Can you still get tipsy on a budget using just convenience store goods?

If you’ve lived in Japan for any number of years, you may have heard of the word “senbero“. This term, which combines the word for “1,000” (“sen”) with the word for “drunk” (bero”), is used to refer to a cheap 1,000-yen (US$7.02) drinking session, where you can get pleasantly buzzed while nibbling on some small dishes, just as you might at an izakaya tavern.

It was once relatively easy to have a senbero drinking session, but these days, rising costs are making it so difficult that our resident senbero expert, Mr Sato, who’s been indulging in these cheap D.I.Y. drinking sessions for a few years now, hasn’t been able to put a satisfactory one together since last year.

However, Mr Sato’s expertise in the arena of cheap drinking may now have been eclipsed by his colleague Asami Oshima, who recently flexed her muscles at 7-Eleven, coming up with this impressive combo.

Choosing carefully, it didn’t take her long to select the following items, and as a bonus, she chose snacks that didn’t require any cooking.

  • Ozeki One Cup Jumbo (236 yen)
  • Premium Strong Sparkling Water (85 yen)
  • Oden (298 yen)
  • Stewed Hijiki Seaweed (138 yen)
  • Inaba Chicken Liver Can (128 yen)
  • Peyoung Sauce Cutlet (11 yen)
  • Tirol Chocolate (27 yen)

Total: 1,000 yen EXACTLY.

As she’d only done rough calculations for the purchases in her head, Asami felt like a genius when she got to the cash register and saw that the total came to a perfect 1,000 yen.

▼ When she saw the total pop-up, she heard a fanfare play out in her head, and an ovation of applause.

▼ Was she now some sort of senbero master?

The answer, of course, would be found in the senbero session. While she’d cleared the near-impossible hurdle of spending a perfect sen in yen, it was now time to see how this session would play out.

In terms of content, she was definitely scoring high with a total of seven items to enjoy. These days, some bars offer “senbero sets” with tiny snacks and only one drink, but to Asami, that’s not senbero — that’s a scam. For thrifty drinkers like her, a true senbero consists of a minimum of three drinks and at least two snacks without going over budget, and she believes she smashed that requirement out of the park.

Don’t be fooled by the one alcoholic drink in her basket — at 300 millilitres (10.1 ounces), this is equivalent to three drinks, especially with its ABV (Alcohol By Volume) of 14 percent.

Taking a sip of the sake, Asami felt soothed by the cold, crisp taste of it but she felt there was a way to make it even better.

▼ By adding some sparkling water to create a sake highball.

The sake highball worked well in making it feel like a second drink, and then she came up with another idea.

▼Add a spoonful of dashi broth from the oden for a third drink.

▼ One bottle, three ways to get tipsy.

▼ Already feeling the effects of the alcohol, it was now time to test the snacks.

The chicken liver was silky, rich, and perfect with sake, while the hijiki balanced out the booze with its gentle sweetness. The oden was surprisingly great, despite being cold, while the tiny chocolate gave her some sweetness to finish.

▼ The Peyoung Sauce Cutlet turned out to be nice addition, giving her snack food nostalgia.

The snacks were so good she didn’t even miss the hot oden that she’d been craving but opted against, due to her strict budget.

After finishing off the sake (yes, all 300 millilitres of it), she was properly buzzed. The snacks were surprisingly satisfying, with Asami saying the chicken liver alone deserves a Michelin star for the best life choice you can make for 128 yen.

Now that she’s mastered the senbero at 7-Eleven, who knows where she’ll take us to next? With her masterful skills, wherever she goes, we’ll be happy to follow in her footsteps.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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