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.
liqueur
flavored
Pour this first
Ginger ale, tall over ice. Lime with it.
These bottles already have one strong flavour in them. Soda gives it room instead of competing with it.
Lime frames tropical fruit so it does not go flat. Sharper and greener than lemon. The citrus for anything built on brown sugar or tropical fruit.
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
Liqueur from Tatenokawa in Yamagata. Producer's tasting notes: tropical, rich. The profile below is built from the tasting notes the producer publishes.
tropical fruit
rich
Sweet
2/5
Body
3/5
Aroma
5/5
Fruit
2/5
Floral
not described
Grain
2/5
Earth
1/5
Umami
1/5
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
Brewer's alcohol, mango fruit juice, fructose, sake, acidifiers and vitamin C, per Tatenokawa's own ingredient list for MANGO (SPECIAL CATEGORY)
ABV
8%
What to mix with it
This bottle is made with tropical fruit, not merely reminiscent of it. A mixer meets the tropical fruit first and the grain second, so read these as answers to the tropical fruit 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.
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.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
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.
Rich bottles are built for warmth
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.
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.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
There is enough weight here to carry vermouth without being flattened
Torn leaves steeped briefly. Perfumed citrus without juice.
Lime leaf and tropical fruit are one cuisine
Torn leaves steeped briefly. Perfumed citrus without juice.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Cocchi Americano: moscato steeped with cinchona bark, gentian and bitter orange. The bark is the point of it, and it carries a quinine bitterness no citrus will give you.
Cocchi Americano: moscato steeped with cinchona bark, gentian and bitter orange. The bark is the point of it, and it carries a quinine bitterness no citrus will give you.
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.
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.
The non-alcoholic koji drink, sweet from rice starch alone. Blend with the spirit and ice; it is a shochu smoothie.
Works for the sweet and nutty bottles, sesame especially. Not for the sharp herbal ones.
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.
Young sansho leaves, clapped between the palms and floated. Hard to find outside Japanese markets in spring, worth the hunt.
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
With soda
On the rocks
These are shochu with one loud idea in them, shiso or sesame or yuzu. Treat that flavour as the drink's and everything else as its frame, and do not try to add a second loud idea.
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.
