White rum

Kokuto shochu at 30 percent or above

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Why it works

• Kokuto shochu is made from black sugar, pressed and boiled from sugarcane. That's the raw material rum is built on, not something that resembles it.
• The sugar ferments out, so it finishes dry. That puts it beside a white rum rather than a sweetened one. It's why a daiquiri built on it still reads as a daiquiri.
• The tax code draws the line at the rice koji. Single distilled shochu is defined as spirits that are not whisky, brandy, vodka, rum or gin. One permitted mash is sugar, rice koji and water. So the koji is the clause that keeps a cane distillate on this side of the border.

What changes in the glass

• That same rice koji puts a grain and umami note in the glass that no rum has. In a drink with three ingredients you will find it, and in a daiquiri it reads as a softer, rounder middle.
• Kokuto shochu is only made in the Amami islands, so the range you can actually buy is small next to the world's rum.

Bottles that qualify7

Any kokuto shochu, in a built drink

Workable

Why it works

• In a highball or a mojito the soda decides the final strength, so cut the soda back rather than pouring the same measure against a spirit that was stronger.

What changes in the glass

• Stirred and shaken drinks are a different matter. There the spirit is most of the glass and 25 percent against 40 is a third of the strength gone, with the dilution unchanged.

Bottles that qualify27

Sources

A substitution is our judgement, not a fact, and you are invited to disagree with it. The citations below are for the facts it rests on.

• National Tax Agency, Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau, on shochu
• Kagoshima Prefecture Sake Brewers Association, on Amami kokuto shochu