Rokushu Special

The gentle ginger. For bottles that a ginger beer would bully.

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

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.

Cold, and fizzy enough to matter. One part shochu to three or four parts soda; if it tastes thin, go one to two next time.

• 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.

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.

• 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

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

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.

• Wood and resin belong in the same stirred glass

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

• Cask and blackberry: think of a whisky smash

Cold-brewed chamomile as a lengthener, or steeped in the spirit.

• Chamomile is faint enough to be lost, and a smooth bottle leaves it the room it needs

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

Fresh figs muddled, or fig jam. For the aged and the brown-sugar bottles only.

• Fig meets the dried fruit that kusu awamori and long aged shochu already carry

Fino or manzanilla. Savory, salty, bone dry.

• Oxidative on oxidative

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

Diluted one to one with warm water so it mixes cold. A little goes far; taste before adding more.

• Honey and aged notes

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.

• Rich bottles are built for warmth

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

• Cask and brown sugar is an old fashioned

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

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

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

• Aged bottles and orange peel liqueur

Dried osmanthus flowers steeped, or the syrup. Apricot and honey, and the smell of October in Japan.

• Honeyed flower on honeyed age

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 dried shiitake steeped in the spirit for a day. Savory and strange in the best way.

• A long aged spirit and dried mushroom share a forest floor note

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

• A richer peach for a richer bottle

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.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

A quarter ounce. Menthol and bitterness, for the darkest bottles.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

Fresh juice, a syrup, or a good ginger beer. The spice that makes a low-proof drink feel like it has a backbone.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

Whisked into a slurry first, never dumped in dry. Bitter, umami and creamy at once.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

A rim of shichimi, or a slice of fresh chili. Heat on fruit, not on rice.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under it.

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.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under 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.

A pinch of ground sansho over the top, or a few peppercorns steeped. Numbing, citrusy, green.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under 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.

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.

• There is enough weight here to stand up to a bitter or a spice without disappearing under 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.