Heiwa Shuzo Kid Tsuru-Ume, Ichigo

This is what happens when a Wakayama brewery famous for plum wine gets its hands on the local strawberries. Heiwa Shuzo, founded in 1928 just outside Kainan City and working with soft water that runs down from Koyasan, blends fresh Wakayama strawberry juice (60% of the bottle) with its Tsuru-Ume plum sake. What comes out is thick, deeply pink, and startlingly close to biting into a ripe berry, with enough tartness to keep it from turning into dessert syrup. The alcohol is low, so it pours easily. Serve it cold over ice, lengthen it with soda, stir it into black tea, or just pour it over vanilla ice cream and call it a night.