Tatenokawa · Yamagata · Shochu · Liqueur
This is a liqueur rather than a base spirit. It is already sweetened, so treat the suggestions below as a starting point and go easier on anything else sweet.
Pour this first
Ginger ale, tall over ice. Ginger with it.
Ginger is in this bottle, not just on its nose, so this doubles it rather than introducing it.
Ginger is in this bottle, not just on its nose, so this doubles it rather than introducing it. Fresh juice, a syrup, or a good ginger beer. The spice that makes a low-proof drink feel like it has a backbone.
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.
Liqueur from Tatenokawa in Yamagata. Importer's tasting notes: ginger. The profile below is built from the tasting notes its importer publishes.
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.
This bottle is made with ginger, not merely reminiscent of it. A mixer meets the ginger first and the grain second, so read these as answers to the ginger rather than to the barley or the rice. 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.
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.
John D. Taylor's Velvet Falernum, about twenty dollars. At 11 percent it behaves like a syrup, so it sweetens and thickens without raising the drink.
Fresh juice, a syrup, or a good ginger beer. The spice that makes a low-proof drink feel like it has a backbone.
Barrow's Intense, made in Brooklyn, or Domaine de Canton, which is the easier one to find. Ginger and sugar arrive together either way, and both work hot as well as cold. Being spirits themselves they add alcohol along with the volume, which a juice or a syrup does not.
A spoon of the brine, and a slice as garnish. Sweet, sour and hot at once.
The bases with no family of their own: sake lees, chestnut, corn. There are no style rules on this page, which is deliberate. What each bottle is described as tasting of is doing the whole job, so the suggestions come from that rather than from anything the category is supposed to want.
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.
punchdrink.com · Tom Liu, Los Angeles
Written for a different style
Written for iichiko Saiten, a different bottle. We have this one as the less fruity of the two, which is what will move most in the glass.
Stirred.
Full method at punchdrink.com →punchdrink.com · Teppoudama, Tokyo, Japan
Written for shochu generally
Built tall in the glass.
Full method at punchdrink.com →Written for shochu generally
Built in the glass.
Full method at Barrow's Intense →Written for shochu generally
Built in the glass.
Full method at Pickled Plum →Written for shochu generally
Built tall in the glass.
Full method at Cocktail Society →Written for shochu generally
Built tall in the glass.
Full method at Just One Cookbook →Written for shochu generally
Built tall in the glass.
Full method at Pickled Plum →punchdrink.com · Brian Evans and George Padilla, Brooklyn, New York
Written for shochu generally
Built tall in the glass.
Full method at punchdrink.com →Closest on the flavour profile within the same style family, so the mixers above tend to carry across.
Imported in the US by JFC International
Filed under kasutori, chestnut and other bases.