Yuhoho-no-ho’s not a bottle of rum

A DEVOTEE OF KENDO, in this country on a cultural visa to improve his skills in the martial art of beating up people with stout bamboo sticks, used to ask me about unfamiliar words that he encountered in his daily life and managed to remember. He was here for the martial arts action and wasn’t interested in learning a lot of the language.

One day he asked me about the word shinhatsubai. “You can’t turn on the television without hearing it at least once every commercial break,” he observed. I explained that it meant “newly released on the market” and referred to products that have just been offered for sale by companies.

After that, he became fond of telling the Japanese he met in drinking establishments that he had concluded Japan was the land of shinhatsubai, particularly for food and beverage products. Everybody in Japan has a theory about Japan, including the short-term residents. Especially the short-term residents.

I’ve never seen comparative statistics for new product releases broken down by country, but he does have a point. Television commercials trumpet a cornucopia of shinhatsubai every day of the year. And the sheer quantity of new products means that each one has to have a unique aspect to give it a hope of survival. Here’s an example.

The local newspaper last week had a short article about the new sake—shinhatsubai!—offered for sale by Muta Shuzo, a brewer in Takeo, Saga Prefecture. Takeo is known for its hot springs, and the company’s new variety of the grog, called Yuhoho-no-Ho, is made with cooled spa water rather than regular water. Other than the water used in its production, it is brewed the same way as other sake varieties. (The article made no mention of whether it is sweet or dry.)

A company spokesman claimed it has a mature, full-bodied flavor despite being a “young” sake. (Nihonshu lovers can sound a lot like oenophiles.) He attributed this to the brewers’ policy of allowing the spa water to cool before using it and their insistence that no sugars be added. He recommended Yuhoho-no-ho as a beverage to be drunk after leaving the evening bath, when one can relax and unwind (hotto suru). That’s the origin of the final “ho” in the name. I’m not sure about the Yuhoho, other than the yu, which means “hot water”, except that it is probably not what Japanese pirates chanted while in their cups.

The spokesman said the idea behind the product was to use the Yuhoho brand name of other spa water products to sell sake and promote the local hot spring resorts. Those other products include a spray-on cosmetic liquid and soap.

It’s natural for companies here to cop some cachet by employing hot springs—the Japanese have been skinny dipping in spas for centuries. The first recorded mention of a hot spring in Japan is in the Izumo Fudoki, which dates from 733. It refers to the Tamatsukuri Hot Spring in what is today Shimane Prefecture with the comment, “its effectiveness has been obvious since of old”. That means the site, which still exists, was an established institution more than a millennium ago.

The primary retail sales outlets for Yuhoho-no-ho will be liquor stores in Takeo. I’m not sure how that will promote the spas—their customers live in the area, so they already know about them. The recommended retail price is 1,800 yen (US$16.35) for an 1,800 milliliter bottle and half that for a 720 milliliter bottle. Those of you in Japan who want to know what rice wine made from spa water tastes like can order some by calling 0954-26-2001.

The company is already planning its next shinhatsubai—shochu distilled with Takeo spa water.

If a product’s novelty doesn’t get your attention, another time-honored Japanese advertising technique will. Shinhatsubai items are usually promoted with photographs of attractive young women holding the product, just as in the photo accompanying this post.

The company spokesman didn’t say whether it was best drunk chilled or heated, but if the lady in the photo shared a glass or two with me, I’d be willing to go along with her taste in the matter!