Calpis

Calpis is a Japanese milk drink with a light, slightly sour, yogurt-like taste, sold in North America under the name Calpico. It is made from water, dry milk and lactic acid and gets its flavour from lactic acid fermentation. Most often it is sold as a concentrate that the drinker dilutes with water or sometimes milk, though ready-to-drink Calpis Water and a carbonated Calpis Soda also exist, and it is used to flavour shaved ice (kakigori) and as a mixer in cocktails and chuhai. Its founder, Kaiun Mishima, was inspired by airag, a traditional cultured milk product he met in Mongolia in 1902. After several earlier products failed, he made Calpis by adding sugar to a cultured skimmed milk, and it went on sale on 7 July 1919. The name joins cal, from calcium, to a syllable taken from the Sanskrit sarpis, and the Calpico spelling is used abroad to avoid an unwelcome association in English.