Kuon No Shizuku Shochu 720ml

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.

• Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.

Dry cava or crémant. Acid and bubbles in one pour.

• Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.

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

Campari, Aperol, or a Japanese bitter like Kina. Bitter and sweet at once, and it wants a base with something of its own to answer back.

• Shochu and Campari with soda is an Americano with a Kyushu accent

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

Fresh in season, dried the rest of the year. Apricot and umeshu share a family, which is why they get along.

• Long aging turns a spirit towards stone fruit; the apricot joins what is already there

Linie, around thirty-five dollars, rested in oloroso casks at sea so it brings a little wood as well. A quarter ounce as a split base.

• It reads as seasoning rather than as perfume, which is what a savoury bottle wants

Ripe banana, muddled or as a syrup. Isoamyl acetate, the ester behind a ginjo aroma, is the same compound that makes a banana smell of banana.

• Cask-aged shochu and banana is a bourbon instinct

A few grinds over the top. Aroma more than heat.

• Pepper wakes up savory bottles

Late summer fruit with a savory edge. For the deeper bottles.

• Cask and blackberry: think of a whisky smash

Sweeter and muskier than honeydew. Prosciutto logic: it likes salt nearby.

• Cantaloupe and honeyed notes are a fruit plate

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.

• With a 25 percent bottle under it the bitterness reads as celery and walnut skin instead of being scorched off

A few crushed pods, or a syrup. Floral, citrusy and warm at once; it bridges fruit and spice.

• Spice on aged, nutty notes

A bar spoon. Dark fruit over roasted tea, with the shochu keeping it from reading as squash.

• Cassis puts dark fruit over the tea's roast, and the shochu keeps it dry underneath

Scrappy's leads with the seed, Fee Brothers has garlic and ginger behind it, The Bitter Truth reads more astringent than bitter. Two dashes.

• Celery seed and salt make a savoury note louder, and a bottle described as having umami has one to work on

Half-and-half or heavy cream, in the after-dinner glass only.

• Vanilla and dairy is what a custard is, and here the bottle is bringing the vanilla

Ribbons or muddled slices. Cucumber is what turns a serious glass into something you drink outside without thinking about it.

• Barley shochu, cucumber, soda: a highball that tastes like a cool room

Dolin dry or Noilly Prat. A quarter of the shochu's volume, stirred cold.

• Shochu and dry vermouth is a martini with koji where the juniper was

One white, dry-shaken. Texture without flavor.

• Barley shochu sour, dry shake, egg white: a real bar drink

The cordial, sweet and alcohol-free, poured like a syrup. Muscat, lychee and honey in one flower. The liqueur has its own entry below: a different product rather than a stronger or weaker version of this one, and it brings alcohol along with the flower.

• Nothing here is sharp enough to cut the elderflower down, so it survives at the strength it was poured

Bols Genever, around thirty-five dollars. The split base for a grain shochu, in a way plain gin is not.

• Malt wine and barley shochu are the same grain distilled two different ways

Suze or Salers. Bitter root, bright yellow. A little in a highball changes everything.

• Barley shochu, gentian, tonic: a bitter highball

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.

• Warm spice against caramel, without the sugar a ginger beer brings

Bitter, bright and forgiving. Ruby or white both work; white is drier. The grapefruit sour is a real bar order in Japan, not a novelty.

• Barley shochu and grapefruit is the Kyushu sour after the lemon one

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.

• It adds body and savour where a sugar syrup would only add sugar

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 Umami expression is kelp, shiitake and bonito, aimed at the savoury side the bottle is described with

Cold-brewed, unsweetened. The floral top note sits above a dry spirit without adding weight to it.

• Jasmine is perfumed without being sweet, so it gives barley shochu an aromatic top without touching its dryness

Okinawan or Amami kokuto dissolved one to one in water. Molasses, minerals, a little salt.

• Cask and brown sugar is an old fashioned

A small piece steeped in the bottle overnight. Savory depth without salt.

• Kombu pushes the glass further toward the savoury side a bottle with umami is already on

Eaten whole, peel and all. Muddle a few in a glass; the peel gives bitterness, the flesh gives tartness.

• Kumquat's bitter peel stands up to aged, nutty notes

Bruised stalks steeped in the spirit, or a syrup. Citrus without acid, which is useful when you want aroma but not sourness.

• A US barley shochu is literally made with lemongrass; the pairing is proven

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

Luxardo. It is sweetened, whatever the name suggests: their own account of the process ends by adding a syrup of water and sugar to bring it to 32 percent. What makes it read as dry is the stone. The cherries sit in larch vats for up to three years, pits, leaves and all, before the lot is distilled and the heart rested in ash, and that almond bitterness arrives before the sugar does. So measure it as a sweetener that tastes bitter, not as a dry modifier, and a bar spoon changes a stirred drink completely.

• Maraschino is what makes a stirred aged drink taste finished rather than flat

Cold whole milk. Fat rounds a spirit off the way it does in coffee, and it is not a dare.

• Milk and barley shochu is a Kyushu grandmother's drink

The dairy-free milk that tastes of cereal, which is why it likes grain spirits.

• Oat and barley: two cereals in one glass

A bar spoon, no more. Salt, and the savory note that comes with it.

• Salt brings umami forward

Unsweetened, cold. One part shochu to three or four parts tea, over ice. Drinks with food better than almost anything else here.

• Roasted oolong meets barley on its own ground: the tea is toasty where the shochu is toasty, so neither has to win

Fresh juice when you want it long and easy; the peel when the bottle is aged and the drink is stirred.

• Orange oil sits on top of vanilla. Juice would cut it, which is the opposite of the point

Cointreau or a dry curaçao. The sweet-and-citrus half of any sour.

• Aged bottles and orange peel liqueur

A good one (Giffard, Merlet). A shortcut to the bellini when peaches are out of season.

• Barley shochu, peach liqueur, oolong: a Japanese izakaya order

Lustau San Emilio. Effectively a raisin syrup that happens to be wine, so a bar spoon sweetens and adds body where sugar syrup would only add sugar.

• Raisin and vanilla are both what long wood ageing leaves, so a bar spoon deepens rather than adds

A spoon of the brine, and a slice as garnish. Sweet, sour and hot at once.

• Barley shochu and gari brine is a bartender's shortcut to a ginger sour

Loose or bagged, brewed weak: at full strength it takes the glass over. Takara's own guide to tea-wari lists it alongside mugicha and sobacha.

• One of the few mixers that can go under a heavy bottle hot without the drink turning bitter

Salt-pickled blossoms (rinsed) or sakura syrup. Floral, faintly almond, a touch of salt.

• Cherry blossom is the first thing a rough bottle destroys, and this one has no rough edge to do it with

A pinch in the glass or a half rim. Salt does not make a drink salty in small amounts; it makes it taste more like itself.

• Salt is the fastest way to make umami louder

Green shiso leaves, slapped or muddled gently. Red shiso as a syrup. Japan already makes shiso shochu, which tells you it works.

• Shiso and barley shochu is an izakaya sour

One star, steeped, for the dark bottles.

• Anise and aged notes are a winter cabinet

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

Sweet, sour, almondy. A splash does the work of both syrup and citrus.

• Barley shochu with a float of umeshu and soda

Bolder than white peach, closer to apricot. For bottles with more weight.

• Honeyed bottles and yellow peach are late-summer together

Sweet yuzu liqueur, usually on a sake or shochu base. A shortcut to yuzu when the fruit is out of season.

• Barley shochu, yuzushu, soda: a yuzu sour without a yuzu

The shortcut to a sour when there is no fresh lemon. Less sweet is better.

• Sweet soda and aged notes argue
• Lemon sour in one pour
• Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.

A dry tonic (Fever-Tree, Q). One part spirit, three parts tonic, a citrus wedge.

• Tonic's sweetness fights aged notes
• Shochu tonic is the drink US bars pour most when they list shochu
• Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of 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
• 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.

• 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
• 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.

Ayagiku's, on a shochu base, or Kikusui's. Quince is too hard and astringent to eat raw, so the liqueur is the convenient way to get that scent into a glass; it opens up in hot water.

• Karin is honey with a faint drying grip behind it, which is what keeps it from 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.

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 vinegar with savour under it rather than only sharpness, so beside a savoury bottle it reads as family instead of contrast
• 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.

• Sharper and greener than the lemon a barley sour usually gets, which is what makes it worth the trip from Tokushima
• 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 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 salt in it raises the perceived sweetness of koji
• 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.