What is Shochu?
Recently Sake(酒) is well-konwn around the world. Meanwhile Shochu is not so common as Sake for people from other countries. However Shochu is very popular alcoholic beverage in Japan.
Sake is brewed using rice and the percentage of alcohol is normally 13 to 15 percent. For Shochu there are several kinds of ingredients to make, and major ingredients are barley sweet potato and rice.
Shochu is distilled liquor. The percentage of alcohol is normally 20 to 35 percent. Shochu made from barley is called Mugi Shochu(麦焼酎). Mugi means barley or wheat. Shochu made from sweet potate is called Imo Shochu(芋焼酎). Imo means sweet potato or potato. Shochu made from rice is called Kome Shochu(米焼酎).
Esch Shochu smells each ingredient a little bit. But the taste is dry.
How To Drink Shochu
There are so many ways to drink Shochu, it's very flexible. To say the extreme, you can drink Shochu as you like.
Some representative ways to drink Shochu are shown below.
On The Rocks
It's a simple and one of common way to drink Shochu. You put ice into a glass first. And then put Shochu. You can taste flavor of Shochu. Shochu typically has about 20-30% ABV. If you think it's a little strong you can wait for a few minutes. The ice starts melting and the Shochu becomes mellow.
With Hot Water
It's called Oyuwari(お湯割り). Oyu means hot water. You put Shochu into a glass and just pour hot water. Some people put sliced lemon or salted plum depending on their taste.
Adding hot water makes Shochu vary mellow. Especially in winter it makes your body and heart warm.
Sour
There are so many kinds of sour using Shochu. The most popular sour is lemon sour. And the second most popular one is grapefruit sour. Apart from this strawberry sour grape sour cola sour orange sour shikuwasa sour and so on.
Many Japanese men often order lemon sour because it's not so sweet. Women often order grape sour or other sweet type sour.