This is the first installment of a multi-part series on tree-derived alcoholic beverages. We start off with an original poem that is evocative of Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” (1913). https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12744/trees.
“Trees” Revisited
I think that I shall never see
A liquor store as generous as a tree
A tree whose rugged “skin” when stripped
Can yield a spirit you can sip.
A drink which never will demand
Many decades under land
Of costly barrel aging
For a bit of woody flavoring!
Cedar, oak, and cypress, too,
And they are but a very few,
Will pass their flavors on to you.
Poems are writ by fools like me,
But only science can prompt a tree
To turn its sylvan flavors
Into drinks that we can savor.
William F. O’Connor
One of us here at drinkingjapan.org—this writer—first met Dr. Yuichiro Otsuka of the National Research and Development Agency’s Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute at Tokyo International Exhibition Center (a.k.a., Tokyo Big Sight) a number of years ago after having read a newspaper article on his extremely promising research. I immediately realized its great potential and was eager to learn more about his work, which was what, you might ask? Answer: Using wood to produce alcoholic beverages, especially spirits. Readers might want to pause for a minute and think about the implications of that.
At the time of our first meeting, Otsuka-sensei had, if my memory serves me well, four samples on display, which were, I believe, cedar, birch, cherry, and Japanese cypress. I was looking forward to sampling all of them but was prevented from doing so because they had not gone through the requisite safety tests. Fortunately, sniffing was permitted, and I was able to use my well-trained olfactory bulb to conduct a preliminary sensory evaluation of each and extrapolate thereupon to ascertain the full monty, which was quite impressive. Simply put, with respect to the cedar distillate, the wood imparted the aroma of the tree whence it came, which I find quite pleasant. I like cedar-barrel-aged sake. As for the cherry distillate the aroma of cherry wood was present but to a lesser degree than that of cedar in the beverage derived from that tree. You will forgive me if I am slightly and uncharacteristically vague here. This took place quite some time ago. In next week’s entry, I will be far more specific.
Drinking Japan 