Perfectly fine for everyday use and relatively benign

January 10, 2024 1:11 AM

All those iterations yielded a total game changer, not only replacing the company’s unwieldy 1.8-liter jugs with a handheld design that would work for home consumers, but establishing the soy sauce bottle as a cultural touchstone. The company, well aware of the intense affection its specialty bottles have generated ever since, has fully cashed in on collectors’ enthusiasm. from The Kikkoman Soy Sauce Bottle Is Priceless
posted by chavenet (19 comments total)

Good design is timeless and iconic. The Kikkoman bottle is utilitarian art.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:42 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]

I can't be the only Canadian who read that excerpt and thought of China Lily.
posted by ZaphodB at 2:14 AM on January 10 [5 favorites]

And if you're wondering what to do with all the excess soy sauce from your limited edition kikkoman bottles, just store it in your excess Stanley tumblers!
posted by jeremias at 4:53 AM on January 10 [5 favorites]

The bottle is a classic for sure, but I never buy the brand any more. When I’m buying soy sauce, I want it to be made of soy, not wheat. Nearly all the soy sauces you can find in the average grocery store in the US include wheat as a main ingredient. I don’t get it.

Having said that, my giant bottle of Tamari soy sauce? I wish it didn’t drip so much. Maybe I need a Kikkoman bottle…
posted by caution live frogs at 5:30 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]

Related xkcd (there's almost always a related xkcd): "Sometimes I get overwhelmed thinking about the amount of work that went into the ordinary objects around me."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:08 AM on January 10 [4 favorites]

I'm a Kikkoman man, man. Less sodium, the green label.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:12 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]

I refilled my Kikkoman dispenser with good stuff for years before I switched to similar dispensers from Daiso, as I became a person who required six different types of soy sauce. But I do absolutely remember the first time I encountered this bottle on a table in a restaurant and understood exactly what to do with it and what the benefits would be, so yeah, that's some damn fine design work there.

I can still remember several lines of the jingle from commercials, it had to have been in the 80s? I do NOT wish to look it up and revisit it because I suspect nothing about those commercials has aged well.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:13 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]

Nearly all the soy sauces you can find in the average grocery store in the US include wheat as a main ingredient.

I don't think this is a US thing. Even a more "authentic" brewed-in-Japan shoyu like Yamasa contains wheat.
posted by HumanComplex at 7:22 AM on January 10 [4 favorites]

Personally, when I reach for soy sauce it's Chinese. And hence really made from fermented soy. And also comes in a utilitarian bottle that's much easier to use than a 1.8l jug but it's not winning any design prizes. Because it's just a 500ml bottle.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:48 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]

FWIW, Kikkoman’s tamari contains no wheat.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 8:00 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]

"As a native of Hiroshima, Ekuan survived the atomic bomb before designing his famous dispenser."
posted by praemunire at 8:23 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]

My wife has celiac and so I am quite focused on the number of “soy sauce” brands that are really “wheat sauce.” I understand that Kikkoman has an all-soy version now but I’ve found alternatives that seem to taste better anyway. It’s funny, all I usually think when I see the “iconic bottle” is “hmm, cheap bad soy sauce.” I guess I’m not in the target market.

Interesting article though.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 8:27 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]

Make it special make it grand
Add a touch of Kikkoman
posted by caviar2d2 at 8:38 AM on January 10 [4 favorites]

My Kikkoman bottle says "refill only with Kikkoman Soy Sauce" and I've always joked that it has some sort of poison embedded in the glass that will be released if it detects non-Kikkoman soy sauce.

I'll also say that when I went to Japan I fully expected to see that Kikkoman was held in low regard and viewed as inferior made for foreigners soy sauce but nope. It's everywhere over there. There's plenty of other soy sauce too, of course, but Kikkoman seemed to be the most common variety.

The bottle is a flipping work of art.
posted by sotonohito at 9:07 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]

Maggi all the way
posted by elkevelvet at 9:30 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]

I thought that was literally the difference between soy sauce and tamari, the former has wheat, the latter doesn't. Is it really just a brand thing?
posted by solotoro at 10:27 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]

From Serious Eats, A Guide to Soy Sauce Varieties: "While traditional Chinese soy sauces were made only using soy beans (some modern Chinese soy sauces contain wheat, too), when the brewing method made its way to Japan, the recipe was modified to use an even ratio of soybeans and wheat, producing a soy sauce with a sweeter flavor profile. ... for those who avoid ingesting gluten, tamari has emerged as a convenient soy sauce substitute. These days, many tamari-style soy sauces actually contain traces of wheat, though most major soy sauce brands ... offer gluten-free versions."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:00 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]

I've only ever measured soy sauce in units of Caps. No teaspoons, tablespoons, ounces (fluid or otherwise) or even milliliters. I have no idea that the volume of a yellow China Lily cap is, but I know how many of them I need in anything I'm cooking. Add that data point to the messed up Canadian system of measurements.
posted by flyingfox at 3:01 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]

There are a lot of different varieties of soy sauce in different regions of Japan, and some of them incorporate other ingredients like wheat or barley, and some don't (same with miso). Tamari soy sauce is a weird phenomenon because in America it's marketed as this ultra-premium luxury soy sauce, but in Japan it's regarded as this very niche thing kind of specifically used for sushi, and otherwise not really used just in general. If anything, the "fancy refined tastes" soy sauce in Japan would be usukuchi soy sauce, which is lighter in color than the standard koikuchi stuff.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:53 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]