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Recreate KitKat's Awesomely Alcoholic Sake Flavor at Home

Kit Kat snack with a small note beside a white mug.

Listen up, children, pregnant women, and lightweights: this particular KitKat variety is not for you. Well, with 0.8% alcoholic content per 2 KitKat bars, it's highly unlikely anyone will actually get drunk on these things. Still...

The newest flavor of KitKat (or Kit Kat) in Japan is the Japanese Sake flavor, released on February 1st. This unique flavor joins the pantheon of other flavors dreamed up by Nestlé Japan, including green tea, cheesecake, rum raisin, and sweet potato, among others.

KitKat Japanese sake-flavored chocolate packaging.

According to Oona McGee of Rocket News, "...the distinct flavour of Japanese rice wine was there," and the candy itself leaves "...the superb aftertaste, which covered the mouth with a little heat and as much aroma as a shot of real sake."

This matches the earlier report from Nestlé Japan spokesperson Takuya Hiramatsu (via BuzzFeed), who described it as "the elegant taste of sake, wrapped in the gentle sweetness of white chocolate" with a "mellow, full-bodied flavor, and a refreshing aftertaste of sake."

Japanese sake-flavored KitKat bars arranged with a bowl and glass on a white surface.

Unfortunately, these are only available in Japan right now... but if you're really determined to try a bite, you can easily make it yourself—with some DIY ingenuity, of course.

First, you'll need sake, which you can either buy or make yourself. (We recommend making it yourself, since that's way more fun!)

Bowl of flour with packaged traditional Chinese pastry.

Mario Hernandez/Food Hacks

As for the overall candy itself, KitKats are extremely easy to make—just buy wafer creams at the store, then brush a small amount of sake on top before coating the wafer in tempered white chocolate. (Don't attempt to add the sake to the chocolate, as the additional water content of the alcohol will make it impossible for the chocolate to harden.)

More detailed instructions on both this process and other versions of KitKats, including the much-love green tea version, can be found in our KitKat-making guide.

Chocolate treats with melted chocolate and wafers on a baking tray.

Emma Chapman/A Beautiful Mess

Because of their novelty and the large amount of hype surrounding the flavor, I'd be very surprised if it didn't make its way to local Japanese shops in the U.S. at some point in the near future—if you eagerly await its arrival, I would periodically check Amazon for its availability (and peruse the other crazy flavors that Japan has to offer).

So—would you give these KitKats a try? Let us know what you think about these alcoholic delicacies in the comments below.

More Candy-Related Hacks:

Images via KIT KAT Japan (unless otherwise noted); cover image via Orrin/Twitter

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