Nationally and regionally consumed spirits are among the most culturally important and precariously positioned categories on the planet. A narrower market means that the attitudes towards alcohol and the pressures of taxation and economic conditions hit without spreading their impact.

Take Turkish raki as an example. In the 21st century, Turkey has placed stricter regulations and higher duties on the production and sale of alcohol and in that time, sales of Raki have more than halved from around 80 million litres in 1999 to around 35 million litres two decades later, according to Brauwelt reporting.

In Japan, shochu has seen similar, if less dramatic, declines. Since its peak in 2007, Japan’s national spirit has fallen in domestic sales by 25% according to Jamie Ryder’s A History Of Alcoholic Spirits: How Our Favourite Tipples Changed The World, published in 2025. But while the spirit may be falling out of fashion at home, there are green shoots emerging overseas.

“Today, it’s a category that is more familiar to older generations and usually drunk with food like sake,” explains Gento Torigata, owner of Waltz bar in London.

“Our mission in Waltz is to introduce Japanese culture to the UK’s bar scene, so we try to push ourselves to use more unfamiliar Japan-originated spirits such as shochu.” By contextualising shochu for an unfamiliar audience, bars like Waltz are creating a framework through which attitudes can be changed back in Japan.

“Even in Japan, shochu has only very recently been used as a cocktail ingredient,” he says. “It’s a trend that started in the last decade in bars like SG Club that take influence from western bartending rather than the traditional, authentic-style cocktail bars in Japan. Those traditional-style cocktail bars in Japan don’t really use national alcoholic beverages like shochu and sake. They stick to classic cocktails that use western spirits, in the more modern cocktail bars that are more influenced by western-style bartending, shochu is beginning to be used.”

On paper, shochu could be a dream tool in the arsenal of a creative bartender. Few spirits categories possess its stylistic variety and, for Torigata, that’s what makes it appealing.

“What’s great about using shochu for cocktails is that it can be produced from so many things. It can be made from buckwheat, potatoes, wheat, barley, rice and even tomatoes or other vegetables,” he says.

“So, depending on which base ingredient is used, the flavours can be unique. When I’m creating a cocktail, shochu can give so many flavours that can’t be found in other spirits. But because of that, there is definitely the requirement for more education and, most importantly, the opportunity for more tastings.”

If it’s a western bartending attitude as opposed to the western bartending canon that’s helping shochu grow in cocktail bars at home, it stands to reason that the spirit could become a source of inspiration for creative bartenders overseas. But as it stands, there’s a serious lack of access. According to Japanese spirit exporter JEM, about 2 million litres were exported in 2022, a drop in the ocean compared to the 456 million litres that the Japanese National Tax Agency reports were produced in 2020.

Overseas profile

The Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association has a mission to grow the category’s profile overseas. Part of its approach to engaging the international bartending community and getting shochu in the hands of creative bartenders has been through cocktail competitions in key markets like the UK and the US.

“Education and visibility are key; the more bartenders understand what shochu is – its ingredients, koji, distillation methods and different styles – the more confidently they will use it,” says Hitoshi Utsunomiya, director of the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association.

“Events like the Shochu Cocktail Competition are extremely important because they create a hands-on learning opportunity for bartenders. Shochu is still unfamiliar to many professionals, so competitions encourage them to explore the category, taste different styles and understand how to use it creatively.

“It also builds excitement and visibility. Bartenders share recipes, techniques and stories, which helps spread awareness across the industry. In many cases, the cocktails developed for competitions end up being featured on bar menus, which directly increases consumer exposure and helps shochu become more recognised in the US market.”

Exposure is important for a burgeoning category, but equally vital is infrastructural support and without access to affordable and diverse inventories, the category will continue to be a hard sell for bar operators.

“There needs to be an improvement from the supply perspective,” says Torigata. “One of the reasons this category hasn’t become popular yet in the UK is because distributors have been reluctant to carry shochu. It’s a really interesting and unique genre of spirit, but without being carried by those main suppliers, it’s difficult for cocktail bars to access it. We have to use Japanese suppliers at Waltz for our shochu, but that’s not commonplace for other cocktail bars in the UK.”

In many ways, baijiu shares a lot of the same issues facing shochu. China’s national spirit is consumed in vast quantities but is struggling as Chinese consumers, especially those under 35, are drinking in greater moderation. According to the China Alcoholic Drinks Association, the country’s total alcohol production capacity has fallen by 35% between 2015 and 2024.

“Baijiu in China is a bit like cognac in France,” Bastien Ciocca, co-founder of Hope & Sesame in Guangzhou, which he launched in 2016 with Andrew Ho. In 2020, the duo opened Sanyou, a bar which only uses Chinese ingredients with a particular emphasis on baijiu.

“In the US, cognac might be cool and trendy, but in France, young people aren’t really interested in it. Baijiu is for your grandparents or for drinking when the boss takes the company out to dinner and gets everyone drunk. So younger people are almost against baijiu because of what it represents.”

Through Sanyou and bars like it, attitudes towards the category are beginning to shift, but that’s easier said than done for a category with the cultural heft of baijiu, and even for Ciocca it wasn’t love at first sip. His first taste of baijiu came about 15 years ago, in an experience that might be relatable to some; he wasn’t an immediate fan.

“My wife is Chinese and she gave me a bottle of baijiu without any introductions. I had no idea what I was drinking, just that it was kind of weird and super funky. It wasn’t until later, when we’d moved to China and started to visit different cities and try lots of styles of baijiu in restaurants, that I started to find it super interesting.

“When Covid started in China, people became very proud of being in it together. It became a national movement, so we thought, why not create a bar in that spirit that only showcases Chinese flavours? It was when we started developing Sanyou that we began to get really into baijiu. It wasn’t until we were lining up 20 or 30 bottles to taste, visiting distilleries and learning about how it’s made that I understood how unique it is. It’s really unlike any other spirit.”

Now, Sanyou and its team represent a new side of baijiu, one that is able to connect with the under-35s and cross-cultural barriers. “I invited Nico de Soto to our bar, and he told me that he hated baijiu,” says Ciocca. “But he loves Daiquiris. If we just swapped the rum for baijiu it wouldn’t work, so we made a bunch of Daiquiris with the same white rum base, lined them up on the bar and added a bit more baijiu to each one, just a barspoon or two at a time. By using it as a modifier, instead of the base spirit, we could make the white rum Daiquiris taste like they had rhum agricole. By the end of the night, Nico was trying baijiu in everything.”

Not everyone has the resources, patience or inclination for a 15-year, slowly developing relationship with a spirits category, or indeed the access to a one-to-one Daiquiri-based crash course. But if the baijiu category is to grow in cocktail bars, it would benefit from leveraging the work done by Ciocca and Ho in Guangzhou.

“We’ve been very open in sharing why we’re doing what we’re doing with Sanyou, and we’re trying to have a strong argument for working with baijiu in cocktails. Now, we’re starting to see more cocktail bars with more of a baijiu focus. It’s hard to say if it’s a trend, but in every big city in China, there are some bars opening that are focusing more on baijiu and other Chinese spirits. They don’t go as far as us, but they might have five baijiu-based drinks on a 20-drink menu, and that’s a lot more than a few years ago.”

Like shochu, baijiu’s greatest appeal and greatest barrier to bartenders is its diversity. And outside of China, the world’s most consumed spirit is also among the most misunderstood.

“Education is so important, especially for something like baijiu, but good education comes from brands with good strategy, and baijiu doesn’t have that,” says Ciocca.

“The next step would be for some baijiu brands that understand how to work with bars to get involved, like how Diageo would engage with bars through campaigns with different brands in different countries. If a brand was willing to do that, it could grow really quickly.”