Hello Kitty Beer

I'm someone who enjoys an adult beverage every now and then, but since I'm also someone whose tastes basically stopped at the age of 12, I tend to really hate the bitter taste of beer. Up to now, I've solved this problem pretty handily by just dumping a pint of ethanol and a bag of Skittles into a blender, but many are the nights where I've been in the throes of delirium, wondering why there isn't a way to get drunk on something that tastes like fruit soda, and that also panders to my love of iconic Japanese pop culture characters.

Thankfully, I now have my answer: Sanrio has licensed an official Hello Kitty beer, currently available in China and Taiwan in four fruity flavors.

According to the Atlantic, the Hello Kitty beers (which have about half the alcohol content of a regular, non-Sanrio approved beer) are designed to capitalize on the relatively untapped (ha ha!) women drinker market in China. That said, Hello Kitty has certainly garnered fans across a multitude of demographics. I myself, a 31 year-old man whose primary interests include professional grappling and anti-clown vigilantes, have a sheet of stickers on my desk at this very moment of Kitty dressed as Dracula, a fact that surprises absolutely no one.

The real question, then, is how do they taste. Turns out that Kotaku reviewed them and they taste "more like fruit juice than beer." Thankfully, their limited distribution to another continent has saved my liver... this time.

I will say that even though Kitty's been on just about every other form of merchandise up to and including toasters that burn her image into bread, beer does seem like a pretty weird choice for a character that's primarily marketed to kids. It's like when you see those old adds for Superman cigarette lighters -- something just doesn't quite add up. Besides, if anyone in Sanrio's roster of characters was going to turn to booze, I'd pick that delinquent Badtz-Maru. Maybe Mimmy, driven to drink by the stress of living in her more famous sister's shadow. But I guess Kitty's got the brand recognition.

Poor Mimmy. Poor, booze-less Mimmy.