Pandemic Journal, Day 721

We ran out of mirin the other day. I’m pretty sure I bought it at Lunardi’s early in the pandemic, but when I went there to replace it, I didn’t find anything that looked like the bottle I’d been using. The only thing I found was Kikkoman Aji-Mirin but a quick web search suggested I avoid it because it’s loaded with sugar.

Today, I went to a large Japanese supermarket near my allergist. They had several brands of Aji-Mirin (literally “tastes like mirin”), and some “Honteri” (non-alcoholic sweet mirin-like seasoning), but I couldn’t find any “hon mirin” (real mirin). There were a lot of empty spots on the shelf, though, so it might be a supply chain issue.

Of course, I had recycled the old bottle before taking a picture of the label, so I’m not 100% sure I was using real mirin anyway – but I’m going to keep looking.