North Korea cracks down on moonshine as grain prices spike

North Korean authorities in Hyesan city have intensified a crackdown on home-brewed liquor production during the annual lean season, arguing that using grain to make alcohol worsens already strained food supplies — but those who depend on the trade for survival are pushing back.

Each year, May and June mark North Korea’s harshest period for food security. Grain stockpiles from the previous harvest are largely depleted while new crops have yet to come in, driving up market prices and deepening hardship for ordinary North Korean people. Authorities have designated illicit liquor production during this period an anti-socialist act that wastes grain and worsens the food situation.

A source in Ryanggang province said the Ministry of Social Security — the agency responsible for internal law enforcement and public order — launched a focused crackdown in Hyesan city on June 2, conducting unannounced raids on homes where moonshine production was suspected. Officers have been confiscating finished liquor, raw materials, and distilling equipment, and tracking distribution networks to arrest those involved in selling the product.

“The state doesn’t feed us, but it stops us from feeding ourselves”

Reaction among Hyesan’s North Korean people is divided. Some acknowledge that using scarce grain for alcohol during a food shortage is hard to justify and see the crackdown as necessary. Others are sharply critical, arguing that the state has no standing to shut down people’s livelihoods when it provides neither food rations nor alternative means of support.

The strongest resistance is coming from those whose primary income depends on making and selling liquor. The source said resentment is running high among this group. “People who have been in the liquor business for years are saying that the state doesn’t give them rations or provide any other way to make a living, so how is cracking down going to solve anything,” the source said.

Those affected are asking bluntly: “What are we supposed to do — at least making and selling liquor lets us eat” and “This is the only skill we have. If they take this away too, how do we survive?”

The source noted that liquor production is physically demanding and yields low returns, which means it tends to attract only those with no better options. “Nine out of 10 people making and selling liquor are genuinely struggling, mixing grain lees with cornmeal just to get by,” the source said. Ministry of Social Security officers on the ground are reportedly aware of this reality, and in some cases return confiscated goods after issuing a warning rather than pursuing full enforcement.

That dynamic points to a deeper problem with the crackdown’s effectiveness. Because liquor production is a matter of basic survival rather than a side business, enforcement alone is unlikely to eliminate the practice. “They lay low when there’s a crackdown, but they go right back to making liquor afterward,” the source said. “As long as there’s no alternative way for these families to make a living, tightening enforcement alone is not going to root this out.”

The source added that even before the COVID-19 pandemic the state managed and restricted illicit liquor production, but not with the current level of intensity. The crackdown is being framed officially as a food security measure, but for those on the receiving end, it reads as an attack on the only economic activity keeping them afloat.

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