Ever wondered how Suntory -196 got its name? We finally know the answer

Chances are you’ve sipped on an ice-cold can of Suntory -196 before. In fact, with summer right around the corner, you might be thinking about enjoying some more chilled sips in the near future. But, no matter how familiar you are with Suntory -196’s delicious taste, you probably didn’t know how it got its iconic name.

We asked around, searched high and low, for your best guesses, and, well, all of them were wrong. No, it’s not called -196 because that's how many samurais died trying to retrieve the lemons. No, it’s not called -196 because a CEO yelled ‘colder!’ 196 times to get the beverage to the perfect temp. And, no, it’s not called -196 because 196 is the square root of… alcohol.

But, we’re here to put you out of your misery. Suntory -196 got its name thanks to the incredible FCI — or Freeze Crush Infuse — technology.

Now, if we wind it back a bit, the brains behind Suntory -196 were hunting relentlessly on the best method to produce the best lemon-based alcoholic RTD on the market. Some absolute genius thought, "Hold up, why chuck half the lemon away when you can have the whole bloody lot?"

Thanks to using the whole fruit, they invented the FCI process, which runs as follows:.

1. Freeze: They're not messing about here. They take a whole lemon – the peel, the flesh, the whole shabang – and drop it into liquid nitrogen at a bonkers -196 degrees C. You see where this is going, right? This freezes the fruit solid.
2. Crush: Once frozen, they smash it until it's just a fine powder. All that good stuff – the oil, the aroma, the pure lemon taste – is trapped in there. None of the flavour goes wandering off.
3. Infuse: Then they chuck that whole, powered-up lemon dust into the spirits. The alcohol just soaks up the full, proper taste of the fruit.

And that's how you get Suntory -196. The drink has a fresh finish, but never compromises on that bold fruit flavour — and now, next time you sip on it, you’ll know exactly why.