Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light. That's the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
The lemon sour is the drink most izakaya sell more of than anything else on the list. Juice and peel are two different tools. Fresh juice, never bottled, is the whole basis of the lemon sour and the quickest way to put acid into a distilled base. The peel expressed over the top gives the oil and no acid at all, which is what a sweet or roasted bottle usually wants instead.
One part shochu to three or four parts of the long mixer, over plenty of ice, then the accent on top. If it tastes thin, go two to three next time.
What it tastes like
Soba shochu from Takachiho Shuzo in Miyazaki. Producer's tasting notes: barley, rice. The profile below is built from the tasting notes the producer publishes.
buckwheat
barley
rice
Sweet
1/5
Body
3/5
Aroma
4/5
Fruit
not described
Floral
not described
Grain
5/5
Earth
3/5
Umami
2/5
Read from the words above rather than measured. Where it says not described, none of the sources behind this page mention it, which is not the same as it not being there.
Base
buckwheat, barley and domestic rice with buckwheat, barley and rice koji
Koji
white koji
Distillation
vacuum distillation
ABV
25%
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.
A longer wedge is a family we'd reach for sooner with this bottle, worked out from its flavours rather than tasted. It isn't a score, or a comparison with other bottles.
The gentle ginger. For bottles that a ginger beer would bully.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light. That's the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Gentler than ginger beer; right for a soft rice bottle
Barley shochu and ginger ale is an izakaya highball
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
The shortcut to a sour when there is no fresh lemon. Less sweet is better.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light. That's the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Lemon sour in one pour
Rice shochu and lemon soda
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
Cold, and fizzy enough to matter. One part shochu to three or four parts soda; if it tastes thin, go one to two next time.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light. That's the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
The shochu highball: ice, shochu, cold soda, nothing else
Shochu and soda over ice is an everyday drink in Japan
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
A dry tonic (Fever-Tree, Q). One part spirit, three parts tonic, a citrus wedge.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light. That's the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Shochu tonic is the drink US bars pour most when they list shochu
Shochu tonic: bitter and sweet at once, and better than it sounds
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
Juice and peel are two different tools. Fresh juice, never bottled, is the whole basis of the lemon sour and the quickest way to put acid into a distilled base. The peel expressed over the top gives the oil and no acid at all, which is what a sweet or roasted bottle usually wants instead.
The lemon sour is the drink most izakaya sell more of than anything else on the list
Rice sweetness wants acid, and lemon is the simplest acid there is
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
A spicy one, not a sweet one. The mule format works for every dark shochu, and it is the most forgiving way to serve one.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light. That's the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
A shochu mule, and it is on menus
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
A plain or ginger kombucha. Acid, bubbles and a little funk, all three in one pour.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light. That's the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Acid and bubbles on rice sweetness
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
Dry cava or crémant. Acid and bubbles in one pour.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light. That's the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Shochu and brut sparkling is a French 75 with rice under it; the acid is the point
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
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.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light. That's the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
Roasted buckwheat, in any Japanese grocery, hot or cold. In a soba restaurant the same serve is made with soba-yu, the starchy water the noodles were boiled in, which is thicker and cannot be bought.
This bottle's aroma is the reason to own it, and a roasted or smoky mixer covers exactly that.
Roasted buckwheat and roasted barley are one idea arrived at from two grains
The one mixer that puts the bottle's own raw material back into the glass
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
Heat is what makes buckwheat smell toasted rather than merely nutty. That's most of the reason to pick a soba shochu at all.
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.
Softer acid than lemon, so the rice sweetness stays in the glass
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
Oita's citrus, softer than sudachi. Bartenders in Oita mix it with the local barley shochu and soda.
Kabosu and barley shochu are both Oita's, and kabosu gets squeezed into drinks there; the gentler acid suits a mugi wherever it was distilled
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
The Japanese citrus that tastes like grapefruit, mandarin and lemon at once, with a floral peel. A little zest or juice goes a long way.
The classic pair: rice sweetness under yuzu zest
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
The Korean-style yuzu preserve sold in jars. A spoon in hot water with shochu, or shaken cold.
Yuzu tea and barley shochu in hot water is a winter izakaya drink
Hot water, rice shochu, a spoon of yuzu tea
Buckwheat's sweetness is dark rather than bright, so a dark syrup extends it and a pale one sits on top.
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
Eden Foods sells it as Ume Plum Vinegar in most US supermarkets, and it is one of the cheapest things on this list. A bar spoon, and unlike a crushed umeboshi it can go into a shaken drink.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Eden Foods sells it as Ume Plum Vinegar in most US supermarkets, and it is one of the cheapest things on this list. A bar spoon, and unlike a crushed umeboshi it can go into a shaken drink.
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.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
Sakamoto's, fermented outdoors in earthenware jars in Fukuyama and aged at least a year; Toiro and Japanese Taste ship it in the US. A teaspoon in a mizuwari is the whole intervention, and a second one is usually a mistake.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Sakamoto's, fermented outdoors in earthenware jars in Fukuyama and aged at least a year; Toiro and Japanese Taste ship it in the US. A teaspoon in a mizuwari is the whole intervention, and a second one is usually a mistake.
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
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.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
Sweet, low-acid Japanese mandarin. Juice it or drop segments in a glass. It needs a squeeze of something sharper alongside.
Mikan juice over rice sweetness is gentle and familiar
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
Food-grade citric and malic powder from the canning aisle, 10 grams whisked into 100 grams of cold water; two parts citric to one malic is close to lime. Some bartenders find a drink with no juice in it thin, so it is worth trying both ways.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Mikawa Mirin from Sumiya Bunjiro Shoten, made from glutinous rice, koji and shochu since 1911 with no added sugar. Not the sweetened seasoning sold as mirin-fu chomiryo, which is a different product.
The bottle already smells of rice, and this puts more of it in the glass.
Hana Makgeolli is brewed in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; Makku sells a canned one. Strength varies widely across the category, from around 6 percent in a can to the mid teens for an unfiltered takju, so read the label before deciding how much to pour.
The bottle already smells of rice, and this puts more of it in the glass.
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.
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
Zuiyo's Kuririn, from Japanese chestnuts at 11 percent, or Dover's wa-shu kuri, which is on a rum base. A dessert direction, and not the same thing as kuri shochu, which is a base spirit.
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
Luxardo. It is sweetened, whatever the name suggests: their own account of the process ends by adding a syrup of water and sugar to bring it to 32 percent. What makes it read as dry is the stone. The cherries sit in larch vats for up to three years, pits, leaves and all, before the lot is distilled and the heart rested in ash, and that almond bitterness arrives before the sugar does. So measure it as a sweetener that tastes bitter, not as a dry modifier, and a bar spoon changes a stirred drink completely.
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
St-Germain or similar: the flower with alcohol behind it, for stirred drinks. A half ounce is enough. For a long drink, the cordial above does the same flavour without the proof.
Shochu, elderflower liqueur, lemon: a sour that tastes like spring
Small Hand Foods', or sugar, water and gum arabic from the baking aisle at home. Worth knowing that most Japanese gum syrup on a shelf today has no arabic gum in it at all.
Buckwheat's sweetness is dark rather than bright, so a dark syrup extends it and a pale one sits on top.
The non-alcoholic koji drink, sweet from rice starch alone. Blend with the spirit and ice; it is a shochu smoothie.
Koji rice porridge on a rice drink; the same koji, before and after fermentation
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
Young sansho leaves, clapped between the palms and floated. Hard to find outside Japanese markets in spring, worth the hunt.
The classic spring garnish for rice dishes; it belongs on rice wine too
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
A pinch of ground sansho over the top, or a few peppercorns steeped. Numbing, citrusy, green.
Sansho and rice is a Kyoto kitchen
Harder to find outside Japan than most of this list. Worth ordering or a trip to a Japanese grocery, and where something easier works as well, that comes first.
The cordial, sweet and alcohol-free, poured like a syrup. Muscat, lychee and honey in one flower. The liqueur has its own entry below: a different product rather than a stronger or weaker version of this one, and it brings alcohol along with the flower.
The nutty base will swallow a delicate flower unless the drink is otherwise very plain.
A drop of rose water, or a rose syrup. A drop; it takes over.
The nutty base will swallow a delicate flower unless the drink is otherwise very plain.
Ways to serve it
On the rocks
Mizuwari (with water)
Buckwheat shochu is nutty and quiet, and roasted things meet it on its own terms rather than covering it. Hojicha and mugicha pick up the nuttiness; citrus and ginger work differently, by cutting the quiet rather than matching it.
Cocktails other people made
We haven't found 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 iichiko Saiten, which is a barley shochu, not a buckwheat shochu. This bottle is lighter, 25% against 43%, so cut the mixer back or it will disappear.
·3 ounces buckwheat tea concentrate (see editor's note)
Written for iichiko Saiten, which is a barley shochu, not a buckwheat shochu. This bottle is lighter, 25% against 43%, so cut the mixer back or it will disappear.
·1 ounce plus 5 teaspoons shochu, preferably iichiko saiten
·1/2 teaspoon mezcal, preferably fidencio joven
·3/4 ounce citrus blend (equal parts lemon and lime juice)
