KYUSHU is the home of shochu, an alcoholic beverage served in every restaurant, bar and neighbourhood eatery on the island. It is shochu, not sake, that is the preferred tipple of locals, and increasingly, the rest of Japan.
No visit to Kyushu is complete without at least one sip of this beverage. People here are proud of their island’s 500-year history of distilling shochu.
The many regional varieties of the beverage mean travellers can have a very merry holiday in Kyushu’s seven prefectures tasting local shochu made from sweet potato, barley, wheat, buckwheat, carrots and even brown sugar before buying a few bottles as souvenirs.
But beware, the alcoholic content is usually 25 per cent, some can go up to 40 per cent or higher.
At Shusen no Mori distillery in Aya town, Miyazaki prefecture, shochu is produced with a combination of traditional and state-of-the-art equipment. Men in white caps and long green aprons tied at the waist work among stainless steel containers, electronic scales and pressure gauges. A few doors down, workers dip long bamboo poles into large brown ceramic vats sunk partly into the ground, gently stirring the liquid inside as it slowly turns into shochu.
It is at the other end of the scale from artisan shochu makers in rural Kyushu who continue the tradition of making the beverage by hand. Their limited quantity of premium shochu is so highly coveted throughout Japan they are only sold though a nation-wide lottery held each year.
Perhaps the true reason for its popularity is it tastes good. Sweet potato shochu, made mainly in Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures, has a delightful complexity. Neutral on first taste, it blossoms into delicate sweetness as it mixes with ice,
preferably made with local mineral water. Connoisseurs recommend imbibing this drink in October and November when it is said to be at its best.
Although produced in other parts of the country, Kyushu remains the chief source of premium shochu as its warm climate is suited for the distillation process used to make the beverage. – Mak Ying Kwan
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