For the past decade, Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman have been struggling with what to call these off-beat shochu that represent perhaps less than 1% of the entire shochu market. After a decade of contemplation, they have settled on aromatic shochu. An easy 98% of the shochu market is made up of sweet potato, barley, rice, awamori, kokuto, and soba shochu.
However, these oddball aromatic shochu styles can be some of the most interesting or unexpected. Shochu distillation is in a highly experimental era in its history. The Japanese government allows a great deal of leeway in what classifies as shochu so spirits makers are experimenting with many different types of distillates. Different shochu producers have taken very different approaches to flavored shochu. The shochu profiled here are at the leading edge of this experimentation.
Some of the more exotic are profiled here including, carrot, sesame, and green tea shochu. There are seaweed, mushroom, and milk shochu as well. As you can imagine, these ingredients do not create any fermentable sugars so they are usually added to a barley or rice (or both) fermentation a few days before distillation simply to add aroma to the final distillate. However, unlike liqueurs these ingredients need to be added before distillation.
Aromatic Shochu Reviews
Exceptional
Mizu Green Tea
Highly Recommended
Akanone A carrot shochu with impeccable flavor and surprising complexity.
Recommended
Beniotome A roasted sesame shochu with a rich, nutty scent and taste. A perfect dessert shochu?
Tenpo An oak aged date shochu. Richly complicated with raisin, grape, and wood throughout.
Worth Drinking
Tantakatan Easily the best selling aromatic shochu in Japan, but buyer beware. It is a konwa shochu, blending honkaku and multiply distilled spirits.