What it is made from
Honkaku shochu is distilled once, which is why it still tastes of its raw material. That one fact decides most of what belongs in the glass with it.
Imo shochu
Sweet potato shochu is the one people are told they have to drink with hot water. Hot water is genuinely good, and it is also the hardest first sip to sell. Start it long and cold with soda and a wedge of grapefruit, and come back to the hot water once you like the spirit.
Mugi shochu
Barley is the easiest shochu to hand to someone who has never had any. It behaves like a clean grain spirit with a little cereal sweetness, so a highball with lemon needs no explaining and no apology.
Kome shochu
Rice shochu is what happens when you distil something very close to sake. It carries the same apple and melon aromatics, which makes it the shochu that behaves most like a white spirit in a stirred drink.
Kokuto shochu
Brown sugar shochu is legally only made on the Amami islands, and it is a cane spirit in everything but name. Every rum drink you know is available to it at two thirds the alcohol.
Soba shochu
Buckwheat shochu is nutty and quiet, and it is the one category where roasted things are the answer rather than a compromise. Hojicha and mugicha are better mixers for it than any fruit.
Awamori
Awamori is older than shochu, made only in Okinawa, from Thai long-grain rice and black koji. The black koji leaves citric acid behind, which is why it wants citrus and tropical fruit and why it will split milk.
Shiso, sesame, tea and other single-botanical shochu
These are shochu with one loud idea in them, shiso or sesame or green tea. Treat the botanical as the drink's flavour and everything else as its frame, and do not try to add a second loud idea.
