What Is Midori?
There seems to be a true shortage of interesting alcohol-related news this weekend, so I decided to write a bit about Midori, the mysterious green melon liqueur made by Suntory.
The reason why it comes to mind is my girlfriend’s enjoyment of the Midori Sour (2 parts sour mix & 1 part Midori). As I made several of them this evening, I stared at the bottle, realizing that I had no idea what’s really in it. Unlike other spirits such as whiskey or vodka, I have no what goes into Midori and how it’s made, and it seems that no one else does either. This is the sort of thing that makes me wish there were nutritional information and ingredient lists on liquor.
So, what do we know about Midori? Well, the official Midori site says that it tastes of melon and was launched in the USA in 1978. Now, it’s available in more than 30 countries around the world. The liqueur itself is made in Mexico (check the bottle if you don’t believe me) but was originally developed in Japan. The only ingredients listed on the bottle are “FD&C Yellow No. 5 and Certified Color Added”. FD&C Yellow No. 5 is also known as tartrazine and gives food a lemon yellow color. It also happens to be the ingredient in Mountain Dew, which supposedly shrinks testicles (not true). This, however, doesn’t completely account for the vibrant green color (by the way “midori” means “green” in Japanes), so there’s obviously something else. BarMedia says that it’s made from a base of neutral spirits and proprietary flavors. As far as informative sites goes, this one gets the cake despite the utter lack of information. I searched Google for half an hour and found nothing better.
My guess, then, is the liqueur is made from grain alcohol mixed with water to get to 42 proof and simply has a bunch of random artifical flavorings, coloring, and sugar added. Of course, this is completely unsubstantiated, and I don’t have a laboratory at my disposable to reverse engineer the ingredients. However, it makes me wonder if it would be cheaper to use vodka, syrup, and sugar instead.
If anyone knows any of the secret ingredients (or at least wants to venture a guess), then please leave a comment. I’m dying to know.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Hi, I myself have just been googling the ingredients of Midori as i find that i am illergic to something in it as after drinking i always get a pain that rushes from my shoulders/ upper arms, to my back and then through to my chest. It is pretty intense and lasts for about 15 minutes. I’ve found on forums that there are a few other people who experience this pain when drinking some spirits with no explanation and it appears to me that it must be an ingredient such as artificial flavourings or colourant.
I too would like to know about the ingredients if anyone else knows?