An evening with Vertical’s Tasting for Drops of God

Rarely has there been a story that would inspire the interest of an industry outside of its target audience. However, this has been the success of The Drops of God aka Kami no Shizuku. It had inspired trends that would literally sway the consumption of a certain vine to being nearly all consumed and sought after.

The direction of Drops of God in English that Vertical has chosen is going to be one similar to how Oishinbo had been published by Viz, a sampling and not everything is going to be released. So this series in Japan may be 20+ volumes, but in terms of practicality, only three volumes has been decided to be published in English. The main point of this entry though is not the review of the manga, which I still have yet to read. Rather it is a recap for a publisher event that I was able to attend.

On Wednesday and available for the public to attend, Vertical took an alternative approach to presenting one of their latest releases. They presented The Drops of God at Bottlerocket Wine & Spirit, a wine shop, where attendees were able to taste certain wines that were mentioned in the manga.

Since there was a large crowd expected, attendees were given slips of paper to get the opportunity to blind taste a drop of God. There were also plenty of mingling, so the evening passed as the wine flowed and prepared snacks were consumed. I sampled three wines and since I have already had a prior preference for white over red wines, I had my heart set on which wine I liked.

For those who were present at this wine tasting event, also had the opportunity to purchase the book. It was a great opportunity to see how successfully a title can be crossed over into another industry. I happen to take some photos of the event, so you can check out the Flickr here.