Celebrating Lunar New Year with BERO

Hyojin Park is BERO’s Senior Director of E-Commerce Solutions and Growth, which is a fancy way of saying she’s integral to the team and BERO’s digital success. With the Lunar New Year coming up, I wanted to chat with Hyojin about her family’s holiday traditions and the role alcohol plays in both her culture as a Korean-American and her daily life in general.  

 

 

How has working at a non-alcoholic beverage company impacted your relationship with alcohol?

 

Well, I was actually at Moët Hennessy for about seven years prior to BERO, so I went from alcohol to non-alcohol. I got to witness firsthand what was happening to the alcohol space with the rise of non-alcohol. It wasn't just a trend — it was a genuine threat. Or really, a shift in culture and a shift in the generations driving this change. 

 

Personally, I was naturally starting to integrate non-alcoholic [drinks] into my life before joining the BERO team. Primarily because I was starting a family but also because I just began to value the time where I am functioning and productive more. But, between family and friends, there’s still a big drinking culture. I think especially for Koreans. 

 

I found myself using non-alcoholic options to pace. When I have a busy day the next day or because parenting is 24/7 and you don't really ever get a day to sleep in and recover.

 

I think New York is a big drinking city — that's like a huge part of the culture of living here. A lot of the activities start with, “want to grab a drink?” But I'm curious more about your experience in Korean culture. How is drinking playing a big role there?

 

I don't know if it's specifically my family or my experience, but every time people get together, you eat and you drink, they just go together. Sometimes it’s 9am, sometimes it’s 9pm. 

 

On Lunar New Year, for example, we might make hundreds of dumplings, mandu. My mom always makes too much food. She loves giving some to her brother, her friends, to us — she wants to make a lot and she can because she has daughters to help make them. I remember one time, we were making dumplings early in the morning, and my mom offered my husband and my dad a drink. It was early but there isn’t really a wrong time for soju. (Soju is probably best described as somewhere between sake and vodka.)

 

It’s not that we need alcohol at every gathering, but drinking is something we like to do when we come together and definitely to accompany a good meal. 

 

In Korean office culture, for example, it’s common to go out with your colleagues and you stay out as long as your boss wants to stay out. You might start at a restaurant, you're drinking. Then you go to round two, you're drinking more. Then you might find yourself doing karaoke, and there’s this pressure to keep up. 

 

But, despite being deeply embedded in Korean culture, I think there’s been a shift and younger generations of Koreans are drinking less. It's just catching on a little bit slower than the rest of the world, maybe.

 

Do they have non-alcoholic soju?

 

No, I think this is something you can’t touch! It’s such an essential part of our culture. 

 

But there is a drink called somaek. It's literally soju plus maekju, which means beer. I like to mix soju and BERO, and it slows it down a little bit. It’s just a perfect way to substitute because it tastes the same, but it’s not as fast-paced as using regular beer.

 

That is a very fun hack. That goes into Lunar New Year — what are your typical celebrations? 

 

It's one of the most important holidays, and most people will travel home to be with family.

 

There are, of course, more “traditional” traditions. There's something called sebae where you bow to your elders and say Happy New Year and they bestow good wishes on you (and then give you envelopes of money). I think that my family did it living in the States to make sure we understood these traditions. Every family does Lunar New Year differently; there are games that you could play, too, but we never really did that. I don’t want to sound like my family drinks all the time, but it’s really a joyful thing that we do: hang out, eat, and drink. That's probably true for most Koreans, definitely my family. 

 

It's such a massive holiday in Korea — and I think this is the case in other countries that celebrate — with celebrations that go on for days. There is obviously Lunar New Year on the 29th this year, but the day before and the day after, there will still be celebrations. And most companies will be closed for the week in Korea. 

 

I’m going home to my parent’s house and, while there will be plenty of other food to eat, I would say the biggest one, the one you need to have is tteokguk, which is a rice cake soup. We will put the dumplings we made that morning into the soup and then eat together. It’s meant to symbolize purity and a fresh start. Everyone traditionally eats the soup and “becomes a year older.” I always looked forward to it when I was a kid — it's just a good food holiday, and it has always been one where multiple generations get together which is a cause for celebration. 

 

Have you gotten your family hooked on BERO?

 

Oh, they've been drinking it. My dad has been enjoying it especially because he's trying to drink a little bit less and found BERO, especially the Hazy, to taste just like actual beer.

 

[With BERO] it is really about empowering your choice. You may not drink it for a while and then it just makes sense one day or one moment. So I feel like that's how it's starting to integrate into our family. Certain rituals where you can easily replace a drink, like day drinking or even when you mix it with soju. It’s just a nice way to balance.

 

Cheers to Hyojin, saehae bok mani badeuseyo. Here’s to another year of a life enriched!