Musashi wrote:
"Musashi" wrote in message
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"Sushi" wrote in message
. edu...
[...]
kanten

A vegetable based gelatin.

I made a mistake here as my wife pointed out.
Kanten is a gelatin made from Tengusa a type of seaweed.

Otherwise known as agar. Often listed as "agar agar", I don't know why.

"Musashi" wrote in message
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"cory" wrote in message
gy.com...
Musashi wrote:


nicotine infused shochu


Shouchuu is a strong clear distilled drink (rather similar to vodka)
known
mostly as a drink
of Kyuushu, the Southrnmost major island. Usually made from rice,
buckwheat,
sweet potatoe
and in some cases even sugar cane. This drink is not a wine and is
much
stronger than "sake".
Don't know anything about nicotine-infused. I quit smoking a long time
ago.

I assumed shochu was a Japanese derivative of the Korean beverage
"soju", which has been made there for centuries. The products have a
very similar flavor and appearance.

Yes, shouchu is generally considered the same as Soju in South Korea. In
fact
Jinro the Korean soju in the green bottles sells in Japan as well.
Soju is also well known to any American GI stationed in Korea who has ever
gotten
plastered, as one half of "Jungle juice", the other half being pineapple
juice.
As to which derived from which I don't know and wouldn't want to get into
a
debate
since shouchu as far as I know has also been around in Japan for
centuries.
However, I think Korean soju is mostly from rice as I have never heard of
potato or
buckwheat or barley as in Japanese shouchu.

Really good So-Ju is made from rice, mediocre So-Ju from barley and cheap
So-Ju from sweet potatoes in my humble experience. Koreans consider it to
have been introduced from China in the 13th century. The best So-Ju and
Shochu I have had were both made from rice.
John

In article .net,
John Droge wrote:

Really good So-Ju is made from rice, mediocre So-Ju from barley and cheap
So-Ju from sweet potatoes in my humble experience. Koreans consider it to
have been introduced from China in the 13th century. The best So-Ju and
Shochu I have had were both made from rice.

You've indicated some Korean spirits are made from barley and sweet
potatoes and are called So-Ju. Shochu is a Japanese word indicating
rice spirits.

Are you implying that Shochu can, like So-Ju can also be made from
barley and sweet potato? The reason I ask is that it completely
divorces the process of fermenting rice with koji-kin mold. Neither
barley nor potatos can go through any of the process that rice must go
through in order to produce a spirit.

If I have this correct then; so-ju means "booze". And it can be made it
completely different methods with completely different ingredients.
Actually you could add wine and beer in there too since they too are
made in completely different ways of completely different ingredients.

Japanes shochu, the rice spirit, begins life with koji-kin in the same
way as does sake. It must because it can't, on it's own, produce the
sugars that yeast wants to eat to produce fermentation. Which is
apparently not true of potatos, barley, grapes and many other
foodstuffs.

Please correct any errant thinking in the above, all of you who are
wiser than me. I'm just learning this all myself.

--
A Dictionary of Japanese Food, Ingredients & Culture by Richard Hosking
(Tuttle, '97). All anybody needs to know about plumbing the depths of Japanese
food; a cuisine far more vast than sushi.

"Gerry" wrote in message
.. .
In article .net,
Are you implying that Shochu can, like So-Ju can also be made from
barley and sweet potato? The reason I ask is that it completely
divorces the process of fermenting rice with koji-kin mold. Neither
barley nor potatos can go through any of the process that rice must go
through in order to produce a spirit.

If I have this correct then; so-ju means "booze". And it can be made it
completely different methods with completely different ingredients.
Actually you could add wine and beer in there too since they too are
made in completely different ways of completely different ingredients.

Japanes shochu, the rice spirit, begins life with koji-kin in the same
way as does sake. It must because it can't, on it's own, produce the
sugars that yeast wants to eat to produce fermentation. Which is
apparently not true of potatos, barley, grapes and many other
foodstuffs.

Please correct any errant thinking in the above, all of you who are
wiser than me. I'm just learning this all myself.

--
A Dictionary of Japanese Food, Ingredients & Culture by Richard Hosking
(Tuttle, '97). All anybody needs to know about plumbing the depths of
Japanese
food; a cuisine far more vast than sushi.
So-ju means that it was made with fire (distilled), Makkoli and Chung-ju
like Sake are not distilled . I have bought So-ju here in Colorado where
the bottles have said they where made with rice-grain(probably mixed)-or
sweet potatoes. The bottles of Shochu I have bought have only listed rice as
an ingredient.
I don't know how fussy koji-kin mold is as to the source of the starch it is
eating and converting to sugar so that the yeasties can then make alcohol.
Sake is far better with sushi then so-ju or shochu IMHO.
John

In article .net,
John Droge wrote:

So-ju means that it was made with fire (distilled), Makkoli and
Chung-ju like Sake are not distilled . I have bought So-ju here in
Colorado where the bottles have said they where made with
rice-grain(probably mixed)-or sweet potatoes. The bottles of Shochu I
have bought have only listed rice as an ingredient. I don't know how
fussy koji-kin mold is as to the source of the starch it is eating
and converting to sugar so that the yeasties can then make alcohol.

Better, if it's not rice, I'm not sure that koji-kin is necessary. I
think potatos and barley can get out of the blocks very quickly without
the "encouragement" the rice needs--demands, in oder to turn thes
starch to sugar.

I better shut up now or I'll begin to think and sound like those guys
at the local brew pub about their newest incarnations...

Sake is far better with sushi then so-ju or shochu IMHO.

Absolutely, just like wine is better with a steak than, say, port or
brandy.

Once I bought what turned out to be quite a delicate shuchu and put
back my usual alotment as if it were sake (it had shochu in tiny print
on the label and had been stocked in the sake section at the store.
Man oh man was I reeling! I had no idea. Very mild taste.

--
A Dictionary of Japanese Food, Ingredients & Culture by Richard Hosking
(Tuttle, '97). All anybody needs to know about plumbing the depths of Japanese
food; a cuisine far more vast than sushi.

"Gerry" wrote in message
.. .
In article .net,


Once I bought what turned out to be quite a delicate shuchu and put
back my usual alotment as if it were sake (it had shochu in tiny print
on the label and had been stocked in the sake section at the store.
Man oh man was I reeling! I had no idea. Very mild taste.
Good shochu and so-ju are really smooooth. Now that bottle of sweat potato
so-ju I bought once was about as subtle as corn liquor made in an old John
Deere radiator.
John

In article .net,
John Droge wrote:

"Gerry" wrote in message
.. .
In article .net,


Once I bought what turned out to be quite a delicate shuchu and put
back my usual alotment as if it were sake (it had shochu in tiny print
on the label and had been stocked in the sake section at the store.
Man oh man was I reeling! I had no idea. Very mild taste.

Good shochu and so-ju are really smooooth. Now that bottle of sweat potato
so-ju I bought once was about as subtle as corn liquor made in an old John
Deere radiator.

And here's something I don't get. On a road trip and passing through a
relatively small town we got some pretty good wines in a well stocked
liquor store. I saw some sake with which I wasn't familiar. I bought
it.

When we drank it, it was slightly yellowed, had an acrid smell. We
decided it had been in the store for a few too many years--something
that doesn't enhance sake's qualities. Later I read the same thing in
a sake book; forget aging, it can get yellow and acrid. Althought
there are some sakes that are stored in wooden barrels, have a very
slight yellow tint to them, and an accompanying woody note, but doesn't
taste bad at all. (Thought not my preference in sake, it is my
preference in tequila for example.)

Then someone got me what was supposed to be really *good* Chinese sake,
in a duty-free shop somewhere. It came in a lovely box and everything
but was a "rice wine" and not distilled spirits. It was yellow and
acrid! And I must admit, it had a depth of taste that indicated that
it might not be definitely "off" so much as produced with these
qualities in mind.

Any thoughts on that?

--
A Dictionary of Japanese Food, Ingredients & Culture by Richard Hosking
(Tuttle, '97). All anybody needs to know about plumbing the depths of Japanese
food; a cuisine far more vast than sushi.