Shidax Hall in Shibuya played host once again to one of the biggest annual honkaku shochu events held in Tokyo, Shochu Renaissance. This year's event, the 18th iteration in its history, showcased products from nearly three dozen shochu and awamori distilleries on the afternoon of April 10th. And the makers were eager to show off the versatility of the drinks they brought … [Read more...]
Shochu and Awamori Bar Reviews
NEW! Submit your own review of a shochu bar! Or you can peruse our growing list of restaurant, bar, izakaya, and bottle shop reviews from around the world. The best places to enjoy shochu outside of your home. Select a region: Japan Kagoshima Prefecture Kagoshima City Ishizue (Coming soon!) Oh-ju (Coming soon!) Shizuoka Prefecture Atami Ajikura (Coming … [Read more...]
Awamori Tasting Sheet
Here is a simple five bottle awamori tasting sheet (MS Word doc) that was used at a tasting in 2015 at On Japan Cafe. Alternatively, here's a PDF version of the tasting sheet if you want to just use it as is. Please feel free to adapt it as you wish, and don't hesitate to send your version back in to be shared here! The five labels included are: Zanpa … [Read more...]
2015 Otsurui Shochu Shipment Numbers
The Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association (JSS) released shipment tallies for December 2015 which means that we can relay the total for the entire year. Pot still-produced shochu makers sold 460,172 kiloliters in 2015. The most popular type of otsurui shochu was potato (芋) with 206,901 kl in sales. Barley (麦) was second at 188,895 kl, and rice (米) third at 41,804 kl. … [Read more...]
Shochu Scope: KURO, Daikaya, and Nihonshu Shochu and Sake Bar
Following up on last month's introduction of new places around the globe to enjoy shochu, Shochu Scope is back with some fresh finds. If you know of any good shochu bars in your area that you'd like us to feature, then send a link and brief description our way. We're especially interested in recently opened venues that haven't received that much press yet, but tried and … [Read more...]