In Chinese characters moju is 母酒: mother's wine. There are several origin stories, but the one told most often goes like this. A mother worried about a son who drank too much, so she boiled the wine to drive off its strength and put in things that were good for him. That's why moju is simmered. Most of the alcohol cooks off along the way, and under 1% remains.
We kept that story on the label. Because moju is mother's wine, a drink made with care, every label has one line left blank. Who it's for, what today was, or just your name.
Nobody outside Jeonju knows it
The owner doesn't drink. But she always liked the sweet moju that Jeonju's bean-sprout soup houses serve. Pregnant with her second child and living in another city, she went looking for it, and the answer she got was "What's moju?" That was the day she realized: this drink exists only in Jeonju.
For her husband, moju is a childhood memory. "After straining makgeolli, there's this thick lees left over. Throw a few things in, boil it, and it turns sweet." First his mother brewed it, then his older sister. That sister is the first moju host at this house today.