Oishii (Delicious) Saito cocktails!

Not every dog owner can boast of a cocktail drink named after the breed of dog that they have. But if you have a Shiba Inu as a pet, Salty Shiba is a cocktail drink that you might enjoy as much as you enjoy your furry friend.

Even if you don’t know what Shiba Inu is (it’s that adorable fella in the picture below), it’s a wonderful cocktail drink that you can make with Japanese sake.

This is based on the Salty Dog cocktail, which is made with gin or vodka and grapefruit juice with salt around the rim.

If you make Salty Dog, with gin/vodka without the salt rim, it’s called the Greyhound.

If you make Salty Dog, but with tequila instead of gin/vodka, it’s called the Salty Chihuahua.

Thus…if you make Salty Dog, but with Japanese sake instead of gin/vodka, you get…that’s right, the Salty Shiba!

Salty Shiba (Shiba Dog)

Ingredients

50ml Saito Junmai Daiginjo Sake
50ml Grapefruit juice
Coarse salt (such as coarse Kosher, sea salt or Margarita salt)
Ice cubes
A wedge of grapefruit

Instructions

Moisten rim of glass with water or with the grapefruit.
Salt the rim.
Fill glass with ice cubes.
Pour sake over ice.
Pour grapefruit juice over sake.
Gently mix.
Garnish with grapefruit and serve.

Sake Bomb

It is not known who first thought of dropping a shot of sake into a glass of beer, causing it to fizz violently. However, the story goes that it was invented by American soldiers occupying Japan following World War II, thus explaining why the cocktail is more popular in American than in Japan.

Traditionally, the sake shot is balanced on two chopsticks which are placed on top of the glass of beer. The consumers should slam the table with their fists, causing the shot to drop into the beer, and the cocktail should then be drunk immediately.

Ingredients

1 shot of Saito Dry Sake
Desired amount of beer

Instructions

Fill the shot glass with sake and fill the pint glass with beer, leaving enough room for the sake so the glass doesn’t overflow or you are looking at cleaning up a mess!
Place the chopsticks along the top of the pint glass, close enough together to support the shot glass.
Carefully balance the shot glass on top of the chopsticks.
When you’re ready to drink, pound the table repeatedly until the sake shot falls into the beer. Feel free to yell Ichi…ni…san…sake bomb! (one…two…three…sake bomb!) to get the party going.

Snow White

Ingredients