Shochu, and Where to Drink It in NYC
Shochu is distilled once, which is the whole reason it tastes of what it was made from. Sweet potato stays sweet potato, barley stays barley. That single distillation is also what separates honkaku shochu from the continuously distilled kind, and what caps it around 25 percent rather than vodka's 40. Read down for the bottles we keep, the koji behind them, and whether a given one wants ice, hot water or nothing.
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- Aug 27, 2026What Is Shochu? The Three Questions We Get Asked MostIs it like sake? Is it like soju? Is it Japanese vodka? Short answers first, then the reasons, using bottles you can order and taste against each other.
- Aug 26, 2026The Koji-Muro: The Room Where Shochu Is Actually DecidedEverything people argue about in shochu, the ingredient and the still, happens either side of a hot, humid room that almost nobody photographs. This is what goes on inside it.
- Aug 17, 2026Ryukyu Ohcho: The Miyakojima Awamori Aged in a CaveA new awamori on the list, from an island with no rivers, built on aged stock rather than young spirit, and matured in a limestone cave.
- Jul 6, 2026Seifuku: Ishigaki Awamori, Undiluted and UnpasteurizedFrom the southernmost awamori island. Seifuku Vintage is aged three years and bottled at 43% with nothing added or taken out, and they make a coffee liqueur on the same base.
- Jun 24, 2026Leona Sparkling Fuji Apple: A Sparkling Shochu at 8%Yamamoto Shuzo blends Japanese Fuji apple with barley shochu, with no preservatives or artificial flavoring.
- Jun 17, 2026iichiko Special: Long-Aged Barley Shochu at 30%, From OitaSanwa Shurui's aged expression uses a special yeast and extended maturation, and it took the top trophy in its category at the IWSC.
- Jun 12, 2026FUK: A Whisky Named After an Airport Code, From the Sesame Shochu PeopleFUK is the IATA code for Fukuoka Airport. The whisky is a three-year single grain from Beniotome, the distillery that invented sesame shochu in 1978.
- Jun 10, 2026Takara Shochu: The Korui Shochu Behind Every Chuhai, ExplainedA continuously distilled shochu blended with barrel-aged spirit. The category dates to 1910 and the brand to 1912.
- Jun 5, 2026Kumejima's Kumesen: Awamori From a Small Island's Spring WaterA distillery founded in 1949 on Kume Island, named after a legendary hermit, built on spring water from the island's north and bottled stronger than most awamori.
- Jun 3, 2026Sakura Shiranami: The Imo Shochu Satsuma Shuzo Makes With Yellow KojiFresh sweet potatoes from Minami-Satsuma, fermented with the sake mold rather than the usual black or white koji.
- May 29, 2026Gyokuro Excellent Green: A Shochu Distilled With Japan's Finest Green TeaKitaya in Fukuoka distils gyokuro tea leaves with local rice and yellow koji. It finishes like green tea ice cream, and it isn't sweetened.
- May 27, 2026Kuro Yokaichi: Black Koji, Kyushu Sweet Potatoes, and Blending as a TechniqueTakara Shuzo's imo shochu is built with black koji and blended from several sweet potato shochus with different profiles.
- May 18, 2026Dassai Shochu: When Sake Becomes a SpiritA kasu-tori shochu distilled from the sake lees of Dassai's Junmai Daiginjo, a bridge between sake and whiskey drinkers.
- Apr 24, 2026Satsuma Kuradashi Genshu: Sweet Potato Shochu Straight From the TankAn undiluted imo shochu from Satsuma Shuzo in Kagoshima: 83% sweet potato, no water added, 37% ABV, and mellower than that number suggests.
- Apr 10, 2026Rihei Ginger Shochu: A Fifth of the Mash Is GingerA single-distilled genshu from a fourth-generation Miyazaki distillery, built on 20% local ginger. Bottled undiluted at 38%, and it tastes like it.
- Mar 30, 2026Unkai Soba Shochu: The Distillery That Invented the CategoryBuckwheat shochu did not exist until 1973, when a small distillery in Miyazaki worked out how to grow koji on a grain that resists it. Unkai is the original.
- Mar 23, 2026Sudachi Shochu: The Citrus Tokushima Grows and Nobody ExportsTokushima grows almost all of Japan's sudachi. It is picked green, it is not a lime, and it makes a shochu that is very hard to stop drinking.
- Mar 20, 2026Kiuchi Rice Shochu: Distilled From Daiginjo Lees and Aged Ten YearsThe brewery behind Hitachino Nest makes a rice shochu from spent daiginjo grain, with yellow sake koji, matured a decade and bottled at 41%.
- Mar 8, 2026Nankai Shochu: Kokuto From Amami, and Why Only ThereKokuto shochu can legally only be made in the Amami Islands, and the reason is a tax exemption from 1953. We pour three expressions from Amami Oshima Kaiun Shuzo.
- Mar 6, 2026Chuko Awamori: The Distillery That Makes Its Own Clay PotsChuko fires its own kame aging vessels in a kiln next to the warehouse, distills in Ryukyu-era earthenware, and runs a solera-style blending system of its own design.
- Feb 24, 2026Towari: A Soba Shochu Made Entirely From BuckwheatNearly every soba shochu uses rice or barley koji. Towari uses soba koji, which makes it 100% buckwheat, and a genuinely different drink.
- Jan 30, 2026Zuisen Awamori: Hakuryu, Hiryu and Kouryu From Below Shuri CastleA distillery founded in 1887 in Naha, in one of the three historic awamori districts, and the people who brought a pre-war black koji strain back from a university freezer.
- Jan 13, 2026Ikikko Koji Whisky: Barley Shochu Technique, Eight Years in OlorosoFrom Iki Island, the birthplace of barley shochu. Two-thirds unmalted barley, one-third white koji rice, single distilled, then eight years in ex-Oloroso casks.
- Dec 31, 2025Tantakatan: A Red Shiso Shochu From HokkaidoMade in Asahikawa from red shiso grown in Shiranuka, with a name borrowed from Ainu. It's the most floral, easiest thing on our shochu list.
- Dec 19, 2025Tomino Hozan: The Imo Shochu Made With Sake KojiNishi Shuzo builds this Kagoshima sweet potato shochu on yellow koji, the mold used for sake, not shochu. The result smells like citrus and pear.
- Nov 14, 2025Beniotome: The World's First Sesame ShochuIn 1978 a distiller in Fukuoka worked out how to distil sesame. Nobody had done it before, and Beniotome has been making goma shochu ever since.
- Oct 26, 2025Kirishima Melt and Kirishima No.8: The Two Bottles That Aren't Everyday ShochuOne is Kuro Kirishima aged over fifteen years in oak. The other is built on a sweet potato the distillery bred itself, with fourteen times the aromatics.
- Sep 26, 2025Lento: The Kokuto Shochu That Gets Played Classical MusicAmami Oshima Kaiun Shuzo matures this brown sugar shochu inside tanks fitted with transducers, playing Mozart and Beethoven into the liquid. The name is a tempo marking.
- Sep 23, 2025Nikaido Shochu: The Oita Distillery That Made Barley Koji WorkIn 1951 Nikaido stopped using rice koji and switched to barley. It was the first shochu in Japan where both the base and the koji were barley, and it started a boom.
- Sep 19, 2025Aka Kirishima: The Shochu That Turns Red By ItselfA purple sweet potato, black koji, and a chemical reaction that gives this Miyazaki imo shochu its color. Strawberry on the nose, and a sweetness that lingers.
- Aug 22, 2025Daiyame 40: The Sweet Potato Shochu That Smells Like LycheeHamada Shuzo ages the sweet potatoes before they ever reach the still, and the result is an imo shochu with a full lychee aroma. Bottled at 40% for cocktails.
- Aug 8, 2025Yanagita Koma: A Barley Shochu From a Family Distillery Since 1902Five generations in Miyakonojo, Miyazaki, working on one question: how to pull the most out of barley. Koma means colt, and it drinks light and clean.
- May 24, 2025Premium Sawa: Chuhai With Seasonal Japanese CitrusOur Premium Sawa pairs Nihon no Kokoro Shochu with rotating seasonal Japanese citrus syrups from Umami Insider for a more grown-up chuhai.
- Mar 27, 2025Kuro Kirishima: The Black Koji Imo Shochu, on the RocksKurokirishima, made by Kirishima Shuzo with black koji, is one of Kyushu's most respected imo shochus, served on the rocks, mizuwari, or in our Umegroni.
- Mar 27, 2025Amami Kokuto Shochu: What Black Koji Does to Brown SugarKokuto shochu is legally required to use rice koji, and this bottle uses black koji. Those two facts sound like they contradict each other. They do not, and the difference is the whole flavour.
- Mar 2, 2025How to Read a Shochu Label: Koji, Distillation, IngredientEveryone asks what shochu is made from. It is the least useful question you can ask about a bottle, and here is what to ask instead.
- Mar 2, 2025Awamori: Okinawa's Spirit, and Why It Uses Thai RiceAwamori is made from long-grain Thai rice, not Japanese rice, and it is distilled once from an all-koji mash. Both of those are the point, not a shortcut.
- Feb 6, 2025Miso in Cocktails: Umami Without the SoupHow Izakaya Juraku brings miso's savory umami into cocktails, featuring the signature drink If You Know You Know, Yakiimo!