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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