A copper still on Heath Street in Mission Hill is doing something almost no other machine in America does: turning makgeolli, Korean rice wine, into traditional soju and gin, right in the heart of Boston. Namu Distilling Co. launched in September and is set to celebrate its grand opening and ribbon cutting this Friday, November 6, marking the formal debut of what its founders call New England's first and only Korean-American craft distillery.
The distillery sits at 89 Heath Street, according to Boston Magazine, and was co-founded by Will Blessing and Josh Moss, a couple who met in graduate school before building a business around a spirit most American drinkers barely know. As reported by The Boston Globe, the pair make their soju and gin from Korean rice wine fermented with nuruk, with the gin macerated with juniper and other botanicals drawn from the same base liquid. Moss has said only a handful of U.S. distilleries produce traditional soju at all, a rarity he's called both passion and calculation.
From Grad School to the Still
Neither founder set out to become a distiller. Blessing studied chemistry in graduate school and has said he missed academia's creative outlet and research, while Moss studied engineering — training that now shows up in the technical demands of fermenting and distilling rice wine into spirits. The name Namu means tree or wood in Korean, per the Globe's reporting, a nod to the rooted, agricultural process behind the drinks.
Namu is building more than a tasting room. The company plans to distribute its soju and gin to bars and liquor stores around Massachusetts, the Globe reports, pushing traditional Korean spirits into wider circulation across the state rather than keeping them confined to Mission Hill.
A Cocktail Menu Shaped by the License Itself
Mike Campbell leads the bar program, where the rules of the liquor license have become a creative constraint. Per the Globe's account, Namu's license stipulates that the distillery must make every alcoholic ingredient used in its cocktails itself — which has pushed the team to produce roughly 30 different infusions and liqueurs in-house. That self-sufficiency shows up on a drink list that includes the Burnt Orenji, Yakgwa Daisy, Banana Haemok, Kimchi Gibson, and Roots and Stem, according to the same report.
When Namu opened in September, its debut menu featured 10 original cocktails alongside two zero-proof options, according to Boston.com. Cocktails run $17 to $19, the Globe notes, served alongside Korean drinking dishes called anju, including tteokbokki and Korean-style Castelvetrano olives. Ingredients are drawn from both Korea and New England, including Korean dates and woolly mullein, the Globe reports.
Omakase, Trivia, and a Jeopardy Champion's Questions
On Wednesdays and Thursdays, Namu runs a cocktail omakase featuring four different cocktails paired with food, and distillery tours run every weekend. Tuesdays bring trivia hosted by co-founder Josh Moss — a two-time Jeopardy contestant, as the Globe notes.
Boston.com reports that Namu's founders describe it as the only Korean-American and LGBTQ-owned distillery in Massachusetts, a distinction attributed to the couple rather than an independent count.
The numbers back up the momentum. Soju accounted for less than 1 percent of U.S. spirits volume in 2024, but IWSR forecasts it will grow at a 16 percent compound annual rate through 2029, even as total U.S. spirits volume is projected to shrink by 2 percent over the same stretch. Flavoured soju now makes up more than half of U.S. soju volume, a share that has climbed sharply since 2019, and IWSR links the category's growth closely to the broader rise of Korean culture in America, noting that Gen Z drinkers are among its earliest adopters.
