Shirakiku Carbonated Drink

Boy, I'm thirsty!  I'm in the mood for something tasty and sweet!  Mmm!  Let's see what's in the ol' review refrigerator...

How about something exotic from Japan?  Here's something:  Shirakiku Carbonated Drink!  Wait, carbonated drink?  Sounds kind of dull.  Well, I'm thirsty, I'll give it a try.

This sure is an unusual bottle.  Ah, a seal.  Let me take that off.  Boy I'm thirsty.  Oh, it's still sealed.  In fact it looks like…is that a marble?

Wait, there was another piece of plastic under the seal.  It seems that I have to remove something from the piece of plastic.  Ah, it's a plunger.  I have to remove the plunger from the plastic and press down on the marble.  There we go.  Now to enjoy!  

Hmm.  Actually, the lip around the hole at the top of the bottle is huge.  I don't think you can actually drink out of the bottle.  Not a problem, let me just pour this into a glass. 

Here we go, a nice clean glass to pour into.  That's weird, it's not coming out.  Oh, yeah, the marble.  It keeps blocking the liquid.  Boy, I sure am thirsty.

Well let me just try to get this at the perfect angle so that it pours in properly.  Any time now.  Finally.  A nice cool glass of carbonated drink.

Tastes like sugar water.  Actually looking at the ingredients, HFCS water.  Still, the experience was amusing and interesting, so...

Verdict:  Buy a bottle!

-Mike

Comments

[D]

The bottle has spots on it so when you tilt the bottle, the marble will rest on the two inward bumps and not block the opening. Drink it from the bottle like a man. They have several other flavors too, but this one is basically marble water flavored. I pick mine up at Meijer, but that's pretty much a 5 state area place.

[John]

The comment above is correct. It's a novelty soda where you're supposed to balance the marble carefully in order to drink it. The Japanese seem to love fun tricks like that. I personally like to hamster-ball it and just flick my tongue at the marble getting tasty tastes of the soda as it slowly trickles out.

There are multiple flavors and I usually call them Ramune soda or just marble soda. I usually break the bottles and save the marbles because they are remarkably plain compared to other marbles, which I like. To safely break them, put the bottle in a paper bag and smack it with a hammer. Then open the bag and CAREFULLY pick out the marble without slicing your fingers to ribbons.