"We wanted something that would work nicely in a cocktail," he says. Sheehan places a variety of fresh ingredients directly into the pot still to make four flavoured styles: rosemary, ginger, mint and chili pepper. Seattle's Sodo Spirits Distillery, which entered the market with its first shochu in late 2011, a year ahead of 66 Gilead, has made infusions its specialty. White Dragon isn't, however, the only shochu from North America. "Shochu," she says, "is basically a distilled sake." Pantazi even used authentic koji mould, the rice-derived enzyme used to break down starches into sugar for fermentation. The fermentation process is essentially the same, one reason many Japanese sake breweries have branched out into shochu.
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Since there are no veteran shochu distillers in North America to offer tutelage and no manuals for guidance, Pantazi hit the sake books instead. Unlike vodka, which must be colourless, it can even be left to mature, mellow and develop a coppery hue in barrel. It's an unconventional recipe, but shochu offers distillers more creative latitude than other, more tightly governed spirits. "I just love toasted sesame seeds, so I decided to add some to the mix." "I love Korean food," says Sophia Pantazi, the Toronto doctor who owns 66 Gilead with her physician husband, Peter Stroz.
Alternatively, think of it as sumo-strength sake, sturdy enough to carry its subtle grain flavours into battle against vibrant Asian fare.Īs with barrel-aged whisky, White Dragon delivers a hint of toastiness, though not from time spent in charred oak. Imagine the cereal-like underpinning of a single-malt Scotch fused with the delicate sweetness of fine, cold sake, yet with a milder alcoholic bite than 40-per cent– alcohol whisky. And it's a splendid product, distilled from a combination of barley and rice. 66 Gilead, an excellent new craft-spirits producer in Ontario's Prince Edward County, just released White Dragon, the first homegrown shochu. Although the white spirit remains obscure and hard to find here, I was heartened to learn that shochu distilling has finally taken root in Canada. As for sake, even it was humbled in 2003, when shochu overtook it in popularity, figures from Japan's finance ministry show.
With annual consumption hovering around 950 million litres in Japan, shochu outsells wine by a factor of more than three, the Japan External Trade Organization reports. The same is true in Korea, where a similar national drink, called soju, is reputed to have come first. "Instead of vodka, this is what's the standard in Japan," says Shotaro Ozawa of Ozawa Canada Inc., a Toronto-based importer of several brands, including the fine Yokaichi Mugi. It's also a pillar of Japan's cocktail culture, where the so-called Asian vodka enjoys wider popularity than any other spirit in mixed drinks. Variously distilled from rice, barley, sweet potato, buckwheat, molasses and even chestnuts, shochu, which is typically bottled at 25-per-cent alcohol, is a staple of the casual, small-plate grazing scene. If you've had the privilege of dining in one of Japan's ubiquitous pubs, known as izakayas, you'll know what I'm talking about. While I do love the fermented rice brew, especially top-quality cold stuff, I must confess an equal passion for shochu, sake's distilled, higher-strength cousin. Sake is Japan's most famous beverage export, sushi's booze buddy. When I placed a few calls to contacts in the Japanese–Canadian community to inquire about shochu recently, I was greeted with the same question each time: Was I sure I didn't want to talk about sake instead? Fair enough.
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