A friend introduced me to Christopher Pellegrini's informative Shochu Handbook via a Kickstarter campaign that I am proud to say I contributed to. I have been a fan of shochu for some time, but I have been woefully uniformed about it, so the timing seemed right for an English language book about it. In fact Pellegrini points out that shochu eclipsed nihonshu sales during the third "shochu boom" in 2003 and the gap has continued to grow since then; in 2009 one million kiloliters of shochu was shipped while only 634,000 by nihonshu brewers. In the preface, the readers learns about Pellegrini's love of shochu, which resulted in becoming one of the few non Japanese shochu sommelier certificate holders from the Sake Service Institute. The introduction points out the chapters that may of the most interest to readers who can sample shochu in Japan and those who live outside. Chapter One, answers "What is shochu?" and Pellegrini explains how shochu differs from nihonshu (distilled vs. brewed). This is followed by "How is honkaku shochu unique?" (Chapter Two), where he compares shochu to different types of clear alcohol like vodka, soju (Korean liquor), Awamori (Okinawa alcohol), and rum. Chapter Three explains "How is shochu made?" I was surprised to learn in Chapter Four, "Types of shochu," to learn that there are more than 50 types of ingredients, but Pellegrini focuses on the most popular: potato, barely, rice, brown sugar, and buckwheat. I personally found Chapter Five "Reading the label," very useful. In addition, I wasn't aware of the different ways that shochu is served (Chapter Six "How to serve shochu"). There were lots of good suggestions Chapter Seven "Shochu pairing and sharing" and Chapter Eight "Recommended shochu." Chapter Nine "Shochu recipes" seems to be directed toward overseas establishments and Chapter Ten "Basic Japanese for shochu drinkers" would be useful for visitors to Japan. There are artistic photo illustrations throughout as well. The handbook also includes a glossary, further reading, and author biography. This is an extremely useful book that I will be coming back to for reference in the future.
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So, the big question in our household is how are soju and shochu different? They are very similar words, and I would think they had a similar origin. Sophia had a bad experience with soju when she was younger and hasn't touched the stuff for decades.
Posted by: Edward | November 08, 2014 at 12:38 PM
He has a chapter explaining how soju is not distilled purely from rice and designed to be cheap using cheaper substitutes like yams and potatoes. It has a more neutral flavor similar to vodka and lacks the complex flavors of honkaku shochu They also skip some distilling processes to cut costs.
Posted by: MC | November 08, 2014 at 12:57 PM
I see. I thought shochu was also made from a variety of ingredients, or is it always rice and maybe something else?
Posted by: Edward | November 10, 2014 at 10:07 AM
It seems that Korean soju isn't, but Japanese shochu is made from a variety of ingredients if you see the review above.
Posted by: MC | November 10, 2014 at 10:08 PM
Well, according to Wikipedia it looks like pretty much anything goes as far as the ingredients of both liquors are concerned. I guess there must be something in the distillation process that is different. The names seem to mean the same thing - burned liquor.
I'm not a fan of either one mind you. Taste like how I imagine petrol to taste.
Posted by: Edward | November 11, 2014 at 08:04 PM