A Memory from a Korean-American Childhood – Herbal Drink Pouches

What’s up with Koreans and medicinal drinks? Is there anyone in South Korea who doesn’t have some sort-of medicinal drink in their fridge?

If you weren’t aware, Koreans are very health conscious. And my parents, as Americanized as they were, were no exception.

I remember when I was a kid, my parents drank Bacchus-D Energy Drink. This was in addition to the herbal drinks they brewed at home.

Bacchus-D came in a small dark brown glass bottle and still does. The only noticeable change has been how it’s promoted. When I first heard about Bacchus, it was known as an herbal remedy for colds, hangovers, and lethargy. But then it became pushed more as an energy drink, probably due to the rise in popularity of energy drinks.

People even gave each other boxes of this stuff during holidays. That’d be like me giving my friend a case of Redbull for Christmas! And just like with Redbull, you can mix drinks with Bacchus as well. Vodka and Bacchus anyone?

It’s Practically a Panacea

These herbal drinks are still quite popular. And there are so very many of them. Unlike Bacchus-D, they’re still sold as herbal remedies because herbal medicine is still very mainstream in South Korea.

Herbal medicine is so ubiquitous in South Korean that you can find these herbal drink pouches at the local convenience stores right along with the iced coffee and fruit juice drink pouches.

These tonics of-sort, are touted to give you more energy, vitality, longer life, etc. You name it, and there’s a tonic for it. They’re veritable panaceas, if you will.

Droves of sales people, mainly women, go out to places with a lot of foot traffic armed with their bag of herbal drink pouches at the hip to give out free samples. They’re also available in cases so that you can stock up but also so that you can gift it.

Remember what I said about Redbull for Christmas? Yeah, well that’s how we ended up with a ton of these drink pouches in our refrigerator every year. People were giving them to us faster than we could drink them…which I never did.

I hesitated to even tell my mom when I was sick out of fear she’d make me drink one of these things. You think NyQuil tastes nasty? If you’ve never had one of these herbal drink pouches, then you don’t even know what nasty is! 😖

So in addition to the home brewed herb teas and Bacchus, we also had these herbal drinks that came in pouches. Some kids have Capri-Sun pouches in the fridge or pitchers of lemonade or iced tea. We had murky brown liquid in pouches.

Yeah that’s a lot of herbally goodness. And none of us were even ailing from anything!… But maybe that’s why?

The more things change, the more they stay the same

I find myself thinking ‘maybe I should drink some Bacchus-D‘ now that I’m older and have a kid to keep up with. ‘Or perhaps, I should get some of those herbal pouches?’ That’s crazy nonsense right?

But then I look down at some of the stuff I feed my toddler. You know those purees with the screw off cap that come in a what?…A POUCH! And these pouches state all the goodness that’s packed in it. It’s got practically the whole alphabet of vitamins and every mineral in it. Additionally, it’s gluten-free, non-GMO, certified organic, blah-blah-blah.

All this stuff is quite similar to those nasty drink pouches I grew up with. Except these pouches actually taste good or at least 100x better. Is it some sort of rule that medicine, even if it’s considered “medicine” (i.e. herbalism), has to taste horrendous?

So as I pass a puree pouch to my kid, I chuckle to myself how lucky he is and how he doesn’t even know it!

Have you ever tried these herbal drink pouches? How about in cocktail form with vodka or some sort? Share in the comments!