I went to an izakaya with a friend who frequently goes to this particular izakaya he took me to. We got there and he asked me if some sort of shochu was alright, and whatever, I didn’t really care, I’m not a connoisseur of Japanese rice liquor so I said yea, sounds good.
He pulled out a card and gave it to the waiter who came back holding an opened bottle of shochu with a little doggy tag on it. I asked my friend what that was and he said, instead of buying by the glass because that is expensive, you can buy by the bottle and have it stored at the izakaya for the next time you return. How cool is that?! I’ve never seen that in NYC, does that exist? Apparently this is very common so you could potentially have lots of bottles stored all over town. (This place also charged for ice…)
An aside: I found a funny tidbit about shochu on wiki.
“As far as can be determined from Japanese historical record, shōchū appears to have been made since at least as far back as the 16th century. For example, when the missionary Francis Xavier visited Kagoshima Prefecture in 1549, he recorded that “the Japanese drink arak made from rice [...] but I have not seen a single drunkard. That is because once inebriated they immediately lie down and go to sleep.”
Yup, sounds right, it still happens, but now its also pretty commonplace to see the drunk throwing up on the streets.
potato shochu. must try.
Site redesign I see. Nice. Thanks for the business idea
Yes, I did this once when I was studying in Tokyo – it is an interesting business idea. It’s pretty cool!