So-Miso cocktail recipe

Huh? What? Miso in a cocktail? You must be joking. Miso isn’t just here for your soups, glazes, and dressings, it's part of a long list of umami-heavy ingredients to creep over from kitchen to bar. So, jumping on that bandwagon, our expert Dan’s Daily mixologist has come up with one hell of a miso cocktail, melding it with apple juice, lemon, sugar and gin.

But what is miso? Well, it’s a fermented soybean paste from Japan that is sweet, toasty, salty and absolutely packed with umami. We know it as the core ingredient of miso soup, but did you know it’s also a titular ingredient in soy sauce as well? There are six main types of miso paste that differ in their fermentation, seasoning, textures and regions – but we’re sticking to shiro miso or white miso, the most commonly produced style and easy to pick up in your local supermarket or Asian grocer. It is also the softest and sweetest style of miso (perfect for making syrup!).

In this exceptional cocktail, the miso adds a round, salty mouthfeel to the drink. Paired with the sourness of lemon and the sweetness of the apple, the combo is out of this world. The addition of egg white (or aquafaba, or some other foaming agent) gives the cocktail a great texture, trapping the aroma of the miso in the foamy crown of the drink.

If you’d like to have a crack at this phenom cocktail, have a squiz at our recipe and top tips below.

First things first – make your miso syrup. We suggest doing this the day before so it has all night to cool down in the fridge. Much like making any kind of syrup, you start with white sugar and boiling water, and here we’re adding white miso. Chuck everything into a jug and stir to dissolve. If you find that there are little bits of miso floating around in your mixture, fine strain into a container before you leave it to cool. It’ll last around two weeks in the fridge and while the recipe above makes enough for 10 of these cocktails, you can easily scale it up or down as needed.

Next, pop your glassware in the freezer a little while before you start making your cocktails. We want that nice frosty look to the stemware, and we want to keep the liquid as cold as possible. 

Another step to do before getting into the shaking and mixing is to prep your garnish. We want the drink to be served as fresh as possible, so make your fancy sesame seed-dipped cucumber BEFORE the drink, so you’re not faffing around with it while the drink sits on the counter.

Lastly, this drink requires two shakes. So, add all your ingredients to the shaker and dry shake hard (we mean it, shake away) to get that nice foamy texture. Then add ice to the mixture and shake again to make it cold and diluted.