These bottles already have one strong flavour in them. Soda gives it room instead of competing with it.
One part shochu to three or four parts mixer, over plenty of ice. If it tastes thin, go two to three next time.
What it tastes like
Honkaku shochu from Takachiho Shuzo in Miyazaki. Producer's tasting notes: smooth. The profile below is built from the tasting notes the producer publishes.
smooth
cask
aged
Sweet
1/5
Body
3/5
Aroma
4/5
Fruit
1/5
Floral
0/5
Grain
2/5
Earth
1/5
Umami
1/5
Base
corn and corn koji, 100% non GMO corn
Koji
white koji
Distillation
both atmospheric and vacuum distillation
ABV
30%
Aging
a long time in oak casks
What to mix with it
Tap a family to narrow it down. Every suggestion carries its reasoning, so if the reasoning does not convince you, ignore the suggestion.
Bitter orange: sour and aromatic rather than sweet, the citrus that goes into ponzu. Bottled juice is sold for cooking and works straight in a glass. Use the peel too, it carries most of the smell.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
The peel is doing what the orange twist on an old fashioned does
Hoppy Beverage Co. has made it in Tokyo since 1948; at 0.8 percent it is legally a soft drink, and it is hard to find outside Japan. Chill the bottle, the shochu and the mug and no ice is needed.
These bottles already have one strong flavour in them. Soda gives it room instead of competing with it.
An aged bottle is the one you would not lengthen with a beer substitute
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
Braulio, made in Bormio from gentian, juniper, peppermint and yarrow, around forty-five dollars. A summer drink on shochu and a winter one on whisky, which is one bottle behaving two ways.
Oak rested and 21 percent, so half and half with a cask-aged bottle is one drink at about 23
A strong bitter will argue with the botanical rather than support it. Keep it to a dash.
Lustau or González Byass. Fino is salt and living flor; this is what is left after the flor dies, and at 18 percent an ounce lengthens the glass rather than strengthening it.
Both have spent years going quietly brown, and they meet in the middle
Cold-pressed juice or thin slices. Green apple is already in the aroma of a lot of rice shochu, so this amplifies what is there rather than adding something new.
Cask-aged bottles have the wood; apple has the orchard
D.O.M. Bénédictine, on most back bars. Rounder and much sweeter than the alpine liqueurs, so it suits bottles that already lean sweet rather than clean.
Barrow's Intense, made in Brooklyn, is the one to look for: much more ginger and much less sugar than most, so it works as the spice in a drink rather than as the sweetener. Domaine de Canton is the easier one to find and the sweeter one. Either gets you the mule flavour without the sugar load of a ginger beer, and both work hot as well as cold. They carry their own alcohol, so they lengthen a shochu less than a juice or a syrup would.
Warm spice against caramel, without the sugar a ginger beer brings
Hot water in the glass first, spirit poured on top so it mixes itself. Around 40C in the glass is the sweet spot. This is not the only way, it is one way.
Water dilutes the botanical without adding anything to argue with it. Useful when the bottle is strong enough that soda would only make it louder.
A Miyazaki citrus eaten with the white pith left on, which is sweet rather than bitter. Gentler and more floral than lemon, so it flavours a drink without taking it over.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
Blandy's or Barbeito, ten year. It is the one fortified wine that brings real acid, so it can do the lemon's job on a bottle where fresh citrus reads harsh.
Barrel against barrel, except this one brings back the acid the cask took away
Okinawa's own citrus, picked green and sharp, more bitter than lime and more floral than sudachi. Squeezed over awamori and soda it is what the islands actually drink.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
Cynar, 16.5 percent, which is weaker than the shochu itself, so equal parts lands near 20 percent and the drink stays long. Soda or a grapefruit soda over the top is the producer's own serve.
A strong bitter will argue with the botanical rather than support it. Keep it to a dash.
The Japanese Bitters, five 100ml expressions, sold at Astor Wines in New York. Angostura at nearly 45 percent is a small spike in a 25 percent drink in a way these are not.
A strong bitter will argue with the botanical rather than support it. Keep it to a dash.
Cocchi Americano: moscato steeped with cinchona bark, gentian and bitter orange. Lillet dropped its quinine in 1985, so only the Americano side of the category still tastes of the bark, and equal parts with a shochu is about 21 percent.
A strong bitter will argue with the botanical rather than support it. Keep it to a dash.
Jack Rudy's Extra Bitter, made with real cinchona bark, or Small Hand Foods'. Half a teaspoon and soda, set to the bottle in front of you rather than to a tonic maker's idea of a spirit.
A strong bitter will argue with the botanical rather than support it. Keep it to a dash.
Ways to serve it
With soda
On the rocks
These are shochu with one loud idea in them, shiso or sesame or green tea. Treat the botanical as the drink's flavour and everything else as its frame, and do not try to add a second loud idea.
Cocktails other people made
Nobody has published a cocktail written for this exact bottle. These were written for other bottles, so each one says which, and what changes if you pour this instead.
Written for Tantakatan Shiso Shochu, a different bottle. This bottle is stronger, 30% against 20%, so it will take more mixer than the original asks for.
Written for Gokoo "Comfortable Sky" Mugi Shochu, a different bottle. This bottle is stronger, 30% against 25%, so it will take more mixer than the original asks for.