Japan Booze Blind: Umeshu
Guests Simon Pengilly and James Steele join host Christopher Pellegrini in testing three types of umeshu.
Japan Booze Blind: Umeshu from Japan Eats on Vimeo.
Japan Booze Blind: White Ale
Guests Garrett DeOrio and James Steele join host Christopher Pellegrini in testing three types of white ale.
What we’re drinking: Zamani Shochu
A treasure from Sukumo City!
Last night I wrote about a cheap, plastic jar-encased shochu that didn’t have a whole lot of character other than the label promising that the contents might be a ‘treasure’.
Right now I’m sipping something a little bit more involved. I have a beautiful blue bottle of Zamani shochu from Kochi prefecture, and this is a drink where the taste matches the nose.
And I mean that in a good way. The nose has a sweet potato buzz in it and it has a nice shochu bite going down the hatch!
“Zamani”, a product of the city of Sukumo, means ‘very’ or ‘really’ in the local dialect, so I think that it’s only right to say that this shochu is zamani gorgeous!
I’m a big fan of how clean the mouthfeel and finish on this shochu are. The sweetness balances the alcohol nicely, and it is proving to be a very drinkable bottle right now.
As usual, I’m drinking my shochu neat, but don’t be afraid to throw it on some rocks or water it down a little bit. I would urge you, however, to give Zamani a shot straight up before mixing anything else in with it.
What we’re drinking: Takara Cup Shochu
I was a little bored, so I thought I’d give this little plastic cup a shot. It’s pretty easy to find in supermarkets anyway, so 200-some-odd yen and 30 minutes of my time didn’t seem like too much of a sacrifice for a drink whose name means ‘treasure cup’.
The smell when I unwrapped the plastic and unscrewed the blow lid let me know that I was indeed in for a bit of an adventure with some shochu. Not quite as sharp as Korea’s favorite drink, soju, this one wafted a slightly tamer and rounder version of that familiar “huh, this reminds me of the stuff I use to scrub the bathtub” smell.
But the bite was smoother than expected. It was surprisingly easy to drink, and there was very little of the expected burn going down.
The 20 on the lower right hand side of the plastic cup (jar?) indicates the alcohol by volume, and I believe that this little blue-topped number (it’s a business-card-and-a-half tall) has a redheaded cousin that clocks in at 25 percent. I may have to give that one a try just to see how it compares.
