Snack Nation: Suika Soda

The sultry days of summer have come to Tokyo, with the mercury creeping up to the mid-30s C on a daily basis. So it's with perfect timing that Kirin has launched a soda featuring the taste of that quintessentially summer treat: watermelon.

Suika (watermelon) Soda is being spun as a "healthy carbonated beverage" that "combines 'flavor' and 'nutritional value.'" All quotes from the official press release. The health claims seem to be rooted in the drink's dose of vitamin B6, which is a fascinating sort of thing to find floating in an ostensibly fruity beverage that contains no fruit of any kind. 

Whatever Suika Soda is made from, as a fan of both the real deal and fake-tasting watermelon candies of the Jolly Rancher variety, I couldn't possibly pass this particular beverage up. I brought a bottle home and deliberately left the room un-air conditioned to better work up a fever for the faux watermelon soda. 

I quickly discovered that like many Japanese soft drinks, it's light on both the carbonation and the sugar, without the super-cloying sweetness of a lot of American beverages. After swirling around a few tastes in my snifter glass (a semi-crushed paper cup I found in my cupboard), I contemplated the nose for a moment. Not bad. It did taste like watermelon, albeit a sort of zipped, compressed, pixelated sort of watermelon. Not bad at all. But I felt like something was missing. Something that could make watermelon soda even more flavorful, if not nutritional.

It hit me. Shochu.

Yes, shochu -- that mild, vodka-esque liquor of hard-drinkin' Japanese salarymen everywhere. Fortunately I had a bottle hidden under my kitchen floorboards (long story). And you know what? Suika Soda is even better with a slug of booze mixed in. But then again, are there many Japanese novelty drinks you can't say that about? The verdict: two (slightly unsteady) thumbs up.