Many years ago, there was an interesting commercial running on American television channels. It showed ketchup emerging ever so slowly from its bottle, while the Carly Simon song “Anticipation” played in the background. The unstated message was that this product is so thick and rich that it just has to be delicious, and, naturally, one can hardly wait until it makes a plop—not a splash obviously as that would suggest a certain level of thinness—onto what is to be consumed. We had a similar experience recently when we visited Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture.
We like our nigorizake to have the color and consistency of heavy cream. (Note: this is not a dairy product.) Moritami Sou Honke’s (森民総本家), as you can see from the picture, fulfills that criterion, to be sure. It is also sweet on the palate, yet not cloying. The abv is 14%, and the rice polishing is 70%. What really impressed us, though, was the amount of time it took for this wonderfully dense beverage to work its way down the bottle and into the cup!
“Anticipation,” Heinz Ketchup commericial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr9m6pEZNJI
Drinking Japan 