Amami奄美群島

Kokuto shochu is made from kokuto, the unrefined black sugar of the Amami islands, and it may be made nowhere else in Japan. That is a matter of tax law rather than tradition. A spirit distilled from sugar is normally rum for tax purposes, and taxed accordingly. The Amami islands hold a standing exemption that lets sugar be a shochu base there. The condition is that rice koji goes in alongside it.

A kokuto shochu isn't rum. The koji step means it ferments like a shochu and comes out dry, with the sugar showing as aroma rather than sweetness. The bottles in this catalogue run from 20 percent to 43 percent, so a kokuto shochu is not one thing and they are not interchangeable with each other.

The islands are administratively part of Kagoshima prefecture but sit most of the way to Okinawa, and the category sits between the two in the glass as well.