Tod spied this in the liquor shop the other day. “It’s rosehip liquor,” he said as I perused the wines. Sounded interesting so we picked up a bottle along with a bottle of more traditional chilean Pinot.

Macadia is tangy and sweet with a hint of spice. It drinks more like plum wine than a strong liquor. As it turns out, it’s not just rosehips. It also contains maca, aka Peruvian ginseng. What an odd combination. I did some poking around and found Suntory’s press release:

Suntory is to release healthy liqueur “Macadia” —Wine for “beauty” and “high spirit” with soaked maca and rose hip from Andes —

…Recently, customers’ health consciousness has been on rise. In such a trend, Suntory has pursued the development of liqueur that uses healthy ingredients, by utilizing both product development on alcoholic beverage business and research development of healthy product business. Suntory then, has focused on “maca” and “rose hip” that contain vitamin, mineral, and amino acid and newly released healthy liqueur “Macadia” as a drink that can be enjoyed by women. It is particularly targeted to women who are highly interested in beauty and health, enabling them to enjoy alcohol and satisfy their health consciousness at the same time….

On the Japanese site there is a Macadia column with beauty advice from a color analyst, an esthetician, and a nail artist. There are recipes for foods that pair with Macadia (watch for goya chijimi in this week’s Recipe Thursday). And of course, the CM Library. There’s only one, The Story of Maca and Rosehip. They’re cats…