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You are here: Home / News / 2015 Japanese Household Shochu Consumption

2015 Japanese Household Shochu Consumption

April 4, 2016 by Christopher Pellegrini Leave a Comment

Shochu is enjoyed in living rooms and at dining room tables across the country.
Shochu is enjoyed in living rooms and at dining room tables across the country.

It was announced last month that Yamagata City led all Japanese municipalities in household alcohol consumption in 2015. While not topping any of the seven individual alcohol categories measured, Yamagata City did finish in the top five on three of those lists.

By comparison, Tokyo’s downtown 23 wards only appeared on two lists, finishing third in household wine consumption and 10th in average chuhai/canned cocktail expenditure. Yamagata was sixth in both categories.

One of the three alcohol categories that Yamagata City had a strong showing in was shochu. Here is the data made public each year by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

[supsystic-tables id=’2′]

The 2015 rankings are led, as usual, by some of the bigger cities on Kyushu Island, the center of honkaku (premium) shochu production. However, several northern cities such as Yamagata, Aomori, Akita, and Fukushima are in there to demonstrate shochu’s appeal across the country.

The most impressive stat in the table is undoubtedly Matsue City’s more than doubling its shochu consumption when compared with 2014. Matsue City is in Shimane Prefecture to the north of Hiroshima.

Miyazaki City led all municipalities with household purchases averaging ¥12,928 which is unsurprising when paired with the fact that Kirishima Distillery, maker of the ubiquitous Kuro Kirishima label of sweet potato shochu, is located in the Miyakonojo region of Miyazaki Prefecture. Kuro Kirishima was the best-selling honkaku shochu in the country last year.

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: 2015, Heisei 27, household alcohol consumption, household shochu consumption, shochu

About Christopher Pellegrini

Christopher Pellegrini, author of The Shochu Handbook, happened upon shochu more than a decade ago, and his curiosity was piqued by the dearth of published information about it. Many years of distillery visits, palate refining, and test taking later, he became one of the few Certified Shochu Sommelier (SSI) to be born outside of Japan. He now spends his time conducting shochu and awamori tastings, writing for various food and drink publications, and consulting restaurants, bars, and distributors on how to bring these drinks into the fold.
A native of Vermont, Christopher was an accomplished pole vaulter and spent several years working for Otter Creek Brewing where he eventually inhabited the night brewing shift. Little did he know that his experience making good beer would lead him to a career in another high quality drink thousands of miles away. After a year in Spain and two in South Korea, Christopher moved to Tokyo, Japan in 2002, where a distinct lack of craft beer sent him straight into shochu's open arms.
He has since found a home talking about Japanese food and drinks for an international audience. He is the host of Japan Booze Blind and Ishokudogen, two web series that cater to Japan's culinary fans around the world. Christopher holds an MA in language education from University College London's Institute of Education, and is the English translator of the survival Japanese textbook Konnichiwa, Nihongo! He has also been published in print and online outlets such as Koe and Global Insider.

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