Sunday, November 20, 2011

Spirit Sunday - This week Hamada Syuzou (Japanese Sweet Potato Shochu)


This week: Hamada Syuzou (Japanese Sweet Potato Shochu)($39)

This week's selection of Schochu has been largely influenced by my girlfriend, who once called me her "sweet pat-ta-to". Sickly sweet, I know, but we all have pet-names, don't deny it.

Schochu baffled me at first. The bottle is frosted with a reddy-orangy colour, while the spirit itself is clear and a little syrupy. This disappointed me as I had hoped it would be the other way round. Immediately the novelty of the sweet potato origin seemed diminished; I wanted more mystery and excitement.

I had three glasses of the stuff and found each one decidedly different. The first was like a combination of cheap tequila and Bacardi, which wasn't very good. There was no magic sweet potato moment where I tasted mashed tubers or even smelled my favourite vegetable. Something happened, however, with glass number two. After my second sip I tasted something tremendous; just after the spirit left my mouth and before it fell all the way to my boiling belly I found it. Sweet potato, clear as day for about 1.25 seconds. My mind raced back to the grilled sweet potato I'd eaten a few weeks ago in a salad. I even had a flash of some sweet potato mash I'd done while entertaining several months earlier. It was incredible.

But it was quick, and try as I might I couldn't find it again. It was as if the spirit had chosen one, and only one, moment in which it would reveal its true form, and at all other times choose to taste like a sour white rum. I never found the taste again, and by my third glass chasing the dream I began to feel a bit silly and called it a day. Strangely the experience was almost spiritual. The unique use of an unexpected source left me a little bit rattled. I still have some left in the bottom of my freezer and will leave it there for a while I think. Maybe one day I'll try and find that taste again, but for now all I can do is remember it fondly.

And so I split this weeks rating into three parts. Glass one rated 1.75 stars. Glass two rated 4.125 stars. Glass three rated 2.875 stars.

Hamada Syuzou Shochu averages 2.3106 stars (approx.)

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