Shochu is also used as a base for flavoured, fruity soda drinks called 'sawas'; much as we have Vodka Cruisers (vodka) and Bacardi Breezers (bacardi) in Australia. You can get many different flavours of sawa, depending on where you are. As I don't like to drink too much wine or beer, the lemon, grapefruit and ume sawas are my standard orders when I go out.
Sometimes when you order a lemon or grapefruit sawa, they will come *with* the lemon or grapefruit and a juice squeezer so you can squeeze your own drink. Ume (sour plum) sawas often come with an actual umeboshi (pickled plum) floating in them.
A DIY grapefruit sawa (with shabu-shabu in the background ^_^)
If you want a stronger variant, I recommend umeshu. This is liqueur made from sour plums. The taste is both sour and sweet, but doesn't taste too strongly of alcohol (compared with the taste of, say, wine). Umeshu is often made with shochu. I recommend it on the rocks. Right now I am lucky to have a big bottle of well-matured umeshu that one of my friends made herself. ^_^
(Incidentally, there is currently an 'ume soda' flavoured Kit Kat on sale. I love ume, so I bought one but alas, it was inedible, and into the bin it went.)
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