In the newsletter this month I wrote about 角ハイ (kakuhai). This is a combination of 角瓶 (kakubin), Suntory’s flagship whiskey, and ハイボール (highball), a mixed drink made from liquor and usually some kind of carbonated beverage, often soda water. Go give it a read. 角ハイ has a pretty interesting story.

I talked about it over on the podcast as well, and one thing I mention there that I left out of the newsletter is the Google Trends information I found for お湯割り (oyuwari, cutting alcohol with hot water):

The general trend is a gradual increase from the mid-2000s, although several Japanese websites note that お湯割り started to become more popular in the 1970s, well before Google was tracking data. What’s more interesting to me, however, is the fact that searches for お湯割りvary by season! There’s some variance within the ハイボール uptrend that I used in the newsletter, but it’s nowhere near as clearly defined as お湯割り. You can see very distinct peaks and troughs which resemble the graphs you see for the number of flu cases over the course of the year.

I guess this makes sense. When the weather gets cold, people get interested in drinking お湯割り, and when people get interested in drinking お湯割り, they start Googling to figure out how to make one.

I’ve done the hard work for you and can point you to this website, which has this interesting set of data:

As you can see, most people in Kyushu pour the hot water in first. The site advises a temperature of 66 Celsius (150 Fahrenheit).