I first noticed this word from my random diggings. Now that I feel like I have mastered Hiragana and Katakana while slowly tossing Kanji in the mix, I find myself reading random words on the streets and everywhere; of course, my reading skill is on a first-grade level.
辛 Kara (spiciness). But since we are speaking beer language, it means 'dry'.
口 Kuchi means 'gate'. In this case, we could say, "beer hole".
Together this means, 'Dry Taste'. Thus 'Karakuchi'.
This is interesting to me because the Kanji for hot or spicy can also be found in this word as well: 幸せ means shiawase which translates to 'happiness'. Certainly, there's happiness involved in drinking; it appears to be a well-calculated word, don't you agree?
さらりとした飲み口,キレ味さえる.いわば辛口の生ビールです
Sarari to shita nomikuchi, kire aji saeru. Iwaba karakuchi no nama bīru desu.
In essence, this translates to: "The clear crisp taste flows, smoothly into your mouth, 'tis dry draft beer." My translator app says; “A light drink, sharp taste.” Frankly, it really doesn't matter to me which is more accurate.
Furthermore, while I thought the French were the drinkers (not like I have spent so much time in France), I've considered the Japanese may have taken the trophy as their whiskey comes in liters and there seems to be a fairly good amount of liquor stores about the country. When I say 'liquor store', I'm talking Disneyland-sized! (extremely exaggerated, or is it?) It's been 6 months since we moved here and so far, we have only bought three of these giant madafakas!
Also, I wasn't a big fan of yogurt until we moved here. I find it challenging to buy yogurt in Japan without resisting the urge to drink it all in one sitting. One day, during one of my Lone Ranger explorations, I came upon this:
Liquored yogurt! Does it get any better?
And I can't say this about every woman here but I have also noticed that both men and women (that we have run into) share the same vigor when it comes to drinking. In fact, one of our good acquaintances told us that his woman friend (who is also one of our good acquaintances) outdrinks him all the time. We didn't give it much thought until we went out for a dinner and she utterly went overboard on her hospitality to my husband by pouring more 日本酒 (nihonshu: Japanese wine) into his shot glass nonstop even when Michael told her no more.
If you happen to be in Japan, as long as you stay within the limit, fill your suitcase with your favorite hard drinks! You can get them all here at an unbeatable price.
They even have liquored matcha tea, naturally. After all, this is the mecca of green tea and besides the fact that they have more kinds of sake than however many kanji characters they have, the Sake packaging is to die for! It's an art in itself. It would make an amazing collection!
There you go. There are my scattered thoughts on my Sake experience. Who would have "thunk" I would learn Japanese through alcohol slogans? It is a culture that revolves so much around Sake, you kind of have to.