[GLOBAL ECONOMIC TIMES]  Ashotchu. This word, which is difficult to pronounce, is the name of a custom drink that has recently become popular. A custom drink is a drink made by combining ingredients in your own way according to your taste. When you think of Ashotchu, it is easy to think of it as an iced Americano with a coffee shot added, but it is a drink with a coffee shot added to iced tea. As stories of failed orders are shared on online communities, it is gaining popularity as a summer drink.

The stories of failure you hear are interesting. There is an incident where someone ordered an ashotchu but received an Americano with an added bitter taste due to the addition of a shot, and there is also a person who ordered an Americano with an additional shot but ended up getting a peach-flavored coffee and was disappointed. You may be wondering what kind of combination it is to mix iced tea with coffee, but there are more and more people around me who say that there is no better drink to cleanse their mouth after a meal with the sweet iced tea mixed with the bitter taste of coffee.

In addition, there is also ‘Reshotchu’, which adds a coffee shot to lemonade, and ‘Bashotchu’, a convenience store version of a custom drink that mixes banana-flavored milk with hazelnut coffee. Thanks to word of mouth spreading overseas through social media (SNS), Bashatchu has become an essential drink that foreign tourists must try at Korean convenience stores.

There is also a custom recipe for the mainstream version. There is also ‘Icicle Highball’, which mixes 1/3 cup of soju and 1/2 cup of Bacchus with Icicle, a fruit-flavored frozen confectionery, ‘Tomac’, which mixes tomato juice and beer half and half, and ‘Pitakju’ which mixes beer and makgeolli half and half. The key secret to Tomac and Pitakju is that they must be made with cool, carbonated lager.

If the beginning of personalized customized drinks was a simple form of adding a coffee shot to a basic drink or adding or subtracting whipped cream, syrup, toppings, etc. according to preference, it has now progressed to the stage of creating new drinks that are not on the menu according to taste.

A representative example is Starbucks’ custom drink ‘Matcha Chocolate Cup Bingsu’. First, order the Jeju Matcha Cream Frappuccino in the Grande size, and as a personal option, add No. 4 caramel syrup to No. 4 classic syrup, add No. 5 Java chips & topping (half and half), exclude whipped cream, and add caramel drizzle and chocolate drizzle. For other options, add organic matcha up to 5 times to complete the shaved ice you want. A generation that is not proficient in using apps cannot order or taste drinks. The situation has become one where it is more appropriate to say that you taste as much as you know, rather than saying, “You see as much as you know.”

In his book ‘The Age of Fashion’, Polish sociologist Sigmund Bauman said, “People dream of belonging and independence; they seek social support and autonomy; they seek to be like others and pursue uniqueness.” We have a mentality of wanting to imitate others but also wanting to stand out. It is not easy to find out at once what I like and what my tastes are. Save and try recipes introduced on social media and repeat the experience of success and failure. Wouldn’t it be possible to try your own unique recipe?

[Copyright (c) Global Economic Times. All Rights Reserved.]