These bottles already have one strong flavour in them. Soda gives it room instead of competing with it.
Chamomile is faint enough to be lost, and a smooth bottle leaves it the room it needs. Cold-brewed chamomile as a lengthener, or steeped in the spirit.
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
A red shiso shochu from Hokkaido, bottled at a low 20 percent, bright and herbal, floral rather than the sharp green edge the other shiso has. Smooth and refreshing rather than sharp, the easiest bottle on the list to drink without thinking of it as a spirit.
shiso
red shiso
herbal
floral
smooth
bright
Sweet
1/5
Body
1/5
Aroma
4/5
Fruit
not described
Floral
3/5
Grain
not described
Earth
not described
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
cane molasses neutral spirit blended with date spirit, flavoured with red shiso (perilla) grown in Shiranuka
ABV
20%
What to mix with it
This bottle is made with red shiso, not merely reminiscent of it. A mixer meets the red shiso first and the grain second, so read these as answers to the red shiso rather than to the barley or the rice. 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.
These bottles already have one strong flavour in them. Soda gives it room instead of competing with it.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
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
Elderflower on a floral bottle is the obvious spritz
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.
Red shiso needs acid: its pigment is an anthocyanin, which turns from dull to bright magenta the moment lemon goes in
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Shiso is in this bottle, not just on its nose, so this doubles it rather than introducing it.
Ume vinegar is red because of this leaf, so the acid and the herb arrive already matched
The red shiso that colours it is a flavour and a colour at once
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.
The bottle is already floral, and this puts more of that in the glass.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Yuzu's perfume sits beside floral notes instead of covering them
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Food-grade citric and malic powder from the canning aisle, 10 grams whisked into 100 grams of cold water; two parts citric to one malic is close to lime. Some bartenders find a drink with no juice in it thin, so it is worth trying both ways.
Sourness with nothing attached to it, so the bottle's own perfume stays in front
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
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
Torn leaves steeped briefly. Perfumed citrus without juice.
The bottle is already floral, and this puts more of that in the glass.
Torn leaves steeped briefly. Perfumed citrus without juice.
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.
Oita's citrus, softer than sudachi. Bartenders in Oita mix it with the local barley shochu and soda.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Ayagiku's, on a shochu base, or Kikusui's. Quince is too hard and astringent to eat raw, so the liqueur is the convenient way to get that scent into a glass; it opens up in hot water.
The perfume sits beside a floral bottle rather than over 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.
Sweet, low-acid Japanese mandarin. Juice it or drop segments in a glass. It needs a squeeze of something sharper alongside.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
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.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
Acid frames a single strong flavour and keeps it from turning syrupy.
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.
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.
The bottle is already floral, and this puts more of that in the glass.
This is a light bottle and this is a heavy ingredient. It will not taste bad, it will taste like the ingredient.
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.
Young sansho leaves, clapped between the palms and floated. Hard to find outside Japanese markets in spring, worth the hunt.
Young sansho leaves, clapped between the palms and floated. Hard to find outside Japanese markets in spring, worth the hunt.
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.
Ways to serve it
With soda
On the rocks
Straight
These are shochu with one loud idea in them, shiso or sesame or yuzu. Treat that flavour as the drink's and everything else as its frame, and do not try to add a second loud idea.
Written for Mizu Lemongrass Shochu, which is a rice shochu, not a shiso shochu. This bottle is lighter, 20% against 35%, so cut the mixer back or it will disappear.
·1 dash orange flower water
·2 kumquats, halved
·1/2 ounce cane syrup (1:1 evaporated cane sugar to water)
Written for iichiko Saiten, which is a barley shochu, not a shiso shochu. This bottle is lighter, 20% against 43%, so cut the mixer back or it will disappear.
·3 ounces buckwheat tea concentrate (see editor's note)
