I visited shochu maker on March and enjoyed really good food and drink!
My favorite shochu maker Satsuma-syuzo is today’s topic!
Please check and drink 白波 Shiranami !!
Picture from Satsuma-syuzo Meiji-kura home page
About Satsuma-syuzo shochu maker
Satsuma-syuzo is making Satsuma-shiranami brand shochu which is super famous shochu in the world from Japan product.
And I visited this shochu maker’s ‘hand-made-place’ and ‘Shochu – stock-place’
Hand made place name is ‘明治蔵’ Meiji-gura.
Meiji-gura has continued from the Meiji period to the present.
They produce a lot of shochu by the traditional handmade method. In the brewery premises, they sell sweet potato beer as “beer made from sweet potatoes.” It is kind of ‘Craft beer’ made by sweet potato!
Picture from this home page
https://www.satsuma.co.jp/2014/04/25112316.html
In this shochu maker, you can see cray pot and sweet potatoes. You can also see a distiller made of wood.
We can really feel ‘old hand made style’ shochu maker by those pictures.
There are also factories near the Meiji-gura that produce sweet potato shochu and barley shochu, and what I was very impressed with was the fact that this manufacturer was producing wooden barrels by itself.
I was able to see the process of the professional craftsman heating the inside of the barrel with a burner and it was a masterpiece.
And even more wonderful is the storage of shochu aged in wooden barrels.
Thousands of barrels were stored, many meters up.
Satsuma Shuzo sells a regular brand of sweet potato shochu called Shiranami in Japan and overseas, and also sells barley shochu in this barrel in Japan and overseas.
This is a barley shochu called “Kannoko”. It smells like vanilla and has a refreshing taste, so please try it if you see it in the store.
Now, regarding the shochu maker that I visited this time,
We hold a shochu festival around November every year. We don’t hold it recently because of the measures against infectious diseases, but I think we will hold a festival in 2022.
The festival is described on this page, so please check it.
Let’s enjoy the Shochu festival this year.
Vibes point
Now, this is a vending machine. There are vending machines everywhere in Japan, and you can buy things like juice anytime. And this vending machine is an alcohol vending machine.
Shochu vending machines are circled in red. When you want to drink shochu, you can buy it at a vending machine and drink it right away. I don’t think there are many vending machines selling Shochu all over Japan, but everyone drinks Shiranami in this manufacturer’s area, so it would be convenient to have one nearby.
Please come to this area, and if you feel like drinking, please buy it from a vending machine.
It’s about 2 dollars for 220 ml nice price!!
| Writer |
Glocal BAR Vibes / Nori |
