Mizu is Nehan Spirits LLC's brand. This bottle is distilled by Munemasa Shuzo in Saga.
black koji
honkaku
Pour this first
Jasmine tea, tall over ice. Grapefruit with it.
Jasmine tea on a floral bottle is a flower shop
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it. 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.
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
Mugi shochu from Munemasa Shuzo in Saga. Importer's tasting notes: melon, banana, floral, vanilla. The profile below is built from the tasting notes its importer publishes.
barley
melon
banana
floral
vanilla
bread
earthy
light-bodied
bright
whisky-like
Sweet
3/5
Body
1/5
Aroma
3/5
Fruit
3/5
Floral
2/5
Grain
4/5
Earth
2/5
Umami
not described
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
67% two-row barley and 33% black koji rice, all harvested in Saga Prefecture, much of it from small farms near Imari
Koji
black koji
Distillation
single distillation of the moromi, then cut with soft mountain water from kurokami-yama
ABV
35%
Strength
cut with mountain water from the 44% distillate to the bottled 35%; sold as "genshu style" for the high bottling proof
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.
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.
The barley highball is one of the most common ways shochu gets drunk in Japan. Clean spirit, cold soda, nothing in the way.
One part shochu to five parts Hoppy drinks like a pint with none of beer's body. A 25 percent bottle lands just under 5; the figure follows the bottle, so a 40 percent one is nearer 7
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.
The lemon sour is an izakaya staple. Bars usually build it on a neutral shochu, and a clean mugi does the same job with a little more grain behind it.
The lemon sour is the drink most izakaya sell more of than anything else on the list
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.
Heat blows off delicate perfume
A bread note is yeast and warmth brings it forward, which is why it is stronger in a warm bakery
Vanilla is volatile and warmth releases it; the same bottle over ice keeps it shut
Heat pulls the earth and the sweetness out of a bottle
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 clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
The bottle is already floral, and this puts more of that in the glass.
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.
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.
The bottle is already floral, and this puts more of that in the glass.
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
Dolin blanc. Sweeter and more floral than dry; for the aromatic bottles. Lillet Blanc stands in the same place in a drink, but its maker says plainly that it is a wine aperitif and not a vermouth, because there is no wormwood in it.
Blanc vermouth's flowers and vanilla meet floral bottles
The bottle already smells of vanilla, and this puts more of it in the glass.
Oita's citrus, softer than sudachi. Bartenders in Oita mix it with the local barley shochu and soda.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
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.
A small green citrus from Tokushima, sharper and more herbal than lime. Sold frozen or as juice in Japanese markets.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
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 Japanese citrus that tastes like grapefruit, mandarin and lemon at once, with a floral peel. A little zest or juice goes a long way.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
Yuzu's perfume sits beside floral notes instead of covering them
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.
Two slices from any Asian grocery, seeds out. It keeps getting more bitter the longer it sits, so taste as you go and pull the slices when it is where you want it.
Bitterness that answers earth without adding any sweetness to it
A clean barley highball takes a garden note without losing its own grain under it.
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
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.
Torn leaves steeped briefly. Perfumed citrus without juice.
The bottle is already floral, and this puts more of that in the glass.
A clean barley spirit takes herbs the way vodka does, but with a cereal sweetness underneath that gives them something to sit on.
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.
Giffard's white, or Tempus Fugit's, which is a pale brown rather than colourless. Tempus Fugit publishes 24 percent, so on a 25 percent shochu an ounce lengthens rather than fortifies, and on a 40 percent bottle it pulls the strength down.
The bottle already smells of vanilla, and this puts more of it in the glass.
Sweet, low-acid Japanese mandarin. Juice it or drop segments in a glass. It needs a squeeze of something sharper alongside.
A clean mugi does under citrus what a neutral shochu does, with a little more grain left behind it.
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.
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 bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
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
Banana and cream
This is a light bottle and this is a heavy ingredient. It will not taste bad, it will taste like the ingredient.
The Calpis sour is a familiar order in Japan, usually on a neutral shochu, and a clean mugi slots in without fuss. Cream is a different and much narrower idea.
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.
Elderflower on a floral bottle is the obvious spritz
St-Germain or similar: the flower with alcohol behind it, for stirred drinks. A half ounce is enough. For a long drink, the cordial above does the same flavour without the proof.
The liqueur version of the flower, for stirred drinks
Small Hand Foods', or sugar, water and gum arabic from the baking aisle at home. Worth knowing that most Japanese gum syrup on a shelf today has no arabic gum in it at all.
A 25 percent spirit brings far less viscosity than a 40 percent one, so a shaken sour goes thin
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.
Roast sits on top of a delicate floral bottle rather than beside it
A melon note disappears under roasted grain
Roasted buckwheat and roasted barley are one idea arrived at from two grains
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
Young sansho leaves, clapped between the palms and floated. Hard to find outside Japanese markets in spring, worth the hunt.
A clean barley spirit takes herbs the way vodka does, but with a cereal sweetness underneath that gives them something to sit on.
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.
Dewazakura's from Yamagata plums, or Machida Shuzo's on Amami kokuto shochu. It does umeshu's job and leaves the glass drier, which matters when the bottle is already sweet.
Acid and colour at once, and the drink stays drier than it would with umeshu
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 Korean-style yuzu preserve sold in jars. A spoon in hot water with shochu, or shaken cold.
Yuzu tea and barley shochu in hot water is a winter izakaya drink
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.
Umeboshi (salt-pickled), ume syrup, or the fruit's own liqueur. Sour, salty and savory at once.
Umeboshi's salt flattens delicate perfume
Barley shochu with an umeboshi dropped in is a real izakaya order
Umeboshi (salt-pickled), ume syrup, or the fruit's own liqueur. Sour, salty and savory at once.
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.
Written for Yokaichi Mugi Honkaku Barley Shochu, also a barley shochu. This bottle is stronger, 35% against 24%, so it will take more mixer than the original asks for.
If a recipe calls for something else and this is what you have. The verdict is for this bottle rather than for its style, so a bottle without the strength a stirred drink needs is not offered for one.