In K-dramas, the green soju bottle often arrives before the honest conversation does.
A bad day at work ends at a small restaurant. Two friends sit outside a convenience store. Someone who has said very little for an entire episode pours another glass. A few scenes later, the thing that could not be said sober is finally out.
Soju is common on Korean screens because it has long been common in Korean social life. But drama also uses drinking as a remarkably efficient piece of storytelling.
And that is where the picture becomes more interesting in 2026: younger Koreans are drinking less often, even as K-dramas continue to rely on a visual language built during a more alcohol-centered era.
Soju appears so often in K-dramas because drinking scenes can show hierarchy, friendship, stress, intimacy and confession in one familiar setting. The scenes draw on real Korean social customs, but they should not be read as a literal portrait of how often young Koreans drink today.
K-drama does not use alcohol as background only
A 2022 peer-reviewed study examined six Korean drama series and found an alcohol reference approximately once every 12 minutes of programming.
The researchers identified recurring uses of alcohol as a social ritual, a stress reliever and a relationship facilitator. Intoxication was also frequently given a positive narrative function.
That sounds obvious if you have watched enough Korean television, but the frequency matters.
Drinking is not an occasional prop inserted into a few restaurant scenes. It has been built into the grammar of mainstream Korean screen storytelling.
Why soju works so well for writers
Soju is inexpensive, familiar and available in almost every social setting that a contemporary drama might need.
It works at a company dinner. It works at a barbecue restaurant. It works in a neighborhood bar. It works at a convenience-store table.
Two bottles and two small glasses are enough to tell a Korean viewer what sort of conversation may follow.
Hierarchy can also become visible without explanation. A junior receives a glass with two hands. A senior pours. A younger person may turn slightly away while drinking in front of an older person.
A drinking scene can therefore establish age, rank and intimacy before the important dialogue even begins.
Alcohol gives characters social permission to speak
This may be the most useful dramatic function.
A subordinate who would never confront a boss at the office can complain after several drinks.
A friend can admit jealousy.
A romantic lead can make a confession and, if things go badly, blame the alcohol the next morning.
The device is hardly unique to Korea, but Korean dramas have used it with unusual consistency because alcohol has historically been woven into work dinners, friendship rituals and family occasions.
It gives writers an immediate reason for social restraint to weaken.
The real drinking culture is changing
The familiar drama scene has not disappeared, but the society behind it is changing.
According to 2026 reporting based on Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency data, 56 percent of Koreans aged 19 to 29 in 2024 either did not drink at all or drank no more than once a month.
When the survey began in 2005, that figure was 37.9 percent.
The shift is visible in nightlife as well. Younger customers are more comfortable ordering nonalcoholic beer, a highball rather than multiple bottles of soju, or simply going to a café after dinner.
Drinking has not vanished from Korean youth culture. What has weakened is the idea that drinking must be the default way to socialize.
So the drama scene is real — but not complete
This is the distinction international viewers need.
A company dinner with bottles of soju is not a fantasy invented by screenwriters.
Neither is a late-night drink with a friend after a breakup.
These scenes come from recognizable Korean social habits.
But the frequency with which television uses them is partly a result of narrative convenience, and real habits are shifting faster than some television conventions.
K-dramas also export the image of Korean drinking
The influence now runs in both directions.
In a 2026 peer-reviewed study, researchers surveyed 638 adult K-drama viewers in Indonesia and Israel about their attitudes toward alcohol portrayals in Korean dramas.
The study found relationships between viewers’ attitudes toward drinking scenes and their reported alcohol behavior, including soju consumption.
It does not prove that watching K-drama makes someone drink soju.
It does show that Korean drinking imagery now reaches audiences far beyond Korea and is meaningful enough to study as a global public-health and cultural issue.
Why the green bottle remains useful on screen
Korean drinking culture will continue to change. Television will change too, although probably more slowly.
Writers still need places where characters can remain together for an hour, lower their guard and say what they have avoided saying elsewhere.
Soju still solves that problem efficiently.
But the next time a drama character reaches for another bottle, it is worth separating two things: what the scene tells us about the relationship, and what it tells us about contemporary Korea.
Those are no longer exactly the same question.
Sources
- Global Health Promotion — Alcohol consumption messages in Korean dramas
- Global Health Promotion — Alcohol portrayals in K-dramas and global viewer attitudes, 2026
- The Korea Times — Drinking no longer default for Korea’s Gen Z
Dessert — two more sides of Korea
Stray Kids — 2026 STAYweeK
A playful official video after a piece about changing social habits.
Seoul After Dark
A street-level look at the city where drinking culture is changing in real time.
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