By Izakaya Juraku, New York
Pick the bottle in front of you and find out what to put in it, and why. 531 bottles, 31 of them tasted at our own bar and written up from the glass.
Find it by name above, or start from what it is made from. Every bottle page says what to pour in it and why, and invites you to ignore the suggestion if the reason does not convince you.
Ginger ale in the fridge and no shochu yet. Pick what you have and see which bottle is worth buying for it, with the reason attached.
31 bottles
The part of this catalogue that is first hand. Everything else here is built from what producers and importers publish, and every page says so.
Every other recipe on this site is somebody else's, credited and linked. These are the bar's own. The ingredients are here, and the method is on our own site.
Aka Kirishima is the lighter one, with red berry notes that suit a light, refreshing sparkling drink.
What else goes with Aka Kirishima Shochu →
Method at Izakaya Juraku →Awamori carries an earthy note, almost mushroom-like, and elderflower sits well against it. Hakuryu is the milder of the Zuisen we pour, which is why it is the one that goes in here.
What else goes with Zuisen Hakuryu Awamori →
Method at Izakaya Juraku →What else goes with Takara Shochu Jun →
Method at Izakaya Juraku →Shochumixer is built by Izakaya Juraku, a Lower East Side izakaya in New York. We keep 31 shochu behind the bar, and those were written up from the glass. The rest of the catalogue is built from what producers and importers publish, and each bottle says which it is.
Shochu does not have a quality problem. It has a marketing problem, and you can hear it in the answer to the question we get asked most: what is this, and how do I drink it?
The answer always starts “traditionally, you drink it…” and then a ritual. It is correct, and it is still the wrong thing to say first. Tell somebody there is a correct way to drink something they have never had, and what they hear is that it is not for them. So they order what they already know how to order.
So start where they already are. Lychee, citrus, ginger, the drink they came in for, made with this instead. The catch is that honkaku shochu is distilled once, so the raw material is still in the glass: a clean rice takes almost anything, a heavy imo will fight a mixer picked by analogy to vodka. That is what this site is for.
