Random, but recommended: Shochu, Japan’s national booze
How my first liquor tasting reinforced what I already knew: Japan is awesome and I need to go.
About a week or so ago, I received a text from my friend Jon.
“Shochu tasting on the Skyyard today, 2:30 and 4:30.”
Jon is the bar manager at the legendary Drake Hotel on West Queen West here in Toronto. The Drake – more specifically its hot-ticket patio, dubbed the SkyYard – is basically the only bar I go to in Toronto anymore. I’ve been a regular there for going on four years now, my boyfriend for ten, and some of our closest friends are also long-time regulars who only ever frequent the SkyYard. You can find us there anywhere from two to four nights a week, year-round.
Anyway, back to that text. After I got hired at Luma, I started talking to the Drake bar staff about booze since so many of them are insanely knowledgeable and because I’d suddenly been thrust into their upper echelon of the bartending world. Eventually I asked Jon if it would be possible for me to be included in the tastings I’d heard were hosted quite often for the bar staff.
This was the first tasting since then that I was actually able to attend, and there was some crazy fate at work that day, too. I always watch something while eating my breakfast, and recently it’s been Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. I just so happened to be watching the episode where Tony goes to Hokkaido, Japan when Jon texted me. A quick Google of “shochu” confirmed what I assumed from the name: shochu was a Japanese booze. Not only that, despite the prominence of sake here in North America, shochu is apparently widely considered to be the national alcohol of Japan.
I’ve been obsessed with the idea of going to Japan since I discovered Sailor Moon and, consequently, manga at the age of ten. I had to try the booze that apparently makes up two out of every three bottles of liquor sold in Japan today.
After filling my belly full of sushi post-gym (sticking with the theme of the day), I ventured off to my first, non-work-related booze tasting.
Meeting Mizu
The moment I stepped onto the SkyYard – shocked to see it so stark in the daylight – I was greeted by Jesse Falowitz, a partner of and the director of marketing for Nehan Spirits, the company responsible for getting Mizu Shochu (the shochu we would be tasting) into the LCBOs (Ontario’s liquor stores) just three weeks earlier.
Jesse – a super friendly New Yorker visiting Toronto for the first time – immediately mixed me up a “Neguloni” – basically a Negroni where the shochu takes the place of the gin. The result was a warmth and smoothness to the drink that immediately made me want to learn more about shochu. Up until then I couldn’t imagine anything tasting better in a Negroni (one of my most favourite cocktails) other than gin itself (well, except maybe bourbon in its kissing cousin, the Boulevardier).
What I learned over the next hour not only taught me an eff-load about a booze which, up until that morning, I had never even heard of, it also reinforced a central tenet behind the entire creation of this blog: booze has the capacity to be endlessly entertaining. And not just in how silly it makes us behave sometimes, but in what there is to learn about it, and in all the different ways we can enjoy it. There are endless histories, legends, and ways to craft every booze that exists.
This may not interest everyone, but an important part of your booze education should be to grasp bits and pieces of information on where your booze comes from and how it’s made. Understanding, for example, the difference between Irish whiskey, bourbon, and scotch – it’s not all just “brown liquor”, y’all. Knowing these differences has a huge impact on the way that cocktail you’re ordering or making is going to taste.
At the tasting we were introduced to Mizu Shochu in a variety of ways. We tried it straight. We tried it with cucumber, which yielded an awesome feeling on the palate due to the interplay of the wateriness of the cucumber and the slight oiliness of the shochu. We tried it with hot water and learned the proper way to do so (allow the boiling water to cool a bit first before adding an equal part of shochu – this will maintain the integrity of the spirit as scalding hot water will evaporate too much of it). And we were served a cocktail called Yuki’s Delight, a fantastic mix of green matcha, Chambord, and shochu, and the Five Fortunes, which was shochu, Japanese plum wine, and Ki Japanese Arboreal bitters. So effing tasty.
Mizu Shochu fact sheet & tasting notes
- It’s prepared using mash or “moromi” of black koji rice (the first moromi) and saga barley (or “mugi”, the second moromi).
- It is single distilled, meaning the characteristics and flavours rendered by the moromi are preserved – what you end up with is an alcohol with a slight viscosity that coats the glass ever so slightly.
By the way: the more distillation an alcohol goes through, the “cleaner” it will taste – this is why so many North American vodkas boast being a bajillion times distilled, as people here largely believe that vodka is supposed to provide a flavour that is easily hidden and inoffensive in most cocktails. Believe me, my Polish relatives shake their heads disdainfully at this idea, but maybe I’ll save that for another post. - It has a lovely scent, one that calls forward banana, raisins, and cantaloupe.
- But don’t get it twisted – it is not sweet. For being merely 70-proof (or 35% alcohol) it leaves a nice warmth in the back of your throat as it goes down (which is what made it stand out in the Neguloni for me when compared to drinking a regular Negroni). In fact, I’d compare the feel to being closer to whiskey than anything else.
- It was created in Kyushu, an island in the southwest of Japan. Kyushu boasts 450–500 distilleries producing about 5000 brands. You can’t throw a stone in Kyushu without hitting a distillery there, and it is therefore obviously a place I’ll need to visit when I eventually get to Japan.
- Shochu contains six to seven times the amount of the enzyme found in wine that prevents heart disease – maybe another reason why the Japanese live forever.
- One of the first mentions of shochu comes from a bit of Japanese graffiti dated circa 1559 – a Japanese carpenter had etched onto a shrine that “our boss doesn’t pay us enough to drink shochu”, proving that this has been a problem among us working class folk for centuries.
Get your Mizu mix on
Mizu Shochu is available in limited quantities at the LCBO now. I think it’s a nice curveball in your liquor cabinet, something that stands out as unique and a bit impressive to have alongside your standard gins and bourbons. And I’d highly recommend splurging on the Mizu – we also tried a lower-priced shochu at the tasting, and the flavour profile was not nearly as impressive.
Impress your friends! Be adventurous! Try something new and mix up some shochu cocktails. It’ll reinforce the fact that the world of booze is vast and fun to explore. And it’ll make you look hella in-the-know.
