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Where it comes from

Shochu is a southern drink. Six prefectures in Kyushu and one island chain past the end of it account for very nearly all of it, and the bottles made anywhere else are interesting because they are exceptions.

Fukuoka, 6 bottlesSaga, 5 bottlesNagasaki, 5 bottlesKumamoto, 16 bottlesOita, 18 bottlesMiyazaki, 43 bottlesKagoshima, 61 bottlesOkinawa, 34 bottlesYamaguchi, 2 bottlesTottori, 2 bottlesTokushima, 1 bottleKyoto, 1 bottleHyogo, 1 bottleMie, 2 bottlesWakayama, 4 bottlesNiigata, 4 bottlesIbaraki, 2 bottlesAkita, 1 bottleYamagata, 3 bottlesHokkaido, 3 bottlesKagoshima, 61 bottlesMiyazaki, 43 bottlesOkinawa, 34 bottlesOita, 18 bottlesKumamoto, 16 bottlesFukuoka, 6 bottlesNagasaki, 5 bottlesSaga, 5 bottlesNiigata, 4 bottlesWakayama, 4 bottlesHokkaido, 3 bottlesYamagata, 3 bottlesIbaraki, 2 bottlesMie, 2 bottlesTottori, 2 bottlesYamaguchi, 2 bottlesAkita, 1 bottleHyogo, 1 bottleKyoto, 1 bottleTokushima, 1 bottle
  • 15 or more
  • 5 to 14
  • 1 to 4
  • none
Every prefecture is drawn, including the ones that make no shochu at all. The empty north is the point: this is a southern drink, and the map only says so if the rest of the country is on it.

The regions

Kagoshima

GI Satsuma

Sweet potato country. More imo shochu than anywhere else on earth.

57 bottles · 19 producers · Imo (sweet potato)

Amami

The only place in Japan allowed to distil shochu from brown sugar.

4 bottles · 2 producers · Kokuto (brown sugar)

Miyazaki

The broadest range in Japan: sweet potato, barley, rice and buckwheat.

43 bottles · 18 producers · Imo (sweet potato), Mugi (barley), Kome (rice), Soba (buckwheat)

Oita

The barley shochu kingdom. Light, dry, and made at scale.

18 bottles · 4 producers · Mugi (barley)

Kumamoto

GI Kuma

Kuma rice shochu, made in one river basin for five hundred years.

16 bottles · 6 producers · Kome (rice)

Nagasaki and Iki

GI Iki

Iki island, where barley shochu was invented.

5 bottles · 3 producers · Mugi (barley)

Okinawa

GI Ryukyu

Awamori. Older than shochu, and made a different way.

34 bottles · 13 producers · Awamori

Fukuoka

Barley and sake lees, on the way north out of Kyushu.

6 bottles · 4 producers · Mugi (barley), Shochu

Saga

Barley grown, malted and distilled inside one prefecture.

5 bottles · 1 producer · Mugi (barley)

Outside the south

The exceptions, and what they tell you about the rule.

26 bottles · 13 producers · Shochu, Kome (rice)

Regions with a protected name but nothing in this catalogue yet, listed because leaving them out would make the map wrong rather than shorter: The Tokyo Islands.