The barley highball is the default shochu drink in Japan. Clean spirit, cold soda, nothing in the way.
One part shochu to three or four parts mixer, over plenty of ice. If it tastes thin, go two to three next time.
What it tastes like
Mugi shochu from Takachiho Shuzo in Miyazaki. Producer's tasting notes: toast, savory, rich. The profile below is built from the tasting notes the producer publishes.
barley
toast
savory
rich
aged
Sweet
2/5
Body
2/5
Aroma
2/5
Fruit
0/5
Floral
0/5
Grain
3/5
Earth
1/5
Umami
1/5
Base
barley koji only, a whole koji mash
Koji
black koji
Distillation
atmospheric distillation
ABV
33%
Aging
slowly as unblended spirit
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.
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
It flatters a toasty barley bottle that has nothing to do with soba
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.
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.
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.
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.
The peel is doing what the orange twist on an old fashioned does
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.
Two slices from any Asian grocery, seeds out. The bitterness is water soluble, so at 25 percent it steeps in minutes and stops there, where a 40 percent spirit pulls it medicinal within the hour.
The Okinawa brewers' association publishes a goya cocktail of its own, so this is not an idea from outside
Two slices from any Asian grocery, seeds out. The bitterness is water soluble, so at 25 percent it steeps in minutes and stops there, where a 40 percent spirit pulls it medicinal within the hour.
Soft water, cold, over ice or not. One to one is normal. Mix a day ahead (maewari) and the edges round off.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Salt and acid arrive together, which is what a salted rim does for a margarita
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.
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
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.
Barley's light sweetness reads as orchard fruit already, so apple and pear extend the bottle rather than decorate it.
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.
It gives a toasty bottle the depth people usually go to an aged spirit for
Barrow's Intense, made in Brooklyn, is the one to look for: much more ginger and much less sugar than most, so it works as the spice in a drink rather than as the sweetener. Domaine de Canton is the easier one to find and the sweeter one. Either gets you the mule flavour without the sugar load of a ginger beer, and both work hot as well as cold. They carry their own alcohol, so they lengthen a shochu less than a juice or a syrup would.
Warm spice against caramel, without the sugar a ginger beer brings
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.
Sweet and savoury at once is what mirin is for in a kitchen, and the glass is no different
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.
Starchy sweetness and a roasted note, thickening the glass rather than brightening it
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 estufagem heating leaves a baked note that meets toast instead of arguing with it
The Kyushu condiment, in a tube in any Japanese grocer: fermented yuzu peel, green chili and salt. A quarter teaspoon stirred into an oyuwari, which is the serve Asahi publishes.
The chili leaves warmth at the back rather than heat on the tongue
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.
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.
A sesame syrup, or a rim of ground sesame and salt. Toasty and rich.
A sesame syrup, or a rim of ground sesame and salt. Toasty and rich.
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
Nobody has published 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 Nankai Gold Shochu, which is a brown sugar shochu, not a barley shochu. This bottle is lighter, 33% against 43%, so cut the mixer back or it will disappear.
