As we all know, bizarre Japanese foods and flavors have a certain appeal to the foreign visitor or expat. Tom Baker is a writer located in Tokyo and the author of Tokyo Tom Baker. In this post, he tries the Morinaga-brand Pancake Milkshake (ホットケーキ・ミルクセーキ） the rest of us expats have been too afraid to try–as a cocktail.

Photo by Tokyo Tom Baker

Japanese snack and beverage companies offer an endlessly morphing variety of flavor combinations. Probably the most surprising among them for now is the Morinaga company’s pancake milkshake in a can.

Pause to consider the basic elements of this product:

Pancake.
Milkshake.
In a can.

Could anything be more unnatural? It sounded so disgusting that I simply had to try it. Assuming that only alcohol could make this gloop even remotely palatable, and further assuming the product might somehow resemble egg nog, I surmised that a shot of rum might be a good additive.

Read the rest of the post “Pancake Cocktail, Anyone?”