Let’s take a short moment here on this alcohol website to talk about the Barbie movie. I liked it for a variety of reasons, but I liked it at least in part because it was a good thing that didn’t have to be good. And I’ll explain what I mean here, because I think it’s important to understanding Suntory’s Haku.
When I was in my twenties, I completed an internship at Disney Consumer Products, specifically at what was then their video game division. Our team was designed to bring in some fresh blood and some new ideas to a department that, really, didn’t have to be good. When Christmas rolled around, grandmas around the world would buy their little ones video games based on what they saw on the cover: Finding Nemo, Lilo and Stitch, Toy Story, and anything with recognizable princesses, for example.
For most of my life, these properties were basically licensed out to any fly-by-night, also-ran development studio who could simply provide a landed product to sit on a store shelf. They were purchased by parents and parental figures who had no idea of what they were really buying, almost always for a target audience thought to be too undiscriminating and distractable to evaluate the quality of what they received. The games sucked. If they were good, they wouldn’t have sold any better.
The Barbie movie is an exception. Mattel could have certainly licensed the property out, and they could have made it some Shrek-like pop culture cash-in that dropped some jokes about the Kardashians or cryptocurrency that would have aged like milk. It would have made millions, and nobody would have talked about it ever again. Instead, we got what I would describe as a remarkably well-written comedy that actually has something to say about what it means to be men and women in American society. And again, they didn’t have to make it good.
“The Suntory Haku is an unquestionably good and well-made vodka, though I wish it just brought a little more intensity to the table.”
This explains why I spent so long getting to the Haku. The cynic in me was convinced this was a shameless cash-in. With the stocks of Japanese whiskey strained more than ever before, as demand outpaces supply almost without end, outfits like Suntory and Nikka getting into clear liquids seemed to be a great way to get money flowing through the door by charging half the cost of their whiskey for something that takes a sixteenth the amount of effort. Slap some kanji on the side of the label, and consumers will line up to partake in some kind of Japanese experience if they’re priced out of what they really wanted.
You can imagine my surprise when I tasted care and craft in this vodka, clear from the very first sip.
Unlike most other vodkas, the grain being used in the Haku is rice—this probably shouldn’t be too surprising given Japan’s familiarity with using rice as a distillation base for Sake and Shochu. Rice vodka also makes sense when you think of the Japanese tendency to treat the quality of their water and rice as non-negotiable. Vodka also shares something with Sake as a general category in that the name of the game is subtlety, not bowling the consumer over with off-the-wall flavors.
For me, the ideal way to have the Haku was poured over ice, which brought forth the most amount of nuance. I’ve mentioned that some of my favorite rye vodkas have a sweetness reminiscent of marzipan or Jordan almonds. With the Haku, this flavor comes across more akin to powdered sugar.
I also have to adapt my spirits vocabulary a bit to describe what my vodka readers are looking for. I think regular vodka drinkers will find that Haku rises to all of the usual expectations with flying colors. It’s certainly “smooth,” and there’s no aggressiveness nosing the spirit in the glass, nor does it turn sour on the way down. It’s a very “clean” drinking vodka.
However, Suntory’s own ad copy on the Haku bottle really nails the spirit’s identity in three words: “Soft and sweet.” Rarely do I read anything on the side of a bottle that’s proven to be more true.
The only thing that keeps this out of the highest ratings for me is that—while it’s an unquestionably good and well-made vodka—I wish it just brought a little more intensity to the table: some of my very favorite sakes are able to tease out some tantalizingly tropical, fruity flavors from rice, and if the grain is the star here, I’d love to be able to taste it more. “Bold vodka” is perhaps an oxymoron, but comparing the Haku to my other favorites, I think there’s just a little more to dig into with some of my current shelf stalwarts.
Which brings us to maybe a larger philosophical question where vodka is concerned, and I think creates a huge division in the product category overall. Is the goal to taste this stuff, or not to taste it? The cleanness and craft of the Haku will allow it to work in any application where someone might use Reyka or Stoli: i.e., when total neutrality is the goal. If you don’t want to taste Haku, it will obey your commands.
However, Haku does indeed taste like something. It has a distinctive personality, and I think it’s made for those of us vodka drinkers who are interested in exploring a different take, or seeing how a Japanese distiller approaches a spirit that’s been a historical product of Eastern Europe. The price is right, and I think it’s absolutely worth a buy.
