Sweet! Japan’s canned sour cocktails with real lemon slices inside are coming back

Japan is ready for a refill of Future Lemon Sours.

After beer, Japan’s favorite canned alcoholic beverage is the chu-hi. Also known as the chu-hai or “sour,” chu-hi are a mixture of shochu, soda water, and fruit flavors, and the most popular variety, by far, is the lemon chu-hi.

But while fans love the convenience of ready-to-drink canned chu-hi, most will admit that the very best version of the drink is the nama (“raw”) chu-hi, made by squeezing the juice of a lemon straight into the glass. So to blend the best of both worlds, Asahi Breweries recently created the Future Lemon Sour (or Mirai no Lemon Sour, in Japanese), a canned chu-hi that you take the entire top off of and which has an actual lemon slice floating inside.

The Future Lemon Sour went on sale in mid-June, and once we tracked down a few cans for a tasting, we instantly fell in love with it. We weren’t the only ones who felt that way, either, and the overwhelming demand for the drink meant that the entire production batch sold out almost immediately, and it’s been impossible to get your hands on since. So we were happy to hear that there’s a new batch on the way, and that the Future Lemon Sour will be returning to stores next month, with time still left to crack open a cold one to enjoy as relief from the summer heat.

▼ By the way, if you’re wondering what you’re supposed to do with the lemon slice, the official Future Lemon Sour website actually does recommend eating it.

Both versions of the Future Lemon Sour, the sweetened Original and the drier Plain, will be coming back, but not for the whole country. The restock will be available in Tokyo and the eastern prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Nagano, and Niigata.

At 298 yen (US$1.85), Future Lemon Sour is a premium-priced product, as far as canned sours go, but it’s still an affordable extravagance. The restock is coming on August 27, though once again it’s going to be a limited-quantity affair, so we may have to pick up more than just one or two cans this time.

Source: PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times, Future Lemon Sour official website
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