When you know you want a drink, but don’t know which one, Kurand will be there to help.

Much like kawaii or isekai, gacha is one of those words that’s become largely understood by fans of Japanese culture even if they don’t speak Japanese. That’s a handy linguistic development, because even if there are still a lot of times where “capsule toy” works as a description, sometimes what the randomized capsule drop is awarding you is something other than a toy to play with.

For example, this month sake gacha machines are going to be installed in Tokyo.

Set to open inside the Tobu Department Store next to downtown Tokyo’s Ikebukuro Station is the Kurand Sake Gacha Popup Store, operated by online sake and spirits marketplace Kurand.

If you’re thinking that the small size of a gacha capsule means you’re getting shortchanged on the quantity of your beverage, you can put your mind at ease. Instead of being filled with booze themselves, each capsule contains a voucher which you can then redeem on-site for the corresponding alcoholic beverage.

The random nature notwithstanding, this isn’t an “anything is fine as long as it gets you drunk” kind of promotion, either. The shop will have five different categories of alcoholic drinks, starting with one specifically for sake, one for fruit liquors and sweet-tasting alcoholic beverages, and one “omakase” style with a variety of spirits in its lineup. There’s also a mini-size sake gacha machine for smaller 300-milliliter (10.-1 ounce) bottles, and finally, there’s the premium gacha, with such ultra luxurious possible prizes as Shinkyo, a rare 50-year-aged shochu that usually retails for 110,000 yen (US$743) a bottle and the 30-year-old sake Tenko, which at 55,000 yen a bottle is also very much a special-occasion drink.

Prices to play the gacha machine range from 1,000 yen for the mini bottle gacha to 5,000 yen for the premium, with the remaining three being 2,500 yen. Since that’s a whole lot of 100-yen coins to have to feed into the machine, odds are that you’ll instead pay a store staff member and receive a single token to use instead, like with one Japanese airline’s onboard gacha machines.

The Kurand Sake Gacha Popup Store will be open from August 21 to September 29. And if you’re after more tasty randomization, don’t forget about the gacha cake shop elsewhere in Japan.

Related: Tobu Department Store Ikebukuro branch website
Source, images: PR Times
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