First Extract Soy Sauce Vodka

One for the martini lovers.

Introducing First Extract Soy Sauce Vodka, a new limited release in collaboration with the brilliant Poon’s restaurant.

Poon’s is a Chinese institution currently residing in Somerset House. Alongside the restaurant, the team has a collection of incredible condiments, which we fell in love with last year.

A particular favourite is their Premium First Extract Soy Sauce. Made from non-GMO, organic soybeans, it’s pressed to order by a family-run business in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, where the fertile soil and temperate climate provide an ideal environment for soybean cultivation. The sauce is fermented in traditional earthenware jars before being pressed just once to extract the purest essence of the soybean. The result is a singularly “beany” flavour. Its deep, complex savoury notes are robust enough for cooking yet fine enough for dipping.

So what better thing to do than distil it into an umami-packed vodka for a delicious and unique martini?

We blended equal parts soy sauce and grain spirit, infusing for a couple of weeks before distilling at a very low and slow 35 degrees under vacuum to protect its delicate character and gently capture the pure savoury depth of this stunning soy sauce.

It’s crisp and umami rich with a surprisingly gentle and subtle saline finish, championing all of the nuanced and rich flavour of the fermented soybean.

With each bottle we’re including a small vial of the post-distilled soy sauce ready for our perfect serve: The Soy Martini. The trick is to dispense the vial of soy at the bottom of the glass, under the drink (once poured). You can find a little reel of the drink being made below.

So how does it work? Soy sauce is a concentrated aqueous solution - lots of dissolved salt, sugars, amino acids, peptides – it’s denser than the drink, so it sinks. It’s also more viscous than the spirit, so it holds its shape rather than dispersing. And diffusion slows dramatically at cold temperatures, so the soy stays put - saving itself for the final umami-packed sip.