Shochu does not have to be the base. A spoon of it on top might be enough.

A float is a small measure of a strong-smelling spirit poured over a finished drink, for aroma rather than strength.

The best-known one is in the Penicillin. Sam Ross created it at Milk & Honey in New York: 2 oz of blended Scotch, ¾ oz of honey-ginger syrup and ¾ oz of lemon, shaken, then ¼ oz of Islay single malt, Laphroaig 10 by preference, floated on top.

The blended Scotch is the drink. The Islay is a quarter of an ounce.

I got here from the other side. I made a Hojicha Old Fashioned with Sato Shiki whisky and hojicha syrup, and it wanted smoke. I tried a mizunara liqueur first. Then I wanted earth as well, so I switched to a small spoon of Laphroaig 10. That gave it the smoke and the peat.

A spoon, not a split base. Sato Shiki was still the drink.

A loud imo, kokuto or awamori could do the same job as the Islay.

A float has two tests, and they are the ones our bottle pages use for their float note. The bottle has to smell of something at a spoonful, so it needs an aroma of 4 or 5 out of 5 in our profiles. And it has to be strong enough that the spoon does not water the drink, so it needs a published strength of 30 percent or more. A strength the producer does not publish never passes.

Daiyame 40, a sweet potato shochu from Hamada Shuzo at 40 percent, passes. So does Nankai Gold, a kokuto shochu from Machida Shuzo at 43.

Build a drink you already know. A Penicillin, an Old Fashioned, anything stirred and built on another spirit. Finish it, then pour a bar spoon of the shochu over the top.

Smell it before you drink it. Then taste, and decide whether it wants a second spoon.

Whether it works. Which bottles hold up at a spoonful and which disappear. Whether imo against Scotch fits or fights. We could not find a published recipe that floats shochu, so there is nothing to check this against yet.

If you try it, leave a note on the bottle's page with what you put it on. That is how this one gets tested.