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.
Grain and roast are the same flavour arrived at twice, once by the still and once by the pan.
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.
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 the default shochu drink in Japan. Clean spirit, cold soda, nothing in the way.
One part shochu to five parts Hoppy lands near 4 percent and drinks like a pint with none of beer's body
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.
Grain and roast are the same flavour arrived at twice, once by the still and once by the pan.
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.
Grain and roast are the same flavour arrived at twice, once by the still and once by the pan.
The estufagem heating leaves a baked note that meets toast instead of arguing with it
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Grain and roast are the same flavour arrived at twice, once by the still and once by the pan.
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
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.
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.
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
Hana Makgeolli is brewed in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; Makku sells a canned one. Strength varies widely across the category, from around 6 percent in a can to the mid teens for an unfiltered takju, so read the label before deciding how much to pour.
The yeasty haze gives back the body distillation took out
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.
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.
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.
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.