Sake and Japanese convenience store ice cream go great together, but there’s an even better combo

Elevate your summer with a deliciously cold, boozy dessert!

One of Family Mart’s best products, in our opinion, is their “Taberu Bokujo Milk”, loosely translated as “Edible Farm Milk.” This convenience store ice cream is some of the best we’ve ever had. Made with 50 percent milk, it’s rich and creamy, and it goes with just about everything: fruit, coffee, cake, you name it. There’s even a little bit of leftover space at the top of the cup for whatever topping you like!

When our Japanese-language reporter Anji Tabata saw that using toppings to turn Taberu Bokujo Milk into an elevated dessert was a hot topic on social media, she had to try the trend for herself. However, she wanted to try something no one had mentioned doing before, and after thinking a while, she came up with the perfect idea: pouring alcohol over it.

So Anji, being a huge sake fan, also snagged a popular sake brand, One Cup Ozeki, when she picked up her Taberu Bokujo Milk at Family Mart. After pouring a shot over the top of her ice cream, she dipped her spoon in and took a bite. The bright freshness of the ice cream combined with the faintly sweet flavor of One Cup Ozeki sake made for a dangerously delicious flavor profile.

An even better match, she learned, was adding frozen sake to the ice cream, which turned it into a shaved ice dish for adults. The crisp crunch of the frozen sake with the creamy milkiness of Taberu Bokujo Milk was absolutely to die for. Anji liked it so much, she had to pace herself, lest she unintentionally get very drunk.

Anji wasn’t surprised that sake would taste so good with this rich and creamy dessert, since sake tends to be a sweeter kind of liquor. So after this experiment, Anji began to wonder: What other kinds of alcohol would make a good topping?

So commenced another trip to Family Mart. This time, Anji picked out some different varieties of liquor to try. Thinking a juice-like cocktail would be a good match, she browsed the shelves of Suntory’s “Horoyoi” series, but eventually settled on her favorite flavor, the “White Sour”, which is not actually fruit-based but milk-based, with a sweet and sour taste similar to Calpis.

Since the White Sour is a carbonated alcoholic beverage, pouring it over the ice cream created a nice fizzing effect and turned her dessert into an alcoholic float, which Anji was pretty stoked to try.

The milk-based flavor of the White Sour was an excellent pairing for the Taberu Bokujo Milk; in fact, it was like eating Calpis-flavored ice cream, or drinking a Calpis milkshake. And as the ice cream melted and began to meld with the sour to become creamy and smooth, the flavor also began to evolve.

Anji kept pouring more and more in and mixing it together to get different varied flavors, so it was also kind of fun to eat too. Since the Horoyoi White Sour only contains three percent alcohol, it didn’t get her drunk, either, which was definitely a plus. Anji highly recommends it as a nice summer treat!

But in Anji’s opinion, the best liquor topping out of the three she tried was blended Scotch whisky. Admittedly she was being a little highbrow when selecting this alcohol to accompany her ice cream. Though Ballantine’s isn’t known to be an expensive whisky, buying a bottle purely to pour over ice cream seemed a touch extravagant. Plus, the alcohol content is 40 percent, so it’s not for the faint of heart!

But when she poured a shot of Ballantine’s over her Taberu Bokujo Milk and gave it a taste, she almost thought she’d died and gone to heaven.

Using whisky as a sauce for milk ice cream really transforms it into something super classy. As a whisky fan she’d already known that whisky and ice cream pair well together, but she’d never really tried it herself. She had no idea that they would produce such a delicious flavor.

Even though it was made of things you could pick up reasonably cheaply at a convenience store, the whisky-topped milk ice cream was like a dessert you might find in a fancy hotel restaurant. Trust Anji when she says it’s the ultimate treat for adults!

By the way, Anji says don’t dilute the whisky with water or soda; pour it on straight. It is far and away the best combination that way. She also recommends choosing a whisky that’s less peaty and contains more hints of vanilla and honey for the best pairing. Other liquors, like rum, would also work, and maybe even Coca-Cola’s new hard lemonades, but you can be the judge of that! Try out your favorite liquors on your favorite ice creams and see which ones come out on top!

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