Japanese cocktails: yuzu, shiso, sake and the highball

Japanese cocktails taste different from what you are used to. Drier, usually, less sweet, and built around one clear flavour instead of five fighting for attention.

The ingredients that make the difference

Yuzu. A citrus sitting somewhere between mandarin, lime and grapefruit, with a floral top note. You do not use it the way you use lime — one measure too many and it takes over everything. Dosed well, it makes a drink fresher and longer.

Shiso. A leaf from the mint family that tastes like no herb you know: a bit of basil, a bit of mint, a bit of anise. The green leaf is fresh, the red one earthier.

Matcha. Ground green tea. Brings bitterness and a velvety texture, and is awkward to work with because it splits quickly in acid.

Umeshu. Japanese plum liqueur, sweet-sour, often over ice or in a spritz.

Sake is not a spirit

The most common mistake. Sake is brewed, not distilled — the process has more in common with beer than with vodka. Rice is converted to sugar by a mould (koji) and then fermented. It usually comes out around 15% alcohol.

Shochu is distilled, generally from barley, sweet potato or rice, and sits around 25%. In Japan it is drunk far more often and more casually than sake, frequently cut with water or soda.

So anyone saying "sake" while picturing a shot glass is wrong twice over.

The highball is king

Japan's most popular mixed drink is also the simplest: whisky and soda. Nothing else. Ice, whisky, properly cold sparkling water, one stir.

The reason it tastes so much better there is that everything is watched: the glass pre-chilled, the ice clear and hard, the soda fresh, and as little stirring as possible so it keeps its fizz. It is a drink with almost nothing in it, which means there is nothing to hide behind.

Why it is so precise

The Japanese bar tradition leans heavily on technique: cutting ice, the hard shake, the order of operations. The thinking behind it is that a guest should get the same drink twice the same way.

It also explains why Japanese cocktails are often less sweet. Sugar covers mistakes. Take it out and the rest has to be right.

What to look for

A good Japanese cocktail is cold, clear and not too sweet, and you can taste one thing clearly up front. If you cannot point at what is playing the lead, too much went in.

What we pour: the House of Suntory

At GYŌZA BAR we work with Japanese spirits from the House of Suntory. The Toki Sour and the Toki Highball are made with Toki, a Japanese blended whisky. The Sakura Martini gets Roku Sakura Bloom gin and the Tokyo Mule Roku gin. And if you prefer your whisky neat: there is Hibiki behind the bar.

Torn between two light drinks? Read Lychee Spritz or Toki Highball.

Our cocktail list is on the menu. Yuzu and sake both turn up on it, in the spritzes and the Yuzu Mojito.