Today is Ramune Day, marking the 137th anniversary of the famous Japanese soft drink’s manufacture in Japan. A carbonated beverage with a lemon-lime taste, Ramune is fun to drink because of the glass ball at the top, which closes if you try to swig it too fast. While a fun novelty now, using a glass ball to seal in carbonation was quite high tech back when it was invented by British engineer Hiram Codd in 1872, quickly spreading to Japan through traders. Originally a corruption of the English word “lemonade,” Ramune was a favorite of sailors in the Imperial Navy during World War II, and is closely associated with summer festivals today. The sign of a Ramune bottle is sure to cause Japanese to exclaim natsukashii! (nots-ka-SHEE), meaning “nostalgic,” and I’ve known many Japanese to fondly tell me of the days when they were so poor all they had to play with were the glass marbles from Ramune bottles, which makes me wonder if this isn’t some kind of shared group memory or something. The Ramune brand isn’t owned by any one company but (like the Kewpie Doll) is generic, manufactured by several different bottlers throughout Japan. While we don’t sell Ramune itself (too difficult to ship glass bottles internationally), J-List has dozens of great Ramune-themed items, from our logo T-shirt to delicious snacks and gum, and even the fun Ramune-scented parody pen.
Ramune is a popular icon of the past in Japan, and for us gaijin, of how fun and wacky Japan can be.
