Tokyo’s Sakeice O’Choco alcoholic hot chocolate both does and doesn’t contain “sake”

A lot of linguistics, and a lot of flavor, goes into each and every cup of this dessert drink (and there’s room for debate about the cup too).

Japan rarely meets a pun or an innovative sweet treat that it doesn’t like, and today those two interests are meeting in the form of the new luxurious O’Choco dessert drink (pictured above). The gist is that this is an alcoholic chocolate indulgence that’s being cooked up for Valentine’s Day, but it comes with a heaping helping of linguistics on the side, so let’s dive right in.

First, the O’Choco is being offered by the Tokyo branch of Sakeice, a specialty ice cream shop that crafts sake-flavored ice cream in cooperation with well-known brewers. In Japan, the drink called “sake” by the rest of the world is actually called “Nihonshu” by the locals. In Japanese sake is the word for alcoholic beverages in general, but there’s also an understanding that “sake” is often used to mean “Nihonshu” by people speaking languages other than Japanese.

Getting deeper into sake/Nihonshu terminology, you know those little cups that sake is poured into? In Japanese, those are called choko, but most people, for the sake of elegance, add the honorific suffix “o-“ and call them ochoko.

Quite coincidentally, the “choko” part of ochoko is pronounced in exactly the same way the “choco” part of “chocolate” is in Japanese. With Valentine’s Day being the prime time for rolling out luxurious chocolate treats in Japan, Sakeice seems to have noticed the delicious pun potential, which has led to the creation of O’Choco, an alcoholic hot chocolate served in traditional Japanese drinkware.

Except…the drinking vessel that Sakeice’s O’Choco is served in might not be called an ochoko, and it also doesn’t contain what would be called sake, at least by people outside Japan. Starting with the ingredients, in addition to Indonesian 72-percent-cacao single origin chocolate from chocolatier Cacaovibes, the O’Choco is made with shochu. Unlike sake, which is brewed, shochu is distilled, and while sake is always made from rice, shochu can be made from a variety of ingredients, and in the case of O’Choco, it’s made from sweet potato shochu. Specifically, O’Choco is made with Kagoshima Prefecture distiller Wakashio’s Glow EP05 sweet potato shochu, which has been selected as a grand prize winner for three years in a row for the Sakeya ga Erabu Shochu Taisho award, decided on by liquor store proprietors from across Japan.

Again, though, as we discussed above, in Japanese sake can, technically, refer to any sort of alcoholic drink, including shochu. Shochu is also arguably the better choice for adding to a hot dessert drink, since sake’s more delicate flavor runs the greater risk of being buried underneath the melty chocolate. The combination of chocolate and sweet potato shochu, Sakeice says, allows the full charms of the rich chocolate, including its faint acidity, to mix and mingle with the flavor of the shochu, which, in its pre-heated form, has an alcohol content of 25 percent, around double of most sake varieties (the O’Choco ice, by the way, is still alcoholic and so not for minors, and Sakeice also recommends that pregnant women or those driving home abstain).

There’s one more bit of linguistics to discuss, though, sort of a vocabulary digestif. Remember how we said the O’Choco name is a play on words with ochoko, the type of cup? While ochoko are the go-to drinking vessel for sake, they’re not commonly used for shochu, which is generally drunk from a glass. A big reason why is that while you can drink shochu straight, a lot of people prefer theirs on the rocks, cut with water, or blended with mixers such as green tea or fruit juice. Since ochoko are small, with more or less the same liquid capacity as a Western-style shot glass, they’re not really suited for how shochu is often drunk.

▼ You’re not fitting any ice cubes inside that thing.

Sakeice hasn’t given the exact dimensions of the cup it serves O’Choco in, but since they’re charging 1,000 yen (US$6.65) for it, it’s hard to imagine that you only get the two or three sips that an orthodox-size ochoko holds. In all likelihood, the O’Choco is served in what might be called a sakazuki, a larger vessel with a shape and capacity closer to a shallow bowl or dish than the cup-class ochoko.

Of course, none of this changes that Sakeice’s O’Choco sounds both really clever and really tasty. It’s on sale now and is being served not just until Valentine’s Day, but until the end of February (while supplies last) at Sakeice’s Tokyo branch in the Yaesu neighborhood near Tokyo Station.

Shop information
Sakeice Tokyo Shop
Address: Tokyo-to, Chuo-ku, Yaesu 2-2-1, Yanmar Tokyo 1st floor
東京都中央区八重洲2-1-1 YANMAR TOKYO1F
Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
Closed February 17
Website

Source: PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: Pakutaso, PR Times, Wakashio, Pakutaso (2)
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