A few weeks ago, on a glorious sunny day, I visited one of London’s incredible Cocktail Bars called OGAM where I spoke to the owner, Kim Tae Yeol, about what makes his bar so special and to learn more about the wonderful work he does as a Korean Traditional Liquor Ambassador through his company ATO.
This gem of a bar, OGAM, located in Chapel Market is a really ‘must visit’ for any cocktail lover, and its menu contains lots of Cocktails that have been lovingly created to suit every taste. Talking of the special meaning behind the name, “OGAM”, Kim said, “means five senses in Korean – see, taste, hear, smell and touch.”
Kim would give his ‘Miracle of Han River’ (“MOHR” – pictured right) the title of OGAM’s ‘signature cocktail’. This was the Cocktail Kim served at the OECD Gala Dinner (see further below), which means his drink has been tasted by world leaders, presidents, celebrities….and now me!
MOHR is made with Leegangju (one of the Korea’s nationally famous traditional drink), fresh lemon juice, pineapple juice and grapefruit syrup, with the finishing touch of smoke from torched herbs to coat the smoky scent on the glass. MOHR is fruity, delicious and generally perfect. I fell in love with it at first sip.
Kim’s favourite Cocktail on the menu, however, is ‘Danji’ (pictured left). Also made with Leegangju, this cocktail is made up of scorched rice syrup and a Korean rice drink. It’s sweet, rich and milky. In making this Cocktail, Kim says, “we use a Korean traditional earthenware glass (Danji) and burn a pine cone on the top to give a visual satisfaction.”
I can confirm this is correct, and that it was a pretty wonderful experience for me to watch him expertly prepare the cocktail in a really exciting way. If you order this drink when visiting then you are in for a treat! It’s delicious.
Kim considers being able to promote Korea and its rich distilling history as the best thing about running his own bar. This is why OGAM is the place which has the most traditional Korean liquors in the whole Europe – allowing guests to enjoy the Korean cocktails without going to Korea. “I am happy,” Kim said, “that lots of our customers visit OGAM when they miss Korea.”
F: Do you have any mocktails for those who don’t drink?
KTY: We have more than 10 mocktails on our menu, and we will also create personalised mocktails if guests tell our bartenders the fruits they like or the flavours they want.
Kim has also established ‘ATO’, which is a company that imports and distributes the most premium and traditional Korean liquors to the UK and Europe, the only of its kind in the whole of Europe that does so. They have over 7 types of drinks in their product portfolio, all of which are made using traditional methods. ATO supplies many a great restaurant and bar with their products and has its own Makgeolli brewery, Sooldanji.
ATO’ too has a special meaning, Kim shared: “It means gift in pure Korean words. And if you divide it into Aa-TO, it means beautiful soil, where all our products initially originated. Just to show respect and praise the fact that our liquors are made with grains and fruits that our farmers harvested from our beautiful land, we named our company like this.”
About Kim Tae Yeol
Kim recalls how his first introduction to mixology came about: during his time at university (studying advertising and marketing) he took on a part-time job as a bartender to supplement his income. He has always had a fascination about the processes involved in making drinks which stemmed from observing his Grandfather brew his own Makgeolli. It was not until after Kim had completed his military service that he thought specialist bartending “may be my thing”, which occurred to him upon coming second in a Cocktail Competition in 2011. In 2014, Kim started to make Korean traditional drinks at Traditional Drink Institution in Korea. Between then and 2017, Kim continued to professionally study drinks and obtain relevant certifications, including time spent, interestingly, working as a vegetable sommelier.
If, like me, you have not heard of a vegetable sommelier before, their mission is to be “a bridge between producers and consumers. By acquiring a wide knowledge of vegetables & fruit essential to one’s diet, such as effective cooking methods according to the specific nutrition or material, you will be able to make use of that knowledge through various work, helping families improve their health and diet.”
2015 was a good year for Kim – as it was the year he took part in the International Korean Cup Championship….and won! This competition is a highly renowned Cocktail competition co-organised by the Korean Government and Korean Bartender Organisation. Lots of passionate professional bartenders from across China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia and Korea participate in. Winning the competition allowed Kim to gain the recognition he deserved for his skills and talents in Cocktail making and gave him the platform he wanted to promote Korea’s traditional drinks with cocktails – not only to create a recipe but also to create a story with eye-catching presentation.
Kim has served drinks at lots of international events, including notable events such as the at the OECD Gala Dinner in Paris (2016) and participating in the Korea-China diplomatic relationship event in Beijing (2018) as a bartender. All of these exciting events ultimately lead Kim to open OGAM in 2020 as part of his role as a Korea Traditional Liquor Ambassador. During the difficult period that was the COVID pandemic (by which time Kim was living in the UK), he followed in his Grandfather’s footsteps and established his own Makgeolli brewery. Now he has a thriving and exciting business that allows him to “invent cocktail recipes that can promote traditional drinks.”
Talking a little of his inspirations, and joy he gets from his daily life, Kim tells me that “meeting new people every time is a lovely thing.” He also considers it a blessing to “taste and study new and different alcohols. I feel thrilled when I study new ingredients and create a new cocktail based on the feelings I had through travelling and daily lives.” A truly great bartender, Kim tells me, not only does endless learning and studying with great knowledge, and provides the perfect service and hospitality to make the guests happy, but has his or her own strong belief and keeping it with a great personality and attitude.
I’ve recently learned that the most important question of all to ask any bartender is what their all time favourite cocktail is. To this, Kim said: “I love dry gin martini. This is because even though the drink is created using only two simple ingredients, it makes thousands of different flavours. Since the ingredients are simple, it is a very sensitive and delicate cocktail – making it really hard to make a good one. This is why it tastes so different based on which bartender made it.
I wanted to know a little bit more about Lee Gang Ju, the liquor that formed part of the cocktails mentioned above (as well as others), and Kim told me that its name means ‘Pear Ginger liquor’. It is made with Korean pear, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, rice and honey, and has, he said, “been selected as one of the ‘3 best liquors from the Joseon Dynasty’. It has been made with the same recipe handed down for over 500 years by the Masters with precise craftsmanship. It’s also Korean National Cultural Heritage (Jeollabuk-do No.6). Korean National Cultural Heritage is carefully appointed by the Korean government, and the title is only granted to assets of exceptional quality with great historic and artistic values. There are only 34 Cultural Heritage Liquors in Korea. It won GOLD in International Spirits Challenge and was official gift from the Blue House and the president of Korea.”
If you, the reader, are curious about this and want to learn more about different types of Korean traditional liquors, you can visit Instagram account: @ato_korean_drinks, where you will see interesting educational posts by a friendly teacher named Horang.
F: As a huge lover of Makgeolli, I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about your brewery and the process involved in making it?
KTY: At the moment we have a small brewery in Bethnal Green where we make a variety of different flavours, such as rice, corn (Kim’s favourite flavour), chestnut, sweet potato, rhubarb, peach flavours. The ingredients in Makgeolli are rice, Korean yeast and water. Unlike imported pasteurised products, the Makgeolli we brew is fresh and ‘alive’. It’s way fresher, and very fizzy from the bubbles naturally made during the fermentation process. The fermentation actually continues within the bottle so it is another fun to enjoy the flavour changing as time passes.
Fun fact I learnt during this interview: Making Cocktails at home is also known as hometending.
Always drink responsibly!
