There’s never been a better time for savory cocktails. From umami-laden miso Daiquiris to celery Gimlets, ingredients once relegated to the kitchen have landed at the bar.
Enter soy sauce, one of the latest salty, savory condiments to find a foothold in the bartender’s pantry. Soy sauce works its wonders in cocktails much like salt: A mere dash can suppress a drink’s bitterness and draw out its sweet and sour flavors. But soy sauce inherently has more components—roasted soybeans, wheat and koji that ferment together—all of which simultaneously zhuzh up a drink’s coveted umami with just a dash. Ajit Gurung, co-founder of Savory Project, a Hong Kong bar specializing in savory drinks, describes soy sauce in cocktails as “a seasoning with an extra zing.”
Four drinks with soy sauce grace the menu at the Savory Project. A fan favorite is the Gari Gari, a whiskey cocktail made with passion fruit, gari (Japanese pickled ginger), seltzer and a smidge of ponzu (a citrusy soy-based sauce). Gurung likens the condiment to cocktail bitters. “Soy sauce acts as a bridge,” he says. “If we feel like something is missing, a bit of soy sauce will combine all the flavors.”
At Oyster Club in Mystic, Connecticut, bar director Jade Ayala similarly envisioned soy sauce in Cocktail No. 34, a savory drink made with the aperitif Kina L’Aéro d’Or, rice vinegar, chile oil and peanut butter, but didn’t know exactly how much would do the trick. She began dispensing a few dashes of it into peanut butter and immediately tasted the difference. “The soy sauce was so complementary to the recipe,” says Ayala.
At Taiwanese restaurant Wenwen in Brooklyn, a bit of soy sauce goes a long way in San Bei GG, a cocktail inspired by the classic homestyle dish San Bei Ji (Three Cup Chicken), which, as its name implies, uses three ingredients: rice wine, sesame oil and soy sauce. The drink contains sesame-infused cachaça, ginger syrup and lactic winter melon syrup, plus a drop of dark soy sauce to balance out the sesame and ginger. “A single drop is all you need,” says Sami Syahbal, the restaurant’s general manager. “You should taste the soy sauce when you’re looking for it, but forget it’s there when you’re not.”
To incorporate soy sauce in drinks for the first time, Gurung recommends starting small, akin to a dash or drop, and building up from there. The type and brand of soy sauce matter, too. Erick Castro-Diaz prefers a barrel-aged soy sauce in his Cat’s Paw to enrich the nuttiness of the sesame oil-washed whisky. Behind the bar at the Savory Project, meanwhile, bartenders curate an impressive collection—everything from Kikkoman to locally made soy sauce, white shoyu and ponzu—to highlight the versatility of the category. (The bar team tried 10 different ponzu brands before landing on the current one.) Meanwhile at Oyster Club, Ayala swears by Moromi Shoyu, a small-batch soy sauce made a few miles away.
As for what types of drinks to mix soy sauce into, bartenders offer two routes. For Gurung, soy sauce is a good complement to drinks with “a lot of character,” such as Savory Project’s mezcal-based cocktail pepperCORN, which includes charred corn husks, tomatoes and spices such as cumin; it’s a way to cut through rich flavors. Ayala approaches the condiment from another angle: “Easier styles to pair with would be low-ABV, or something that matches the delicateness of a soy sauce.” She recommends trying it in aperitivo-style drinks.
The slightest splash of soy sauce—delivered by the dash or drop—can brighten and balance a drink, and stun people with its subtleties. For all the soy sauce cocktails Oyster Club serves, Ayala often sees this play out at the bar. “Since it’s hard to pinpoint umami, guests will go through their Rolodex of flavors [to guess what’s in the Cocktail No. 34],” she says. “You say it’s soy sauce, and people are so surprised.”
