The Serum Has Entered the Chat: Yuzu, Shiso, and Japanese Whisky Sour

Neither of the two ingredients in the title is going to be at a normal grocery store, and that is worth confronting before you fall in love with the idea. Yuzu comes bottled, usually in a small bottle at a price that makes you check the label twice. Shiso turns up at Asian markets and at almost no other address in America.

The good news is that the substitute route here is not a consolation. Yuzu’s character is a mandarin-and-grapefruit perfume over a sourness that is rounder than lemon, and you can get impressively close by blending juices and correcting the acid. That is the move in the card above, and it is the reason this drink is worth putting on a list even in a town with one grocery store.

Choose the whisky first

A light blended Japanese whisky is the target: grain, orchard fruit, restrained oak. It leaves room for the citrus and the herb. Heavily peated bottles bulldoze shiso, and a big sherried whisky turns the drink muddy and sweet-smelling. The recipe does not need a rare or expensive bottle, and fresh citrus with correct dilution will beat a famous label every time.

If the shop has one Japanese bottle and it is the expensive one, buy the light blended Scotch and put the difference into the yuzu. Peat is the swap this drink cannot absorb. A cheaper grain-forward bottle it barely notices.

The particulars

Prep time: 10 minutes
Makes: 1 drink
Glassware: chilled coupe
Equipment: shaker, jigger, fine strainer

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 ounces Japanese whisky
• 3/4 ounce yuzu juice
• 1/2 ounce honey syrup
• 2 shiso leaves
• 3/4 ounce aquafaba or 1 egg white
• 2 drops saline solution
• 1 small shiso leaf, for garnish

For the citrus substitute: 1/2 ounce lemon and 1/4 ounce mandarin juice in place of the yuzu. For the herb substitute: one small mint leaf plus a narrow strip of basil, which gets you cool and green from two directions instead of one.

Malic acid is the cheapest thing on this list and the only one that changes the shape of the sourness rather than the amount of it. A bag of it will outlive several bottles of yuzu. Skip it and the drink is still good, but it is a lemon sour in a mandarin coat, and the roundness that made you want yuzu in the first place is the part that went missing.

Build

1. Clap one shiso leaf gently and drop it into a clean shaker.
2. Add whisky, yuzu, honey syrup, aquafaba, and saline.
3. Shake without ice for 15 seconds.
4. Shake again with ice for 12 to 15 seconds.
5. Double-strain into the chilled coupe.
6. Garnish with one small shiso leaf laid flat on the foam.

Honey, salt, and the shape of the finish

Honey is here because yuzu is sharper and more aromatic than lemon and needs something with body to land on. Sugar syrup sweetens it; honey gives it weight. Keep the measure at 1/2 ounce, and if the drink still reads too sour, add a single teaspoon more rather than reaching for another quarter ounce.

The saline is doing what saline does, which is suppress bitterness and make the citrus taste more specific. Two drops. Not a pinch of salt, not a splash of brine, two drops from a dropper, and the difference between two drops and none is larger than it has any right to be.

Glass and ice

Chilled coupe, no ice in the glass. Big solid cubes in the tin for the second shake; small ice breaks apart under a hard shake and pushes the drink past the dilution the honey was balanced for.

Chilling the coupe is the step that gets skipped because it is not an ingredient. Put the glass in the freezer when you start clapping the shiso and it will be cold when you strain. A warm glass slackens the foam while the drink is still tall in it, and correct shaking does not get that back.

Batching

For six drinks, combine 9 ounces whisky, 4 1/2 ounces yuzu, 3 ounces honey syrup, and 12 drops saline. Refrigerate for up to four hours. Shake individual portions with the shiso and the foam component.

The foam is what keeps this from being a party drink at scale, and there is no honest way around it. Six is comfortable. Twelve means you are working. If the number goes higher, drop the aquafaba, serve it over one large cube in a rocks glass, and let the shiso go on top of the ice where people can smell it. The drink changes character and stays good.

The zero-proof route

Build 1 ounce roasted rice tea, brewed strong and chilled, 1/2 ounce white grape juice, 3/4 ounce yuzu or the adjusted citrus blend, 1/2 ounce honey syrup, 2 drops saline, and 3/4 ounce aquafaba. Same two shakes, same double strain.

Roasted rice tea is the right call rather than green tea or plain water, because the toasted grain note stands in for exactly the part of the whisky you lose. The grape juice supplies a little of the fruit weight. Neither of them tastes like whisky, and this version is not pretending to; it is a bright, toasty, foamed sour in its own right.

What to eat with it

Fried food and salt. Karaage, tempura, salted edamame, a plate of good potato chips. It also holds up next to anything pickled, which is not true of most sours and is one of the more useful things about it.

Shiso comes about thirty leaves to a package and stays good for roughly five days. The real question is not whether to make this drink. It is how many people you can get over here by Thursday.

Part of Drinks & Zero-Proof.