Warmth opens caramel; the same bottle cold keeps most of it below the rim
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it. Sharper and greener than lemon. The citrus for anything built on brown sugar or tropical fruit.
Hot water in the cup first, then the shochu, six parts shochu to four of water. No ice. Then the accent on top. If it's too strong, a little more water next time.
What it tastes like
Mugi shochu from Kirishima Shuzo in Miyazaki. Importer's tasting notes: caramel, rich, sweet, sherry like. The profile below is built from the tasting notes its importer publishes.
barley
caramel
rich
sweet
sherry-like
cask
aged
Sweet
4/5
Body
3/5
Aroma
2/5
Fruit
1/5
Floral
not described
Grain
4/5
Earth
1/5
Umami
not described
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
barley
ABV
35%
Aging
built on barley shochu aged 21 years, including time in barrel, and matured in sherry 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.
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.
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.
Warmth opens caramel; the same bottle cold keeps most of it below the rim
Rich bottles are built for warmth
Mugi oyuwari in winter, with an umeboshi
Barley has less to open up than sweet potato, so water shows you exactly what is there. That is a fair test and not always a flattering one: a thin mugi has nowhere to hide in 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.
Roasted buckwheat and roasted barley are one idea arrived at from two grains
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
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.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
The peel is doing what the orange twist on an old fashioned does
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
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.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
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
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
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 small green citrus from Tokushima, sharper and more herbal than lime. Sold frozen or as juice in Japanese markets.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
Sharper and greener than the lemon a barley sour usually gets, which is what makes it worth the trip from Tokushima
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
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.
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
A bottle described as sherry-like is being compared to this wine, so pour the wine
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.
Barrel against barrel, except this one brings back the acid the cask took away
Oxidative on oxidative, except this one arrives with acid
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
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.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
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.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
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.
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 an izakaya staple. Bars usually build it on a neutral shochu, and a clean mugi does the same job with a little more grain behind it.
Fresh lemon reads harsh against aged, caramel notes
The lemon sour is the drink most izakaya sell more of than anything else on the list
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
Carpano Antica or Cocchi. A quarter of the shochu's volume, stirred cold, makes a manhattan-style drink: on a 25 percent shochu that is about 23 before the ice gets to it, where a 40 percent rye starts nearer 35.
An aged bottle already has the caramel a manhattan wants; this brings the botanicals
Cask notes and vermouth's spice belong in the same stirred glass
There is enough weight here to carry vermouth without being flattened
This mixer is sweetened too, so it lengthens the drink without cutting the sweetness that is already there.
Soft water, cold, over ice or not. One to one is normal. Mix a day ahead (maewari) and the edges round off.
Six parts shochu to four parts water, the classic
Barley has less to open up than sweet potato, so water shows you exactly what is there. That is a fair test and not always a flattering one: a thin mugi has nowhere to hide in it.
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.
Oxidative depth on both sides, the bottle's out of a cask and the vinegar's out of a year in an earthenware jar
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
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.
Cynar, 16.5 percent, which is weaker than most shochu, so equal parts with a 25 percent bottle lands near 20 and the drink stays long. Soda or a grapefruit soda over the top is the producer's own serve.
The bottle already smells of caramel, and this puts more of it in the glass.
Cappelletti Sfumato, where sfumato means smoked and the smoke is the point, or the sweeter Zucca. At 20 percent it can take a third of the glass and still leave the drink weaker than the bottle it started from.
The bottle already smells of caramel, and this puts more of it in the glass.
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.
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
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.
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.
The sweetness here is aroma rather than sugar, because sugar does not come over a still. Acid is what keeps the impression from turning cloying.
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
Barley's light sweetness reads as orchard fruit already, so apple and pear extend the bottle rather than decorate it.
This mixer is sweetened too, so it lengthens the drink without cutting the sweetness that is already there.
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
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.
Two slices from any Asian grocery, seeds out. It keeps getting more bitter the longer it sits, so taste as you go and pull the slices when it is where you want it.
A clean barley highball takes a garden note without losing its own grain under it.
Young sansho leaves, clapped between the palms and floated. Hard to find outside Japanese markets in spring, worth the hunt.
A clean barley spirit takes herbs the way vodka does, but with a cereal sweetness underneath that gives them something to sit on.
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.
Torn leaves steeped briefly. Perfumed citrus without juice.
A clean barley spirit takes herbs the way vodka does, but with a cereal sweetness underneath that gives them something to sit on.
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.
Half-and-half or heavy cream, in the after-dinner glass only.
The Calpis sour is a familiar order in Japan, usually on a neutral shochu, and a clean mugi slots in without fuss. Cream is a different and much narrower idea.
Sweet, low-acid Japanese mandarin. Juice it or drop segments in a glass. It needs a squeeze of something sharper alongside.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
This bottle already reads sweet, on aroma rather than on sugar. Adding real sugar to it is the most common way a drink built on it goes wrong.
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.
Ways to serve it
Mizuwari (with water)
On the rocks
Barley is the easiest shochu to hand to someone who has never had any. It behaves like a clean grain spirit with a little cereal sweetness, so a highball with lemon needs no explaining and no apology.
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 Nikaido Kitchomu Barley Shochu, also a barley shochu. We have this one as the sweeter of the two, which is what will move most in the glass.
·nikaido kitchomu (mugi shochu) 40ml
·fuutan (imo shochu with kuro koji) 10ml
·lillet blanc (mixed with roasted rice and yuzu peel) 10ml
If a recipe calls for something else and this is what you have. The verdict is for this bottle rather than for its style, so a bottle without the strength a stirred drink needs is not offered for one.