06.26.10
Japanese Sake Drops
More food drops for you this week but fret not, I only have two more to review after these. My Food Drop reviewing days are limited and that’s kinda sad because these Food Drops have been pretty amazing. Well OK, the food Food Drops have been pretty amazing whereas the beer food drops needed work. And this brings me to today’s review: Sake Food Drops.
I’ve done sake candy before and the upshot was that they were a nice, robust ricey tasting sake candy. The one difference between the Food Drops and the Sake ame of yore is that the food drops are a nice smooth hard candy. No bitey bits (yay). There are some other differences too so let’s explore them.
Rob was one of my Guinea Pigs for this candy and he though Sake Food Drops were the most excellent Amazake like thing ever, save the original. Sadly, the Food Drops are not Amazake (a “traditional sweet, low-alcoholic Japanese drink made from fermented rice” (-Wikipedia); typically served hot on chilly winter days. Rob says it is the BOMB by the way) but just plain sake and once again the sweet of the food drop mixes unexpectedly with the taste intent. In this case, however, sake is resilient enough to withstand a little sweet. This is a good thing for these particular Food Drops never relinquish that hard candy background sweet while they are impressing you with their sake flavor and what tastes to me like a little alcohol burn in the back of the sinuses. I don’t think there is any actual alcohol but for me the illusion is certainly there.
Perhaps the Mad Japanese Food Scientists should stick to food in their Food Drops for once again they have missed the mark with the liquid Food Drop. It doesn’t seem to matter as much with sake as sake can stand a little sweet and still be tasty (especially if you go at these thinking Amazake). I congratulate the Japanese Mad Food Scientists for their interpretation of Sake (and most especially Amazake) but I will have to take some points away for the sweet. Sake Drops are better than Beer Drops but do not live up to the standard we’ve seen the Mad Food Scientists set. They might need to subcontract the liquid Food Drop ideas out to a different department or spend more time tweaking their liquid drop recipes before they will get full marks in all categories. I can not quite give Sake Food Drops a 4 pea rating, but I can go with 3.5 peas and add an extra phantom quarter pea for a really high 3.5 Wasabi Peas Rating out of a possible 5 wasabi peas.
