Toso, o-toso 屠蘇
A spiced medicinal sake traditionally drunk during Japanese New Year celebrations to pray for a healthy and happy year and a long life without illness. It is a fixed part of New Year's osechi cuisine in Japan.
Toso is can be made by steeping a mixture of spices (tososan) in sake (or sake and
mirin). Tososan is a medicinal herbal mixture of cinnamon, dried ginger, sansho (Japanese pepper), and the roots of several plants such as Chinese bell flower (kikyo). The ingredients may change somewhat depending on the provider.
The authentic way of producing toso is a lot more complex than just steeping the herbs in sake. First, koji, glutinous rice (mochigome) and mirin are added to shochu. After maturation, this mixture is blended with sake, and finally the tososan is added for steeping. Otoso has a sweet and mellow taste.
The tradition of drinking toso at the New Year began in the Tang Dynasty in China and was adopted by Japanese aristocrats during the Heian period. In the Edo-period this custom became common among the wider population and pharmacies would give out bags of tososan as year-end gifts. Toso is drunk from a special set of three lacquered vermilion flat sakazuki cups, which are used in order of size from small to large. The herbal sake is poured from a sort of tea pot which is equally made from vermilion lacquer.
[Sakazuki set]
Drinking otoso is said to ward off ailments like colds for the year and bring a long and healthy life. For generations it has been said that "if one person drinks this his family will not fall ill; if the whole family does no-one in the village will fall ill."
It is easy to make a simple kind of toso at home by buying tososan (packaged in a sort of teabag) and then steep that for about 7 hours in 300 ml of sake. Sake breweries also offer ready-made otoso, of which the above pictured "Shichifuku Otoso" by Daishichi is the most luxurious - this has been made the authentic way by producing all ingredients including the mirin and shochu in-house, and blending them with top-class sake, a process that including aging took several years. The tososan was obtained from the famous Shingon-Buddhist temple mountain Koyasan.
Photos own work / Wikimedia Commons
Japanese Food Dictionary