Banshaku
A Whisky Pear

Japanese whisky cocktails

Whisky Pear

Three ingredients, no shaker, and a head of foam that comes from the pear rather than an egg.

Created by Kayla Saito, bartender, Melbourne.

Easy
difficulty
5 minutes
takes
1.5
std drinks

A riff on the Whisky and Apple that Sydney's Shady Pines made its own, swapping the apple for green pear and adding shiso muddled in the base of the glass. Shiso is a mint relative with a citrusy, faintly bitter edge, and it is what stops the drink being merely sweet.

The whole thing is built in the glass. No shaker, no strainer, nothing to wash up. The fluffy head on top is not egg white or a hard shake; it is what freshly juiced pear does on its own, which is also why the recipe is uncompromising about the fruit being ripe and juiced to order.

How to make it

What you need

  • 45 mlJapanese whiskyA drier Japanese style suits the light, mellow green pear. Peat will bury it.
  • 1 ripePackham pear, juiced to order, or 150 ml good pear juice with a squeeze of lemon
  • 2 to 3shiso leaves
  • to fillice
  • 1 leaf, 1 fanshiso and sliced pear, to garnish

1.5 standard drinks in total, 1.5 per serve, based on the recipe's alcohol strengths. Australian guidelines: no more than 10 a week, 4 on any day.

Method

  1. 01Quarter the pear and remove the stem and seeds.
  2. 02Muddle the shiso in the base of the glass.
  3. 03Fill the glass with ice.
  4. 04Juice the pear straight into the glass, or add your pear juice with a squeeze of lemon.
  5. 05Add the whisky and stir.
  6. 06Garnish with a shiso leaf and a fan of sliced pear.

What to make it with

Blended bottles in stock today, cheapest first. Prices are checked daily, so this is what the drink actually costs to build right now.

Where it comes from

Shiso, or perilla, is the same leaf served under sashimi, and it does the job citrus peel usually does in a drink: it lifts the aroma without adding acid. A few leaves muddled dry, before the ice goes in, gets more out of them than dropping them into a finished drink.

A dry, lightly peated Scotch works if you have no Japanese whisky to hand, but anything smoky will roll straight over the pear.

Without the alcohol

Fresh pear juice over ice with the muddled shiso and a good squeeze of lemon is the same drink without the spirit, and keeps the foam, which is the best part of it.