Sake & brews ── Shochu & Awamori
Kuma Shochu
Kuma shochu — Kumamoto's GI-designated rice spirit
The name reserved for rice shochu mashed with groundwater from the Kuma district and Hitoyoshi City in Kumamoto, made from rice alone and distilled and bottled within the same area. It's said to have been the first shochu in Japan to receive a geographical indication, in 1995.
- Origin: Kumamoto Hitoyoshi
- Rice
- About 920 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
The only raw material is rice, and using groundwater from the Kuma district or Hitoyoshi City as the brewing water is a condition of the designation. Groundwater fed by rain falling on the Kyushu mountains is said to be soft, drawing out a faint rice sweetness while keeping off-flavors to a minimum, and 27 breweries are said to together hold more than 200 brands, each competing on its own take on the flavor.
How it's made
A mash built from rice koji has steamed white rice added in a two-stage process, and using groundwater from the Kuma district or Hitoyoshi City while carrying out every step from koji-making through distillation and bottling within that same area is the condition for the GI 'Kuma' designation, it's said. Distillation must use a single-distillation still, and bottling outside that area isn't permitted, even elsewhere within Kumamoto Prefecture. Differences in aging time and distillation method are also said to clearly set each brand's character apart from the rest.
Why it took this shape
The Kuma district, ringed by the Kyushu mountains and known as a region of paddy monoculture, is said to have taken up shochu-making with locally harvested rice as early as the Edo period. Being hemmed in by steep mountains with limited distribution is said to have, if anything, nurtured a shochu culture that was self-contained within the region, and in 1995 the National Tax Agency's GI designation is said to have formally recognized that tie to the land.
Before you go
- How to use an antenna shopA guide to what's sold at an antenna shop, its restaurant or eat-in counters, its tourist-information role, the cluster of shops around Ginza and Yurakucho, and how to use one before a trip or for last-minute souvenirs.
- All-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink customsTime limits, last-order windows, and a few rules to know before booking a tabehodai or nomihodai course.
- Rules and etiquette around alcoholWhat's worth knowing before drinking in Japan: the legal drinking age, how strictly drink-driving is treated, rules on drinking outdoors, train etiquette, and customs like waiting for a toast and pouring for each other.
Dishes in the same style
- Kasutori ShochuShochu distilled from sake lees, the pressed-out solids left over after brewing sake. Because it distills lees rather than whole rice grains, it's said to carry a distinctively toasty aroma, and has long been enjoyed in northern Kyushu as the drink for the May sanaburi rice-planting festival.
- Kome-jochuShochu made from rice alone, mashed with rice koji. Using the same raw material as sake but distilling it is said to leave a faint rice sweetness while giving a lighter body with fewer rough notes, and the Kuma district of Kumamoto is known as its core producing region.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Kumamoto
- Amakusa DaioA large-bodied meat fowl once kept in Amakusa in the Meiji and Taisho eras, said to have died out in the early Showa period before Kumamoto prefecture spent roughly a decade recreating it; reportedly among the biggest jidori breeds, shipped at 120–150 days.
- Gane-ageSweet potato cut into batons is coated in a ginger-sweetened batter and deep-fried. "Gane" is Amakusa dialect for crab, said to describe the shape of the fried strands, and the dish also serves as a vegetarian offering at Buddhist services.
- Tai SomenSomen noodles are simmered in the broth of sea bream head and bones cooked down whole — a celebratory dish said to reflect the influence of nearby Shimabara's somen tradition. In Yamato's Mamihara, a version called "taimen" simmers the whole fish instead.
- Tako MeshiSun-dried octopus is rehydrated, chopped, and either cooked into rice with burdock and carrot or mixed in afterward — a dish that leans on the concentrated flavor of dried octopus, known for the summer sight of octopus hung out to dry in Amakusa's Ariake.
- Baniku SobaFrom the Aso area of Kumamoto: hot soba topped with horse meat simmered sweet and salty. It's said to carry the history of a region where horse meat took root as a restorative food for the injured and ill.
- ButaaeBoiled octopus and eggplant are stir-fried in a sweet, spicy barley miso — an Amakusa home dish said to have begun as a stand-in for pork, once hard to come by, using the local octopus instead while keeping the old name, "pork mix."