Hey, welcome back to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Back in your feed with what's gonna be a pretty interesting episode this week. I'm Pat from the Whiskey Hotline. I'm Roger from the Beer Department. Hey, I'm Chris. I work on wine. Nice, welcome. We've got a special guest here today. We've got Jay, who is a spirits consultant, tobacco consultant, beer nerd extraordinaire who works at our Evanston store. Welcome, Jay. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on, man. Long time listener, first time guest. Jay from Evanston, by the way. At least that's what he claimed. Yeah. Never heard a word. Or only during his review time. So Jay, we asked you to come on today because of all 1800 or so employees at Binny's Beverage Depot, you are by far the most passionate about one of the most obscure styles of distilled spirit in our stores. I wanted to have you kind of give us Shochu 101 here. First of all, what the f**k is Shochu? So, Shochu is a category, not a specific spirit. Most spirits that we're familiar with in the West, let's call it, fit into loosely one of four categories. That being grain-based spirits, whiskeys, fruit-based spirits like brandy, you've got agave spirits like tequila, for example, and you've got sugar-based spirits, rums. Shochu is a category that's not specifically determined by what it is made from, but rather what it's fermented with. That being a microorganism or mold called koji. And there's actually 54 legally approved Shochu called substrates for the koji to... That's a polite way of saying mold. So they just don't... You're not allowed to use the wrong mold when fermenting your... Well, yes and no. So there's many types of koji, but there's only three that are approved for the production of Shochu. That being white, black and rarely yellow. And the yellow koji is predominantly used in the production of sake. So that's one of the differences between sake and Shochu. We can get more into those differences later on in the podcast. So Shochu is a distillate that is fermented via koji. Koji is a mold, a microorganism, that replaces malting? It does replace malting. So in, say, whiskey, for example, the starches need to be broken down into sugars in order for the yeast to ferment them. The process of malting essentially tricks the grains into germinating and then it breaks the shell of the… The husk of the barley down, yeah. It breaks the husk of the barley down, then the yeast can get at the sugars inside. Koji, on the other hand, is able to excrete an enzyme called amylase, which breaks down complex carbohydrates into sugars. So they're actually able to… We're known amylase appreciators around here. They might get the ham horn. So the koji is propagated on grain. It can be propagated on sweet potatoes, which is one of the most popular styles of shochu, but it's most easily propagated on rice. And what it does is the toji, which is the name for the distiller slash brewer, they use it in both industries, will basically use a starter on rice. The toji, it wants to eat the sugars, but it needs to be able to sacrifice them. And so it will produce amylase and it breaks down the carbohydrates. So is it just like malting then where it reaches a point where you have to stop it, otherwise it's going to consume what you need to ferment? The toji will manipulate the temperature that the koji is being kept at and it cools down enough that the production of the amylase is slowed and the koji kind of goes into a starvation state and therefore produces even more amylase and sort of kickstarts the fermentation. So from the primary fermentation, which is usually rice, the core ingredient of that batch of shochu is then added. So if you're making a rice shochu, additional rice is added and that fermentation sort of is kickstarted. It's like jet fuel. It just kind of takes off. If it's barley, then the rest of the mash is barley. Sweet potato, they're adding in sweet potatoes and so on. And this wouldn't be malted barley if they're using barley. No, it doesn't have to be. So you're making the koji starter with rice pretty much always and then you're adding your main fermentable in once that's cultured. Yeah, I would say in short, this is aspergillus fungus that converts starch into sugar. That's the main point, correct? That's correct. Rodger, keeping your koji and toji straight here? Yeah, I'm reading that. Look at this preparation. Let's just say, first off, I am big on preparation and I salute these. So Jay has placards in fancy tabletop plastic standees here with the history of the spirit here for us to read on the table. Yeah. So speaking of words that sound the same, oftentimes when I ask people in the store if they've tried shochu before, they say, oh yes, we had it at Korean barbecue. It came in little green bottles. Yeah, at the karaoke place? Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, I've had all this before. We sell a strawberry one and a plum one and a green grape, right? Not exactly. So while they have similar names, soju, which is a Korean multi-distilled spirit, and shochu, which is a Japanese single distilled spirit, they have a similar ancestor, but in the modern day, they could not be further apart. To keep it brief, soju goes through multiple distillations and there's really no legal guidelines as to what it has to be made from or there might be guidelines as far as additives go as far as coloring, but they can pretty much make it out of any Yeah, it's more neutral because of the multiple distillations and you don't get necessarily get the sense of the original fermentable, like you do with Shochu, I would say, and therefore they're ripe for flavorings. We're talking specifically today about Honkaku Shochu, which Honkaku, you'll see it a lot, I'm not going to say it every time on this episode, but Honkaku is the designation to traditionally made artisanal, think of it as the way we call like craft And this is largely made in the southern prefectures and Okinawa. Correct. Now, Okinawa, they make a similar, but I guess a more ancestral style product called Awamori, right? That's correct. And for the geographically challenged, Okinawa is an island considerably south of mainland Japan. And yeah, it has even a slightly different climate probably. Slightly more tropical. Yeah. It's kind of like Japan's Hawaii. Right. Made famous in the karate kid too. Okay. I don't know. I mean, also famous for having US military bases too since World War II. So before we go any further, I just have to ask, how clearly you're like very passionate about this. How did you come about this passionate interest in this? Is it a visit to Japan? Is it just curiosity? Did you start with sake? Whenever I find out about something new, I have to know as much as I can consume about it. We all feel you on that one. I didn't know that Shochu existed. There's one brand that I have on the table here that we had in the store for a while, but it was right next to the soju on the shelf. And I assumed that Shochu was just a different spelling, like a regional dialect for soju. I never thought much of it. The thing that really started it off was Brett sent us, I think, a bottle of this guy, the Mugioka. This was, I said, what's this? I've never seen this before. It's not particularly expensive. I'll just buy it on a whim. Took it home, drank some of it neat, you know, I went on YouTube, went on Google what is Shochu and I just kind of fell down the rabbit hole. Wow. What really kicked things off was I started asking around about Shochu and happened to stumble across Christopher Pellengreeny from Honkaku Spirits. He and his partner Steven Lyman and Jake Tannenbaum started a company called Honkaku Spirits where they're importing Shochu into the US and Christopher just happened to be coming for a US tour. He was coming to Chicago for a US tour. Hello Cleveland. Somehow we got in the room together and we just started geeking out and the rest is history. I just started rapidly consuming Shochu and Shochu information. At the same time. Rapidly badgering Brett to bring more Shochu in. Before I got into Shochu, I really wasn't into or interested in Japanese culture. Not a big noodle guy before this. Not a consumer of like anime or anything like that. And now you've just gone full weeb mode here? The opposite. I still, I'm just, you know, Shochu and Shochu culture and, you know, there's so many other cultures to explore through drinks that I don't really go that deep with it. I'm not a sumo wrestling guy like Brett. Not like Brett is, yeah. Brett's a big sumo wrestling fan now. They have a whole night at Clark Street Ale House where they watch it all and I don't know if there's wagering involved or what. All right, so we're all thirsty. Where should we start here? Iichiko, is that the one that we had on the shelf forever and it was only representation, right? Yeah, so Iichiko was the most sold brand of Shochu in Japan up until about 10 years ago when it was overtaken by another brand that we don't carry. I'm not sure if it's available around here. But Iichiko, they do something cool where, one more thing to touch on before we go into the brands. We're gonna start with rice. There are two still types that are used in the production of Honkaku Shochu. There is what is called a atmospheric still. And these are all pot stills. There's an atmospheric still, which is what we would call a regular pot still that you would distill anything on. Scotch, you know, et cetera. Single batch distillation, standard pot still. Right, standard pot still. Then they have something called a vacuum still where they put some kind of a pressurizing contraption on there and it increases the pressure in the still. To still at a lower temperature. Yeah, and you get a much lighter, cleaner. Yeah. Listeners, the advantage there is in a vacuum, your boiling points are lower. So your boiling point of alcohol lowers from 165 Fahrenheit to something like 140 or 145 or something like that. That's why cooking at high altitude is different for baking. Yes, and we see this, we see vacuum distillation. Sometimes some marketing department gets ahold of it and calls it cold distillation. We see that with several gins and vodkas. There's actually a local distiller that utilizes a vacuum still as well. So Ichiko, they are famous for their Barley Shochus, but everything that they produce, to my knowledge, is vacuum distilled, which is much more common with rice Shochu rather than Barley Shochus. All right, so this first one we just passed around, which one is this? So we're going to start with rice because it makes the most sense. It's the oldest style of Shochu. You get 100% rice in the fermentation because the koji grows on the rice before it's fed into the rest of the batch. Something that I didn't touch on yet was that Shochu can be aged oftentimes for over a decade, but because of the limit on the SRM, it can't be aged in wood. So Shochu is often aged in ceramic, enamel, and stainless steel or glass. And why that happens is when the Shochu is fresh off the still, the alcohol and water are still kind of bouncing around each other. And by letting them mellow, you get sort of a jacket of water around your alcohol, kind of mellows it out, kind of smooths the flavor. Yeah, oxidizes a bit, softens the flavor. Yeah, so sometimes the ceramic or enamel pots called Kame, they're mineral rich and some of that minerality will actually leach into the Shochu and you'll get this like deeper, richer, earthier, kind of stony. Yeah, mineral rich and porous, so. Yeah, that was what I noticed on this. So on this label, it says 2011, that's when this is from. Yeah. So which one is this again here? This is the Motoko. The Motoko. So this is a rice shochu. Speaking to the idea of base fermentable, in the nose, it smells distinctly of rice to me, like the raw grain. But it also has some of the really subtle notes that you find sometimes in sake, like a really subtle melon and cucumber kind of thing going on. This is $49.99. How strong is this guy? This is 35%, which is relatively strong for shochu. It is, and it's spicy on the finish. Yeah. I like this. This is very interesting. What do I do with the other seven-eighths of this bottle though? So there are a couple of different serving styles for shochu. While shochu can be enjoyed neat or on the rocks, just the same as any other spirit, there are two very traditional ways of drinking it that really help to express more of the subtler characteristics. Now most spirits, if you were to add water, if you're drinking a single malt scotch and somebody tells you to add water, you're adding maybe a drop or two to let it kind of open up. If you were to dump a pitcher of water in there, bye bye scotch, you're just not gonna taste it anymore. Shochu on the other hand, and this is counterintuitive because it's half the proof of normal spirits, it loves water. And when you add like about 50-50 water to shochu, it just explodes in complex aromatics, flavors. Some of the funkiness that you're getting on the nose with this rice shochu tends to go away, it tends to get a little softer. Interesting. I mean, that's the same effect that water has on whiskey in tiny amounts. I mean, I don't know how many times. Does it louche like anis-based spirits? Doesn't louche, but you can sometimes kind of see the oily, like it has like a shimmer to it. Interesting. Definitely. So something that I didn't touch on yet is the actual names of these spirit types in Japanese. So for rice shochu, that's going to be on the label. You're going to see that labeled as Komei Shochu, K-O-M-E. Komei is the rice shochu. For barley, you've got Mugi, M-U-G-I. Mugi shochu is barley. And sweet potato shochu is emo, I-M-O, emo shochu. It complains about its dad a lot. Yeah, wears a lot of black makeup. White pancake makeup, maybe. All right, so we're starting. Should we try this one with a little water in it? Yeah, so let's do that. We started with rice shochu here because it's the most kind of ancestral style, but we're going to taste through several different variations here. Let that boil and let it cool down. Warm water, we're using warm water here. Warm water, yeah. You don't want it to scorch. You don't want to burn your mouth. Hotter than what comes off your tap to properly express the aromatics. To be clear, the shochu itself doesn't get warm directly. You're mixing it with either warm water. And this serving style is called oyuwari, which is cut with hot water. The other serving style is mizuwari, which is cut with cold water and ice. So it's like on the rocks, but you top it off with just a little bit more water. This definitely brought out a fruitiness in it that I think was a little locked in before. It was minerally and it had, like Chris, you mentioned like cucumbery. It's got a little more, it leans more into like the melon rind kind of profile now. I went about 50-50 with this, or best I could gauge in this Glencairn, I suppose. This is really nice. Yeah. So is there a target temperature like, I mean, you know, Sake somewhere below 100 or so right around there? Really as warm as you're comfortable with. I haven't invested yet in one of those kettles where you can program a specific temperature. I have been in Shochu-focused bars where they do have their own preferred temperature, but- Wait, that's a thing here? There is one. I'm sure there are a few more, but I've only found one Shochu-specific bar. Adding the warm water for me expressed the rice character more. Like I really got the cucumber melon when it was cold, like room temp, but it has a softer, obviously since it's diluted, but it almost has that like rice pudding without being spiced. I can see that. I mean, to me, it almost smells like opening a bag of raw white rice. Yeah, to some degree. It has that real essential rice greenness. It kept an oilier mouthfeel to it even when it was hit with all that water. I found that kind of interesting. The geographical designation for rice Shochu is Kuma Shochu, which is coming out of the Kumamoto Prefecture. Other producers outside of Kuma can produce rice Shochu, but only producers in Kumamoto can put Kuma Shochu on their front label, or on their labeling at all. Interestingly, Kumamoto oysters often have a cucumber-y, Melanie flavor to it. Damn it. This is one of those moments where you're going to hate me. I was literally waiting to say that. Really? I'm like, we're the same guy eating those oysters. I bought a book on oysters and I remember reading the descriptions and I'm like, these are bulls**t. No. Cucumber, melon. Spot on cucumber. So the first time I had a Kumamoto, I was like, oh my God. It does taste like cucumber and when I drank that first thing, I'm like, boy, I could see somebody drinking this with the oyster. Oh, Roger, you're so smart. Aren't we? Aren't we though? Neither of you f*****s could have brought some oysters in? Oysters are like four or five bucks a piece now. It's getting out of control. And those Kumamoto's are tiny. Come on. I like a smaller oyster. You know, I don't need to like, chew on a booger. Right. Those giant, big, sloppy, East Coast. You gotta fry those. I'm a West Coast oyster guy. Give me a peacemaker, baby. Yeah. So next, we got two routes we can go. We can go directly to Awamori for comparison, which is also a rice-based spirit. But a different species. Different species. So Komei Shochu is made from Japonica short grain rice, whereas the Awamori comes from Indica long grain rice. Let's try that, Nick. This is 100% black koji fermentation. Now black koji is the older koji variant. It occurs in the wild. White koji is a more recent discovery. It's a mutation that occurred in a laboratory. Black koji tends to have a bolder, funkier, earthier kind of a profile. It also grows more aggressively and puts out more enzymes. Interesting. The downside of black koji is that it will break down really anything that it gets a chance to, including the hands of the distillers and if inhaled, the inside of their lungs. So there's actually a lot- Toji koji hand? Toji koji hand. The toji's- It's a whole different kind of black one. Apparently they all have very soft hands, but koji is actually what is responsible for tenderizing wagyu beef. And if you think about your internal organs, the koji sees meat as meat. So a lot of them wear masks and respirators. I'm tender enough. So whereas white koji has a much more delicate, softer, more flowery, easy drinking kind of profile, black koji tends to give stuff a really rustic, kind of a mushroomy kind of a profile. Yeah, much more umami and more spice in the nose. Yeah, so this is one that I always give people if they're looking for something to cocktail with as an introduction to using shochu and awamori as a replacement spirit for classic cocktails. Awamori tends to be bottled at a higher proof. This one I think is at 43. 43% alcohol. 43% alcohol. And this one in particular, I've made really killer Negronis with this guy. It's delicious. I bet this would pair, this is earthy and complex and it's got the umami character. I could definitely see this going well with a Negroni. I think you gotta choose your sweet vermouth wisely there. I would probably lean French versus Italian if I was doing a Negroni with this. You know, something like a Dolan that has a little more of that savory character. Savory, herbal and earthy. Yeah, that makes sense. There's still a florality to this that makes it really light. And I mean, I don't want to scare anyone away with the earthiness. Yeah, the earthiness is subtle. It's not a peated scotch or anything. Yeah, or like a funky beer. Like it's... Yeah, I would say if you're a sake drinker and you've tried a lot of sake's, there are the real fruity versions and then the more umami, a mushroomy driven ones too. And I would put these two in those camps if you want to make that kind of comparison. To say it again, this is Yoka Koji Ryukyu Awamori. This is sporadically available at A Binny's Near You for $39.99. The designation for Awamori is Ryukyu Awamori. Ryukyu is the name of the island before it was incorporated into Japan. Got it, yeah, I noted that on the label too. Wow, the water really transforms this one, wow. Yeah, so the funk is almost entirely gone when you add the water. Yeah, it becomes more floral and almost citrusy. Like rose petals. Yeah, wow. That really smells remarkable. I got the citrus out of this thing too, that's interesting. This one is much better with water. I mean, it wasn't bad before, but it was just, I don't know, it wasn't one of those things where I'm gonna sit down and drink a lot of it, but with water added, it's just much more pleasant to my tastes. Really good with water. I'm really surprised at the transformation here. This really reminds me of fans of white tea would really enjoy this. So there's a lot of overlap in the aromas and flavors. Now this is, you said this was black koji? Yeah, so this is... I don't know if I ever talked about it on the pod before, but there's a koji room at the Few Distillery now in Evanston where they've done a rye whiskey with a koji fermentation that they called cereal killer. Do you know what kind of koji they're using over there? I'm sure you do. Trust me, I've grilled those cats many times about the koji room. I'm trying to... Koji is very particular, and if you interact with koji, you kind of have to wear like a hazmat suit. So they're very wary of anybody who can screw up the microbiome of the koji room, but I have been persistent, and one of these days I'll get in there. I would assume, I would be just 85% to 90% sure that they're using white koji. And is that more common with barley? It's more common with everything. Everything. Most modern distillers, it's just easier to work with. The flavors are gentler. It's easier to propagate and handle. Yeah, that sounds like a good guess. Yeah, and it doesn't break down your internal organs if you accidentally inhale it. Yeah. Added bonus. Yeah, that's fun. This Awamori is unbelievable with the hot water. It's really, it's really nice. I can't believe the transformation is this. Yeah, it is like drinking a tea. It's nuts. Beautiful aroma. OSHA prefers white koji. Yeah, for sure. Insurance companies too. Okay, so that does it for the rice koji that's available at Binny's. And there's really not a whole lot of rice Komei Shochu that is available in the United States, but it is the oldest. Now we're gonna move on to Mugi Shochu from Barley. And now we come back to Iichiko, which is often, a lot of people would compare this to being the Johnny Walker of Shochu. So these guys do all Barley Shochu. This is all done in vacuum stills. So a really light, delicate distillate. With Shochu production, it's single pot distilled. And so, whereas most spirits in the world are double distilled. If they're distilled in a pot, they're distilled twice. If they're distilled in a pot, they're distilled twice. Some spirits are distilled three times, but it's usually two times is the minimum. With Shochu, they can only distill it one time. So, it gets its flavor and proof from where the distiller is making the cuts. They discard the heads, which we'll- Thankfully. Yeah, so we don't all go blind. But after that, they really let the distillate run far longer than where most whiskey distillers, for example, would take the cuts. They go deeper into the tails. Deeper into the- And this smells tailsy. Yeah, I mean, the heart, you get more pure alcohol, right? And the tails, you get a lot of flavor. It has super fruity on the nose. You get the higher boiling point alcohols. Now, it helps that they go so deep into the tails, but they're running under a vacuum here, undoubtedly. Because once you start getting really high temperature alcohols, that's when you get into your fur-for-alls and your butyric acids and things like that that are just gross. Yeah, this is really delicate in the nose. It's beautiful. So, what's interesting about Iichiko, and they actually, they have like 16 to 20 different products that are available in Japan. Last time I looked, but they only have two products that are in the US, which is the one that we've passed around here, which is the Iichiko Silhouette. It doesn't say Silhouette anywhere on the bottle, but it's just something you kind of pick up on doing research unless they've added Silhouette to the bottle. No, they have not. And the other one is the Seitan, which is their higher proof, designed for mixing. Meat substitute. Right. Wheat, meat gluten. So this one's 25% alcohol. I was gonna say, this seems considerably lower in alcohol. Really easy drinking. I wouldn't even say it tastes like it's 25% alcohol. This is only $18.99 at Binny's. And then the higher proof one that Jay was talking about is $29.99. So super affordable. The $29.99 one is also great for making cocktails. Good substitute in gin cocktails. It's pretty for any kind of vodka, like a Cosmo or something made with the Ichiko Saitan. It has just a little bit extra umami depth. I can see these making pretty awesome dirty martinis too. Yeah, martini for sure. I mean, there's definitely some like tangerine or Meyer lemon like citrus here, and there's some floral notes. So bringing it into the gin space makes a lot of sense. Now, should we try this one with warm water too? So we could do that, but this one I actually find really excels in a highball, topped up with some cold water and ice. I think that the lightness of it, when you add the hot water, there's not a whole lot. This is a, not one dimensional, but this is a kind of a one trick pony of a product. And the notes, I find that, well, first of all, with every bottle of shochu I get, I try to drink it in every way until I find the way that I like that it expresses the most. So there's another Mugi Shochu on the table that I will recommend that we mix with the hot water. But this one, I'm gonna say, mixed with a splash of soda water is gonna give us the best expression. Yeah, that makes sense to me, because this is so subtle and elegant in style, and it's not packed with the, maybe the depth of flavor of the other ones, but it's very pretty. This reminds me, flavor-wise, of carambola. Oh yeah, right. The star fruit. The star fruit. I totally get that, Roger. Which is tart and somewhat citrusy. You wanna just put some ice in one of those cups? Now you won't have to pass the whole bag around. So one interesting thing while we're passing the ice around about the Iichiko is that the distillery, while they're only making one distillation, they will take multiple cuts throughout the process and separate them and all of their products, Are you recommending a 50-50 proportion here or something lighter? Generally, you know, if you're drinking at home 50-50, you know, I would just take whatever was already in your glass and top that up. Right, but proportionately 50-50. Yeah, when I'm drinking at home, I'm doing 50-50. And would you garnish this with a piece of fruit? You could. It's delicate enough. I wouldn't necessarily... I would maybe do a zest, maybe like a lime or lemon. You could definitely do like a wedge of lemon in your glass rather than in your nose. Sure. But this one, I always get... A chunk of Buddha's hand. I always get like a little cucumber, like if you were doing a Hendrix drink or something. Yeah, big time. That would be a very refreshing summer drink. Little cucumber, little lemon peel in here. Oh, yeah. Delightful. This is a delightful highball. Very pure, very clean. It's very refreshing. It's funny when you have a drink like that. It almost seems out of place this time of year. It's so cold and gray and sh**ty and that's a nice escape. I feel like it's a warm early summer day. It was the cocktail that was refreshing. I'm going to go ahead and turn off the audio for a moment. I'm going to go ahead and turn off the audio for a moment. I'm going to go ahead and turn off the audio for a moment. I'm going to go ahead and turn off the audio for a moment. Correct. So this is where we're getting into now. Yeah, mushroom. Mushroom, yeah. I think these guys mostly produce sweet potato shochu, and when we get onto that portion of the tasting, you'll definitely find some similarities in the mushroomy qualities of this movie shochu to some of the emo shochus later down the road. Now, with this guy, you're really getting this. This is the, if you're coming into spirits from, say, gin or vodka drinks, the rice shochus tend to be a little easier of an entry point. If you're coming from whiskey, single malt scotch, Irish whiskey, bourbon drinkers may or may not find this to be adjacent to what they're familiar with taste-wise. But this is definitely more of a coffee, a cocoa. That's interesting. I was just going to say, there's a distinct, like, dry fermented coffee note in this, on the nose. So with this one, wherever the hot water or the warm water is, you should be adding to this same 50-50 like before. It reminds me of nosing all those coffees in the Coffee Stout episode. It has that kind of... Oh, yeah. This is a beer drinker's show, too, for sure. Yeah. It has darker roastier notes to it. Yep. And it's crazy. Wouldn't expect that. The distinctive coffee nuance is pretty interesting to drink something that's clear and have it expressed that way. Yeah, you almost get like a powdered hot cocoa. Like, this is like Japanese Swiss Miss Nesquik. But still mushroom. It almost reminds me of a really nice soup with barley in it. Good old mushroom barley soup. Pretty wild. I like this a lot. Also interesting that you tried this. I feel like this is so deep end. And for that, maybe because it's so crazy, it's what sparked the interest. So what I've found when introducing people to Shochu as a category, when I first got into this and wanted to tell all of my friends, co-workers, and customers about Shochu, was I have very esoteric kind of out there tastes. I'm a big flavor chaser. But a lot of people, when they first start something, it's easiest to kind of start with training wheels or step into the shallow end versus jumping in the deep end. And what I found was I was recommending people start with things like the Ichiko. There's another sweet potato Shochu we have called Setsuma Shiranami, a very old brand. It has waves on it. It's only $29.99. It's good, but it's very mild. And what I found is people were trying it, but they weren't really coming back for more because they were like... Too plain, Jay. Too mild, yeah. Well, it's too mild. It's like, what is this? Why would I spend my money on this when I could be drinking McAllen or whatever? Something big and flavorful. Something big and flavorful. So what I do now is I go straight for the top with flavor. If you like it big and flavorful, then you can kind of work backwards and start to appreciate the more delicate notes. You can kind of appreciate the more subtle notes if you know what to look for. So nowadays, I start everybody out with the boldest, most flavorful stuff. That's what we always joke about with, especially the beer and beer-adjacent things. We like to use the term flavor blasting. People aren't big on nuance these days. They want big flavor, as you put it, so I get that. Well, you want to get what you pay for. Yeah, but we've also grown up in a food science society where flavors are super intense, almost supernaturally so. Over the top. Cue the screaming guitar solo. Subtleties not high on the American list of favored attributes. All right, so here we've got Masako, which is the sister brand to the Motoko that we tried first. 44.99, in the Binny's near you. So this is Barley, but this has actually rested for, I believe, nine years in the enamel pots, clay pots and tanks. And so like the Mugioka, you're gonna get more pronounced Barley and mushroom notes than say the Ichiko, which was the vacuum still. Whereas these are both atmospheric distillation. Is the ABV higher on this one again? 35%. That's awfully high for a single distillation. That's unachievably high for most distillers making traditional Barley spirits. I mean the most, the highest you're gonna get out of a wash run in a single malt Scotch distillery is usually gonna be 24% alcohol. Reminiscent of the first one, but yeah, exactly. Just like that added layer of the earthy subtle Barley but still keeping some of the florality. I love this at the higher proof. It's just more structured across the palate for me and it's got this spicy snappiness in the finish that I really like. This is my favorite so far. Yeah, I think all of the higher proof ones show that kind of a spice character on the finish. Yeah, a lot of big melon notes in here. In addition to those kind of coffee, chocolate, mushroomy notes. The mushroom on this one is dialed way down to the other one. The last one was much more earthy. If the idea of big mushroomy, earthy Shochu is frightening to you, then this is the one to start with first. The Masako, right? Yeah, this definitely has like a cocoa nib or cocoa powder mid palate. You know, it just kind of stays there, rests chocolatey kind of note. I could see single malt and Japanese whiskey fans liking this. Yeah, there's a bit of both. There's a delicate fruit. There's a little bit of floral that you'll find familiar in Japanese whiskey. There's those darker character to earthiness. You know, this is really interesting stuff. And I've tasted these before, but I never really, you know, was just like in a flurry with a supplier or something. I haven't really like sat down and digested them the way I am right now. And there's a lot of layers to this onion here. I mean, there's a lot to peel back. So speaking of layers, what we have going around right now is actually a blend, a Shochu blend. This is, they used to put the mashbill on the label, but they've taken it off. But I believe what this is is 66% barley and 34% rice. The rice that this goes on is steamed rice, it's not dry. So in the case of barley, it is also steamed. Because you need moisture for the aspergillus to take hold. What this is, in my opinion, is a bouquet of spring flowers. It's just so floral. So Mizu Shochu, this is the Saga barley. Right, so this is coming from Saga, which is a prefecture in Kyushu. Okay, and this is 34.99, 70 proof, excuse me, 35% alcohol, a real high one for single pass distillation. That's very high. So this brand, Mizu, is the first export only Shochu brand to come out of Japan. So this was designed specifically for the US market. We currently have four expressions of this product. Only a couple thousand bottles of the fourth one that we're going to taste right after this exist, which is their Sakura cask. This one is a little bit, dare I say, of an allocated Shochu release, if that's a thing that exists. Roger, do you know any jackfruit in this? I see what you're throwing down there. There's some tropical character in this one that is really popping off. You know who would dig this, who needs to try this? One-time guest, no doubt long-time listener, Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh. The Singani. Muscat-based Singani? Yeah, I mean, he would love the florality of this. Uh-oh, new project, Soderbergh. Yeah, that's what Shochu is missing, celebrity endorsements. Right, well, he just has to make a film in Southern Japan. Shochu and Singani, it could be like a new cop buddy drama. Real quick on this one though, before we just go on, this is the Mizu, Shochu. Like Holmes and Yo-Yo. Shochu and Singani. Freebie and the Bean. All right, enough. This is the Barley and Rice blend. Right, yeah, which they don't call out anymore. It just has, you can call it the, they all have different colored sashes on the label. This is the Mizu Black Label. Now, if they really want to find success in the American market, we should suggest to them that they put a horse on top of their cork here, and then maybe people will start buying this stuff. This next one that I'm gonna pass around is said, you know, horse, would be horse topped. Yeah, Sakura Cask, the Mizu Sakura Cask. Now, what's the Sakura we're referring to here in the cask? So the Sakura is the wood of the cherry blossom tree. Little bit of color to it, like Jay mentioned earlier with SRM. So it's the faintest, most pale straw color to it. Pronounced different character, though, and it's got tannin and spice from a wood, but it's also got still the soft sweetness from the grain. There is a bit of, I think the floral character is a bit toned down. And Jay, do you recommend adding warm water to this one? I do. I think that this is, I've drank this in a variety of ways. This is one where I will often just pour myself a neat little pour in a Glen Caron glass. It has that oaky, vanillin character where you can really, like this is, if you have a friend or, you know, if you yourself are skeptical about the flavors and aromas and the other tasting notes that we've been pointing out so far, if you're a single The vanilla is a bit creamy on the finish. I was going to say, you really, really can pick up the vanilla character here. It's really interesting. I get a really just like a wisp of volatile acetone. Has anybody been picking that up? Yeah. This is a little not for me. I think the tannin is a little too harsh, but it's interesting. Hey, this is whale shochu, bro. I think less than 5,000 bottles for the world each year. This is cool. I actually think the kind of floral and even maybe it's my imagination, but cherry-esque notes come out with the warm water. Yeah, I'd say so. Definitely interesting. Bye All right, so while we're on the Barrel-aged Shochu, we're gonna quickly sidestep back to rice-based. We've got what in Japan is too dark to be considered Shochu, but in America, in Japan, the whiskey, Japanese whiskey has to be barley-based. It cannot be rice-based. It cannot be rice-based. You can't call it whiskey in Japan. It could be corn, like bourbon is still whiskey in Japan, but anything distilled from rice and aged can't be called whiskey in Japan, but because we consider rice a cereal grain, the rest of the world would say, well, that's whiskey. So we have a lot of different Japanese whiskies on our shelves that are aged rice distillates that are whiskies in America, but they're just aged Shochus that can't even be called Shochu in Japan anymore because of the color. Right, so this distillery, Fukano, they started out as, I think they've shifted more into making whisky proper. Their history is as a Shochu distiller. This expression, supposedly this was a forgotten cask that somebody discovered and decided that it was very good. Now, because this is rice-based and it is produced in the style of Shochu, this is their cask strength edition that comes out as a yearly addition. It's cask strength at about 41.2%. So you get the full flavor, but a very approachable level of alcohol for a whisky for, you know, you could give it to a casual drinker and they'd be able to enjoy it as well as a more experienced whisky connoisseur. Wow, the aroma on this and the flavor unlike anything we've tried for sure. I would say it's just oozing lactone on the nose with that toasted coconut and vanilla character. This almost has some lambic and like Flanders red ale feel to it. In what sense? Every, I mean everything. The aroma for sure. I get like a ton of fruit, like a big cherry note. Yeah. And then. Yeah, I just wanted you to be more descriptive. There are cherry blossoms on the label. Yeah, so each year they do a slightly different expression. This is the 2023 expression. Bit of this around the chain, 89.99 a bottle. Beautiful. I think this one may be sherry casked. Those notes that I get. They do a lot of sherry casked there. They don't say on the label. Yeah, there's like a tang to the finish. This is making me think of like the wild ales that it's quite appealing. It's really delicious, but it definitely reminds me of wild fermentation beers. This is one of the better Fukanos I've tried. I get to try a lot of these and sometimes the wood is pretty dominant. Sometimes they're just like sweetened rice pudding and I'm not a big fan. This is remarkably balanced. I really like this quite a bit. Yeah, there's certainly no paucity of wood here, but it's not overwhelming the character of the Shochu. Lot of rye whiskey elements to the finish too. Like, got that spice character as a little mint. Yeah, for sure. That's a really interesting spirit. Really complex. All right, so now we're moving on to our fourth and final of the core WTO recognized Shochu categories. This is Imo Shochu, and this is by far our most popular brand of Shochu at the store. This is what I sell to people nowadays to give them the hook. So Imo Shochu is by far the most popular style of Shochu in the Japanese market, and it's also the top category that's exported to the United States as well. This is sweet potato. Now this is- Rose petals galore. Yeah, very, very floral. And we are tasting colorful Honkaku Shochu. So this is actually a blend, and Pat, if you turn that around, you can actually see the two distillates. You've got an older, I think, black koji fermentation from like 2017. From 2017 and a white koji fermentation from 2020. The sweet potatoes, they list two different names on there. It's actually the same potato, but it's planted in two different regions. So you get like a different regional name for them. Okay, yeah. Some hardcore sweet potato terroir. And two different farms listed too. That's pretty cool. You don't see that kind of transparency on a lot of distilled spirits these days. So within the sweet potato category, you've got over 50 different types of sweet potatoes that are used for the production of shochu. Not typically your yellow supermarket eating sweet potato. These are kind of whiter, mushier sweet potatoes that are genetically selected for having a high starch content. Making them ripe for that koji conversion. Boy, this is floral. Unbelievable. I know, isn't it? We're back down to a more moderate proof here, did we say? 30%. So a little lower. Most of the shochu consumed in Japan is closer to 25%. Okay. The 30 and 35% stuff is being selected for export. Export. For, you know, the American palate. Yeah. Fans of, when we did that episode where we were talking about all the non-additive Blanco tequilas, I could see fans of Blanco tequila really dig into this. Absolutely. I could see this playing well with a Blanc vermouth. Mm-hmm. For sure. One of my favorite two-ingredient cocktails is this blended with the C camos Blanchet de Chamboury. That's a favorite of Roger's. Yeah, yeah. It's a good one. Excellent taste, sir. We have an open bottle of Dolan Blanco. Do we? Yeah. It's in the refrigerator over here. Why don't we grab it? This is wild stuff. So, yeah, this is... Wild stuff. Yeah. So, if you want to... I don't know what the temperature of my Pyrex thing is right now. Oh, it's over here. It should still be warm enough to express some of the flavors I can... It's definitely still warm. This really becomes expressive. And this is good both in the hot water style, Oyuari, and mixed as a highball with soda water. It's very, very intensely expressive both ways. So, the sweet potatoes that they use for the production of Shochu, they're very delicate. They are not the kind of sweet potato that can sit on your supermarket shelf for days and days. They essentially start to rot as soon as they've been taken out of the ground. So, these are often fermented within hours of being harvested and they're often... We got agricultural style sweet potato action going down. Exactly. Exactly. With warm water, you know what pops for me? We've mentioned tea before, but there's really a tea note in this with the water. Boy, that florality really hangs on. It's really pretty. Yeah, it's pretty excellent with Dolan Blanc. So, I went about 50-50 with the Dolan. What did you do? I was close to that. It might have been a little heavy on the vermouth, I think. I think maybe a two to one would be more appropriate. Yeah, I did a little too much. It washed it out. Just because, you know. Good. At the end of the day, it's a vermouth. It's big and sweet. So, I like the flavor pairing, though. Oh, wow. It's delicious. Yeah. It's really good. What a cocktail. I might back off a little on the vermouth here. Yeah, did you say two parts Shochu to one? Yeah. I would do two parts Shochu to one. I did half and half and the vermouth is dominating, but it's delicious. Roger, pass that back down. I want to see how this performs sparkling. It's good stretched out with this mineral water, too. I mean, what a refreshing cocktail that would be in the summer. Maybe we'll do a Shochu cocktail. It's the summer of Shochu. You heard it here first. Ha ha. Ha. All right, wow, that colorful was outstanding. And that was our first. Imo Shochu? Imo Shochu, yeah. Imo Shochu. So next we've got Goro Satsuma Shochu. Satsuma is the denomination of origin for sweet potato Shochu coming out of Kagoshima, which is the southernmost tip of Kyushu Island. Satsuma oranges, something to seek out? Not what this is talking about. The dominating note on this one, you've got a lot of salty, briny, oceanic character. I was going to say, yeah. And it's almost like a Gunflint-like note. Damn, this is so salty on the nose. Oh my God. Flint for sure. Yeah, it's really interesting. This is like your extreme Pui Fumei of Shochu. This is a lot. This is intense. This is neat, almost overwhelming. This is one that really mixed with the warm water in the Oyuari style is really going to give a lot of fruitiness. Up front, I get a lot of like, almost like Gymsok level funkiness and salt. It's super briny. It's like a washed rind cheese. Gymsok's on a slate floor. This is funky, man. Past that warm water, I got to see if this can get softened out a bit. So when I dilute this with the warm water, I find that that super funkiness, the saltiness tends to stay. But the funkiness generally morphs into a like a blueberry, blackberry kind of like a top note. Like you get on some single origin coffees, like Ethiopian coffee, I'll generally get like blackberry. That was high ester. This is $54.99 on the shelf. I like it a lot with the warm water. It kind of soft, the salinity is there, but it's tempered. It was a bit too briny even for me. I'm not a briny, obvious salt lover. Mm-hmm. Boy, I don't know. The water is bringing out some sulfur. I totally agree. It's got that, yeah, that gunpowder, gun flint, sulfuriness in the nose. I would go so far as to say hydrogen sulfide in here, but I don't- 25% alcohol here. That one I'm okay with just tasting. That covers our four main styles of shochu, yeah? That was only three of the four. There's one more, Kana. This is a Kokuto shochu, which can only be produced in the Amami Islands. Amami is a island chain to the south of Japan, not quite as far away as Okinawa. And they actually make this out of refined sugar cane, like a rum. I was going to say, there's quite a lot of sugar cane growing in those southern islands, including Okinawa. You even see some rum production down there, albeit small. This is unrefined sugar. Partially refined. So what they do is Kokuto sugar. It's kind of similar to turbinado or piloncillo sugar, where they're forming it into bricks. They'll score it and kind of dry it, and it can be broken off in chunks. So molasses still intact here. Yeah, no, this is very rum-like. So this one has been aged in oak barrels for, I think, a year on this guy. Are the barrels here like old barrels or not new oak? Yeah, no, there's no color. There's barely color on it at all. The faintest hint of color. Yeah, it's like on the SRM scale, it's like 0.5. Yeah, there's barely a hint. If you were just drinking this really quickly, you would assume that this is still clear. Wow, that is so friendly. Yeah, soft, delicate, really subtle, like coconut nuance. You get that oak oxidation with a lot of mixing, though. No, this one definitely performs best neat or on the rocks. Yeah, I can see like ice very much. It is really, really Blanco rum-esque. Yeah, yeah, there's also a refined character to it, so not just like a raw, inexpensive Blanco, but like an age-filtered rum. Agreed. And not like an agri-coal, there's no funk. That's really good. I like that a lot. Bye All right, Jay, this was quite the odyssey across southern Japan here. This was eye-opening, because I've tried a few of these, but I've never really dug into it as deeply as you obviously have. Really appreciate you taking the time to do this. Yeah, you did an excellent job, man. This was really fun, and your knowledge of this is truly impressive. Japan, listen up. Go this guy, thank you. Your own personal ambassador for something that is, again, it couldn't be more confusing for the consumer. So hopefully, we've demystified that a little bit. Hopefully, your interest has peaked here. I mean, we sell these at a few stores, not at every store. Certainly, they're widely available in Evanston where you can find Jay. Happy to talk to you about whatever weird esoterica and spirits you're interested in. Yeah, come by for Shochu, Rum Agricole, all sorts of crazy things. Sharanda. Raisea, Bacchanora. Big fans of the Off the Beat and Path spirits at the Evanston store. We're more than happy to talk to you about them. There's a good crew in Evanston. So if you're interested in getting into some nerdier spirit stuff, we got the right people up there. Listeners, we hope you had fun. We'll be back in your feed with something decidedly more mainstream next week. Until then, I'm Pat. I'm Roger. I'm Chris. And I'm Jay. Keep tasting.