Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Japanese import shochu is a trendy spirit for cocktails
Do you shochu?
While Japanese treats like mochi, ramen and okonomyaki have become commonplace on restaurant menus, one Japanese spirit is not so familiar. And we’re not talking about sake. It’s time to try shochu, a delicate clear spirit that has been distilled in Japan for five centuries.
Shochu, often confused with its more mass-produced Korean cousin soju, is an artisanal, small-batch spirit. Working mainly with native ingredients like rice, sweet potatoes or barley, distillers use koji, the same microbe relied on in the fermentation of soy sauce and miso, to break down the starch into fermentable sugar.
Several gorgeous versions of the authentic honkaku-style shochu have recently made their way to the U.S. These farm-tobottle shochus are frequently distilled from local ingredients like shiso, sugar cane, sweet potato or green tea, in addition to the base starch, adding subtle flavor to an already softspoken spirit. The honkaku shochus are distilled just once, for more depth and complexity.
Within the past 20 years, shochu drinking has boomed in Japan, going from traditional sipping to youthful swilling, with national shochu sales surpassing sake sales in 2003. Taken hot, on the rocks, or as a highball or chu-hai mixed with fizzy water, tea or fruit juice, shochu is ordered in pubs all over Japan.
One of the new brands imported into the U.S., Mizu Shochu, came about when college pals Jesse Falowitz and Jeremy Kono worked with master distillers Hirofumi Okoba and Shinji Wada to create a
modern, bolder (and higher proof ) style of shochu that the founders felt would respect the honkaku tradition while appealing to international palates.
Their Saga barley shochu tastes silky and earthy, and their lemongrass and green tea versions take advantage of the local harvests with intriguingly subtle flavor created not by infusion but by direct distilling.
Similarly, distiller Rihei Ochiai just introduced a shochu made from 20 percent fresh ginger, 30 percent rice and 50 percent barley.
Bartenders embrace shochu as a delicately delicious base spirit. Annie Beebe-Tron, beverage director at both Fat Rice and the Ladies Room in Chicago, says her bartenders love shochu to fulfill orders for a dealer’s choice cocktail.
“When someone requests a light, clean cocktail, we often reach for shochu for its round, earthy richness. It adds umami and unctuousness to cocktails and gives them depth,” she says.
Her popular One Way Ticket to Bangkok, a mix of black raspberry gin, housemade Thai herb bitters and Mizu Lemongrass Shochu, was created collaboratively with chef Abe Conlon as a “floral, aromatic” take on the Aviation. In BeebeTron’s new cocktail recipe above, Mizu Green Tea Shochu is warmed with creme de cacao and vermouth to create a mindbending clear beverage that mimics hot chocolate.