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
Pour this first
Soda water, tall over ice. Lemon with it.
Worked out from shochu in general, not this bottle.
These bottles already have one strong flavour in them. Soda gives it room instead of competing with it.
Red shiso needs acid: its pigment is an anthocyanin, which turns from dull to bright magenta the moment lemon goes in. 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
Liqueur from Sengetsu Shuzo in Kumamoto. Its published notes don't name a flavour we can place, so the profile below is the style rather than this bottle.
shiso
red shiso
This is what shochu usually tastes like, not this bottle's own profile.
Base
rice shochu blended with Kumamoto grown red shiso and sugar; colour comes from the shiso, with no colouring agents, additives or preservatives
ABV
7%
What to mix with it
These start from what shochu usually likes, because nothing we've found places this bottle's own flavours. This bottle is made with red shiso, not merely reminiscent of it. A mixer meets the red shiso first and the grain second, so read these as answers to the red shiso 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.
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.
Red shiso needs acid: its pigment is an anthocyanin, which turns from dull to bright magenta the moment lemon goes in
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Shiso is in this bottle itself, not just on its nose, so this adds more of the same rather than a second flavour.
Ume vinegar is red because of this leaf, so the acid and the herb arrive already matched
The red shiso that colours it is a flavour and a colour at once
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.
Shiso is in this bottle itself, not just on its nose, so this adds more of the same rather than a second flavour.
A shiso bottle and a shiso bitters are the same leaf twice, one distilled and one steeped
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.
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.
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.
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.
Torn leaves steeped briefly. Perfumed citrus without juice.
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.
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.
