Ginger ale, tall over ice. Kurozu (Kagoshima black vinegar) with it.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light, which is exactly the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
One part shochu to three or four parts mixer, over plenty of ice. If it tastes thin, go two to three next time.
What it tastes like
Soba shochu from Kitsukura Shuzo in Nagano. Importer's tasting notes: rice, umami. Nobody here has tasted this one, so the profile below is estimated from what its importer publishes rather than from the glass.
buckwheat
rice
umami
koji
Sweet
1/5
Body
3/5
Aroma
4/5
Fruit
0/5
Floral
0/5
Grain
5/5
Earth
3/5
Umami
2/5
Base
80 percent buckwheat, 20 percent rice koji
Koji
yellow koji
ABV
25%
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.
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.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is a savoury grain, and a soba restaurant already serves this spirit next to dashi.
Black vinegar is rice fermented with koji and then soured, so it is the same mould arriving a second time
A koji ferment of rice poured into a koji spirit distilled from rice, so the savour is family rather than contrast
The gentle ginger. For bottles that a ginger beer would bully.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light, which is exactly the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
Gentler than ginger beer; right for a soft rice bottle
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.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light, which is exactly the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
A plain or ginger kombucha. Acid, bubbles and a little funk, none of which survive a still.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light, which is exactly the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
The shortcut to a sour when there is no fresh lemon. Less sweet is better.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light, which is exactly the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
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.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light, which is exactly the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
Shochu and soda over ice is the most ordinary drink in Japan
Dry cava or crémant. Acid and bubbles in one pour, which is exactly what a distilled spirit has none of.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light, which is exactly the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
Shochu and brut sparkling is a French 75 at lower proof; the acid is the point
A dry tonic (Fever-Tree, Q). One part spirit, three parts tonic, a citrus wedge.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light, which is exactly the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of it.
Shochu tonic: bitter, sweet, low proof, and better than it sounds
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.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
Softer acid than lemon, so the rice sweetness stays in the glass
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.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is a savoury grain, and a soba restaurant already serves this spirit next to dashi.
Salt and lactic acid land on the sweetness koji leaves behind
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.
Soba shochu is usually vacuum distilled and light, which is exactly the profile a highball flatters. The soba highball is a standard order in a soba restaurant, not an experiment.
Carbonation carries aroma up out of the glass, so a highball shows an aromatic bottle off rather than diluting the point of 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.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
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.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
Buckwheat is nutty and low in acid, so citrus is doing structural work rather than adding a flavour.
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.
Flor leaves a savoury edge behind it, and koji leaves the same one
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.
This bottle's aroma is the reason to own it, and a roasted or smoky mixer covers exactly that.
Roasted tea and buckwheat are one flavour from two plants. Hojicha and soba-yu are the same instinct.
Grain and roast are the same flavour arrived at twice, once by the still and once by the pan.
The one mixer that puts the bottle's own raw material back into the glass
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 is what makes buckwheat smell toasted rather than merely nutty, which is most of the reason to choose a soba shochu in the first place.
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.
An earthy, heavy spirit flattens out without acid. This is the ingredient doing structural work, not decoration.
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.
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.
Cynar, 16.5 percent, which is weaker than the shochu itself, so equal parts lands near 20 percent and the drink stays long. Soda or a grapefruit soda over the top is the producer's own serve.
With only 25 percent under it, the bitterness reads as celery and walnut skin instead of being scorched off
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.
Honey and buckwheat is a known pair, and buckwheat honey is the proof of it.
Mikawa Mirin from Sumiya Bunjiro Shoten, made from glutinous rice, koji and shochu since 1911 with no added sugar. Not the sweetened seasoning sold as mirin-fu chomiryo, which is a different product.
It adds body and savour where a sugar syrup would only add sugar
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.
The Umami expression is kelp, shiitake and bonito, aimed straight at the glutamate koji already put there
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.
The salt in it raises the perceived sweetness of koji
A drop of rose water, or a rose syrup. A drop; it takes over.
The nutty base will swallow a delicate flower unless the drink is otherwise very plain.
Ways to serve it
On the rocks
Mizuwari (with water)
Buckwheat shochu is nutty and quiet, and it is the one category where roasted things are the answer rather than a compromise. Hojicha and mugicha are better mixers for it than any fruit.
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.
Written for iichiko Saiten, which is a barley shochu, not a buckwheat shochu. This bottle is lighter, 25% against 43%, so cut the mixer back or it will disappear.
·3 ounces buckwheat tea concentrate (see editor's note)
Written for iichiko Saiten, which is a barley shochu, not a buckwheat shochu. This bottle is lighter, 25% against 43%, so cut the mixer back or it will disappear.
·1 ounce plus 5 teaspoons shochu, preferably iichiko saiten
·1/2 teaspoon mezcal, preferably fidencio joven
·3/4 ounce citrus blend (equal parts lemon and lime juice)
