Japanese with anime voice: episode12
Hello, I’m Sachi.
Since sometime ago, when I go back to my parents’ house, I started to have Banshaku with my mom. Strictly speaking, banshaku means drinking alcohol with dinner. But in our case, for several reasons, after dinner, after the rest of the family has cleared away the dishes from the dinner table, we would enjoy a drink in secret, just the two of us.
I don’t really remember when I started drinking so much alcohol, but when I was in my twenties, I could have a good time with oolong tea at an izakaya with my friends. When I was a child, I was fascinated by the idea of my dad drinking beer or hot sake, but when I became old enough to drink, I wasn’t interested in both. At the time, I was more into Kahlua milk and Umeshu than beer. However, I didn’t have any interest in going out for a drink, and I thought of izakaya as just a place to go for a meal.
In my late 20s, I had a job with some responsibility. Even then, I didn’t know how much I could drink. And I couldn’t drink at home because I was afraid that if I drank the day before I had to work and couldn’t get up, I would be afraid of that. So I think it wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I really started drinking. I couldn’t stop drinking, and it was like I had no idea what I had been doing before. If I could go back to my 20s, I would. (Laughs.) Why is it that I can’t control my drinking anymore? Is it because of my age?
Until recently, my mom used to drink every day and said she couldn’t stop herself from drinking. But since she got sick last year, she doesn’t want to drink at all. When I heard that, I thought she was a different person. However, my mom was not the kind of person who would ever do sosou in public even when she was drunk. Sosou means to make a bad mistake, like throwing up all over the place. It also means something else, but it’s hard to say in public… Anyway, in general, it means something you shouldn’t do in front of people. My mom would never act weird like that, no matter how drunk she was.
Well, my mom is like that, but now she doesn’t drink alone anymore. When I return home, she drinks with me as if we were drinking friends. When I returned last month, we went to buy sake together, and the seller told us about a rare type of sake. I think that even among Japanese people, only sake lovers would know about this type of sake. Or maybe I’m just ignorant. If so, I’m sorry. There is a sake called Koshu. It is written “古いお酒” and called “Koshu”. It is a type of sake that has been aged like wine. Unlike regular sake, it is colored. The sake is usually clear. Some sake is called Nigorishu, which is milky white.
Koshu is brown, like whiskey. It seems to get darker as the years go by. We bought a three-year-old Koshu, which was lighter in color. It was an easy-drinking sake with little of the unique smell of sake. It is said that sake loses its flavor when it is aged. However, a sake brewer suggested that if wine could be aged, sake should be aged like wine. They studied at a winery in France and focused their efforts on making sake that would not lose its flavor. The result was Koshu. I thought it was cool that they named their sake Koshu after the sake they made. The history of Koshu brewing is short compared to that of wine. Therefore, it would not be surprising if it were called by a more modern name. It is nice that they dared to use a name that is more Japanese and in keeping with sake.
This time, we bought a three-year-old sake, so next time we would like to try a five-year-old sake. I don’t know which brewer’s Koshu it is, but I saw an ad in a liquor store for a very dark-colored old sake that looked like whiskey. The color was more like brandy than whiskey. It looked really delicious. I would like to try it someday.
I haven’t tasted it yet, so I can’t say for sure, but if I had to, I would say that I prefer Hatsushibori. You may be wondering what I mean after talking so much about Koshu, but Koshu and regular sake are both delicious, but nothing can compare to the freshness of Hatsushibori. Especially when it comes to dry, slightly sparkling sake, I can’t stop drinking. And the next thing you know, you are very drunk. You know the Japanese saying, “Sake ha nondemo nomareruna”? It means that you were supposed to be drinking, but when you realized you were drunk, you lost sight of yourself. That is what I was talking about earlier when I said “sosou”. That kind of situation is called sake ni nomareta.
When I have a hangover, I think I will never drink again. And when I go out to drink, I promise myself that I will definitely save the amount of alcohol I drink today, but as time goes by, I forget even that. It’s strange, isn’t it? And the next thing I know, I’m very drunk. Alcohol is really scary. We should be careful with easy-to-drink alcohol. Let’s all be careful.
