Kome-jochu

The raw materials are rice and rice koji alone, with no other ingredients added, said to be the basic rule. Because it distills a mash fermented from the same raw material sake is brewed from, it's said to give a faint rice sweetness and umami — milder than sake's own — combined with a light body carrying few off-flavors. The degree of milling and whether the koji mold used is black or white are said to shape both how showy the aroma becomes and how heavy the mouthfeel is.

A first mash is built from rice koji and water to raise up the yeast, then steamed white rice is added to form a second mash — a two-stage process said to be the basic method. Black or white koji are commonly used, and breweries in the Kuma district are said to draw their brewing water from groundwater in the Kuma river system, fed by rain falling on the Kyushu mountains. Once fermentation ends, the mash passes through a single-distillation still just once, leaving the raw material's flavor intact.

The Kuma district in southern Kumamoto is one of Kyushu's leading paddy-monoculture regions, and shochu made from that rice is said to have been distilled even earlier than sake was brewed there. In a basin ringed by steep mountains where distribution was limited, a culture of distilling the local rice harvest into a spirit that kept well is said to have taken root, and that tie to the land is still recognized today under the GI 'Kuma' designation. It's said to have developed not as a spirit born of land ill-suited to rice, but precisely because the region excelled at growing it.