Kagoshima and shochu.
I keep repeating these words through this whole travel series.
You might be tired of hearing it by now.
But what can I do?
Kagoshima really is the city of shochu.
And the reason I travel to Kagoshima is simple —
I want to drink shochu.
The first time I arrived in Kagoshima was during my Kyushu round-trip in 2017.
I took a ferry from Kagoshima to reach Yakushima, stayed there for three nights and four days (it was amazing!!), and then came back to Kagoshima for one night.
Back then, I thought Kagoshima was just a small countryside city, so one night would be enough after returning from Yakushima.
That night, I found this place: Shochu Bar Ishizue, located in the southern part of Tenmonkan.
Even at that time, I was already drinking Japanese shochu in Korea, and I knew Kagoshima was the home of shochu.
So I searched for “shochu bar” and found this place.
It was my first time visiting a real shochu bar, and I instantly fell for Ishizue’s overwhelming atmosphere.
I was shocked to hear that they had more than a thousand kinds of Kagoshima shochu.
Kurobuta pork oden, the thousand shochu bottles, the view from Shiroyama Observatory, the city art museum, and most of all, the calm and quiet feeling of the city.
I fell in love with all of that.
That’s why Kagoshima became a place I wanted to return to, and after the pandemic ended, this trip is now my third visit.
I’ve written a lot already.
But in the end, what I really want to say is this:
Shochu Bar Ishizue was one of the biggest reasons I fell for Kagoshima.
Even after a long time away, the owner, Ikehata-san, recognized me and greeted me with a nod.
For my first drink, I asked the owner to recommend a soda-wari.
He gave me Takumi no Hana (匠の華).
He said it had a strawberry aroma,
and he was right — sweet and fragrant, almost like strawberry jam.
This shochu is interesting because it’s a “blended shochu.”
Instead of mixing ingredients before distillation, they first make sweet potato shochu and barley shochu separately, then blend the two finished spirits at the end.
While looking at the back bar, I spotted a shochu I’d always wanted to try: the yellow-label Sato Mugi.
Sato Shiro uses white koji, Sato Kuro uses black koji — both are sweet potato shochu.
The last one in the series is Sato Mugi, which, as the name suggests, is barley shochu.
I’ve tried the others, but never this barley version.
When I tasted it, the first impression was a little sharp on the alcohol.
But soon the mellow barley aroma settled in, and the balance became smooth.
As expected, Sato is a distillery that truly knows how to make great shochu.
I wasn’t feeling well that day.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink much, so I planned to have only two glasses before leaving.
But then the owner suddenly brought a bottle.
Mugi Hokka (麦ほっか).
Apparently he remembered me, but not the detailed episodes, because he recommended this to me every time I visited Ishizue.
The first time, and the next time as well.
And tonight, again.
A sweet potato shochu with a surprising coffee aroma.
I laughed and told him, “You recommended this before too.”
So he poured a little of another shochu into a glass without showing the bottle and asked me to guess what it was.
I immediately understood what kind of game he was playing.
It tasted like whisky.
So I answered what he wanted to hear: “Whisky.”
Then he showed me the bottle.
Sasshu Damashii (薩州魂).
It’s a barley shochu aged in oak barrels.
Recently, there are more shochu like this —
shochu with whisky-like flavors.
But personally, I like shochu precisely because it’s different from whisky.
Anyway, that was my last drink of the night.
I headed back to the hotel.
Because of my condition, I couldn’t drink much on this trip.
Shochu Bar Ishizue (礎).
A place with an enormous selection of shochu and a clean, classic bar atmosphere.
It’s the sister bar of Shochu Bar Roku (鹿).
And recently they opened Shochu Bistro Go (郷).
They might be the most successful shochu bar group in Tenmonkan.
It’s often fully booked, so it’s safer to have a backup plan when you go.
Leave a Reply