Mugicha (barley tea), tall over ice. Cucumber with it.
Rice shochu is light enough to let the tea lead, which is how it is drunk with dinner in Kyushu.
Cucumber on a clean bottle is the most refreshing thing on this list. Ribbons or muddled slices. Cucumber is what turns a serious glass into something you drink outside without thinking about it.
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
Kome shochu from Koganei Shuzo in Kanagawa. Producer's tasting notes: light bodied, clean. The profile below is built from the tasting notes the producer publishes.
rice
light-bodied
clean
Sweet
2/5
Body
2/5
Aroma
3/5
Fruit
2/5
Floral
2/5
Grain
4/5
Earth
1/5
Umami
1/5
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
Atsugi-grown rice (Harumi variety)
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.
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.
Dolin dry or Noilly Prat. A quarter of the shochu's volume, stirred cold.
Rice shochu and dry vermouth, stirred, is a martini that tastes of its base instead of juniper
Two clean, dry things
Rice shochu, dry vermouth, a lemon twist
Rice shochu stirred with vermouth is a martini with koji where the juniper was. The strength depends on the bottle, not on the swap. Most shochu is 25 and lands well under a gin martini. The 40 percent bottles land beside one.
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
The bottle already smells of rice, and this puts more of it in the glass.
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.
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.
Rice sweetness wants acid, and citrus is the most direct way to give it some.
Mild enough that a light bottle is still the thing you taste
Softer acid than lemon, so the rice sweetness stays in the glass
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.
Rice sweetness wants acid, and citrus is the most direct way to give it some.
Sudachi's green sharpness shows best on a clean bottle
Squeezed over rice, it is the flavor of a Japanese autumn table
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.
Rice sweetness wants acid, and citrus is the most direct way to give it some.
A clean bottle gives yuzu a blank page
The classic pair: rice sweetness under yuzu zest
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.
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.
Rice shochu is light enough to let the tea lead, which is how it is drunk with dinner in Kyushu.
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
Rice sweetness wants acid, and citrus is the most direct way to give it some.
Rice sweetness wants acid, and lemon is the simplest acid there is
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.
The bottle already smells of rice, and this puts more of it in the glass.
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.
Oita's citrus, softer than sudachi. Bartenders in Oita mix it with the local barley shochu and soda.
Rice sweetness wants acid, and citrus is the most direct way to give it some.
Milder than sudachi, so it does not fight a delicate bottle
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.
Rice sweetness wants acid, and citrus is the most direct way to give it some.
Mikan juice over rice sweetness is gentle and familiar
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.
Rice sweetness wants acid, and citrus is the most direct way to give it some.
Sharper and more bitter than a lime, which is what keeps it from disappearing into a light bottle
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.
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.
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
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.
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
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.
The bottle carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
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 carries the grain and the mixer carries it roasted, so it is one ingredient reaching the glass two ways.
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.
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.
Shochu, elderflower liqueur, lemon: a sour that tastes like spring
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.
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.
One part shochu to five parts Hoppy drinks like a pint with none of beer's body. A 25 percent bottle lands just under 5; the figure follows the bottle, so a 40 percent one is nearer 7
It was built around neutral shochu, and that is still where it fits best
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.
Warmth brings rice sweetness forward instead of washing it out. That's why the hot serve is the traditional one in Kuma, where they've distilled rice shochu for around five hundred years. source
Young sansho leaves, clapped between the palms and floated. Hard to find outside Japanese markets in spring, worth the hunt.
The classic spring garnish for rice dishes; it belongs on rice wine too
A single leaf on a clean bottle changes the whole glass
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.
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.
Rice sweetness wants acid, and citrus is the most direct way to give it some.
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.
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.
Rice shochu distilled with ginjo yeast carries apple and melon esters already, so orchard fruit is amplification.
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.
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.
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.
Rice shochu stirred with vermouth is a martini with koji where the juniper was. The strength depends on the bottle, not on the swap. Most shochu is 25 and lands well under a gin martini. The 40 percent bottles land beside one.
Giffard's white, or Tempus Fugit's, which is a pale brown rather than colourless. Tempus Fugit publishes 24 percent, so on a 25 percent shochu an ounce lengthens rather than fortifies, and on a 40 percent bottle it pulls the strength down.
Giffard's white, or Tempus Fugit's, which is a pale brown rather than colourless. Tempus Fugit publishes 24 percent, so on a 25 percent shochu an ounce lengthens rather than fortifies, and on a 40 percent bottle it pulls the strength down.
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.
The cleanest of the shochu bases, so a flower actually reads instead of being swallowed.
Two slices from any Asian grocery, seeds out. It keeps getting more bitter the longer it sits, so taste as you go and pull the slices when it is where you want it.
A light rice spirit takes a green, quiet garden note. Anything savoury leads instead of following.
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
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.
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.
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.
Torn leaves steeped briefly. Perfumed citrus without juice.
Intense citrus perfume on a clean bottle
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.
Sansho and rice is a Kyoto kitchen
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.
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.
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 Korean-style yuzu preserve sold in jars. A spoon in hot water with shochu, or shaken cold.
Hot water, rice shochu, a spoon of yuzu tea
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.
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.
With no juice in the glass a light bottle can end up tasting thin; a fuller one carries it
A clean bottle has nowhere to hide, so acid reads as brightness rather than as a correction
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.
Ways to serve it
Straight
On the rocks
Rice shochu is what happens when you distil something very close to sake. It carries the same apple and melon aromatics, which makes it the shochu that behaves most like a white spirit in a stirred drink.
Cocktails other people made
We haven't found 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.
If a recipe calls for something else and this is what you have. The verdict is for this bottle rather than for its style, so a bottle without the strength a stirred drink needs is not offered for one.