Anyone who spends even a short amount of time in Japan or who frequents Japanese restaurants abroad is likely to be familiar with the country’s plum wine. It is sweet, viscous, easy to drink, and great on the rocks. The aged varieties offer more complexity than the standard fare, of course. We associate plum wine with sultry summers, as the drink seems to offer the perfect respite from the heat.
Our encounter with Hoshiko at Narita took place in the heat of the summer, but upon tasting this complex offering one of us immediately reacted by saying “Christmas plum.” Though not technically a plum wine, Hoshiko has, to put this in architectural terms, a foundation of plum upon which its creator, bartender Seijiroh “Danny” Aikawa, has constructed a multi-storied beverage with layers of flavors contributed by its various components. Vodka plays a role, as do various spices, one of which is clove, an exceedingly interesting and useful botanical, and that which gives Hoshiko its Christmas, or holiday, connection. Think mulled wine here. Hoshiko weighs in at 20% abv.
Before we sign off here, we would like to mention a few things about cloves, which are also used for purposes other than food and beverage flavoring. They can, for instance, be employed to relieve toothache, in a kind of DIY dentistry—always an asset in these days of declining living standards—or to be drunk as a tea to calm an upset stomach. In Spices: Their Histories: Valuable Information for Grocers, published by The Trade Register, Inc. in 1910, Seattle, WA (Can you imagine today’s grocers possessing, let alone imparting, information the likes of which follows to their customers?) this tidbit appears: “This spice [the clove] was well known to the ancients and is mentioned by several Chinese authors as in use under the Han dynasty…during which period it was customary for the officers of the court to hold the spice in their mouth before addressing the sovereign, in order that their breath might have an agreeable odor. At this period the clove was called fowl’s tongue spice.”
Hoshiko link: https://www.hoshiko.jp/
Drinking Japan 