Pipes and metal structures connect the equipment. The rest of the space is dedicated to gathering, tasting, and having fun: a huge, airy cocktail bar with table service. “We want this to be an extremely relaxed, chill environment,” says Moss.
Brand & Industry History
Namu Distilling Company is recognized as New England’s first soju distillery and the First and only Korean-American and LGBTQ distillery in MA. There weren’t any distilleries in New England creating soju, which is traditionally made from fermented rice, so Blessing and Moss found an unoccupied niche building a Korean-American craft distillery. Emphasis on craft. This isn’t your favorite green-bottle soju: “Not that there’s anything wrong with it,” says Moss. “Time and place for everything.”
What This Means
Blessing oversees a small, ever-changing snack menu that might include dishes such as tteokbokki, marinated olives (“Castelvetrano olives but make it Korean,” says the menu), and Korean seasoned cucumbers, depending on the day. He’s also been workshopping bossam, pork belly wraps. “We don’t have the capability to build a full kitchen on premises,” he says, “so we’re quite limited in what we can do,” but the team plans to supplement their own small plates by hosting pop-ups and food-truck teams in the future. Blessing and Moss have a distributor lined up and hope to see their products in bars, restaurants, and liquor stores around New England and beyond. It’ll be one of the only domestic sojus around: “I think we’re the sixth soju distillery in the U.S., the only one in New England, and the third to use traditional methods of fermentation with rice wine,” says Moss, noting that the others use different grains.
Consumer Takeaway
This is where you’ll sip Namu’s products on their own or in intricate—and cheekily named—cocktails by Blessing, Moss, and head bartender Mike Campbell. Take Moss’ favorite drink, the Arbitrary Nitrogen Deficiency, for example: a coconut-maesil-coffee milk punch with injeolmi bitters and red pepper tincture. “We wanted to use liquid nitrogen to make a frozen cocktail, but no one will sell us liquid nitrogen for liability purposes. Very frustrating, especially since we’re both scientists who have handled it plenty of times! But we pivoted to a delicious milk punch with almost the same ingredients, and it’s really good.” The opening menu also includes a kimchi Gibson (“for the dirty martini crowd,” says Campbell); the citrusy Burnt Orenji, which is “the most elevated screwdriver you’ve ever had, as Campbell promises, and “literally on fire,” as the menu promises; the Yakgwa Daisy, featuring sesame-washed soju; and more. Note that due to how distillery licensing works in Boston, Namu can’t sell or use other brands’ spirits or any wine and beer. If you’re in a beer-y mood, though, try the Maek Believe cocktail, a mix of barley tea, makgeolli, hops amaro, and lily, served in a beer bottle and carbonated naturally. “Is it beer? Is it not beer?” says Moss. (It’s not beer.) “It’s fun!” he adds. There are a couple of nonalcoholic drinks, too, including the “milky” and “smooth” Don’t Mind If I Hodu, with walnut orgeat, jujube, and perilla oil. Namu Distilling Co.’s soju cups were made by local ceramic artist Sang Jeong Lee. Open Tuesday through Saturday nights.
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