Kumamoto熊本県
Kuma rice shochu, made in one river basin for five hundred years.
43 bottles here · 11 producers · Kome (rice)
Protected origin: Kuma球磨焼酎
Rice only, fermented with rice koji using groundwater from the Kuma district or Hitoyoshi city, then distilled in a pot still and bottled within that area.
Designated 1995 by Japan’s National Tax Agency. Source.
Kuma shochu is rice shochu from the Hitoyoshi basin, a valley closed in by mountains along the Kuma river in the south of Kumamoto. It has been made there since at least the sixteenth century, and in 1995 it became one of the first three protected names, designated alongside Iki and Ryukyu.
The rule is strict in a way that is worth reading: not just rice, but rice fermented with the basin's own groundwater and bottled inside the same area. A rice shochu made two valleys over to an identical recipe cannot be called Kuma shochu.
The style is soft and clean. Rice shochu has no potato or barley character to hide behind, so this is the category where the distiller's choices show most. Several of the Kumamoto bottles here are long-aged, some in clay pots and some in oak.
Producers here
- Amakusa Shuzo12 bottles · Official site
- Takahashi Shuzo10 bottles · Official site
- Sengetsu Shuzo8 bottles · Official site
- Joraku Shuzo5 bottles · Official site
- Fusa no Tsuyu3 bottles · Official site
- Batsugun Shuzo2 bottles · Official site
- Toyonaga Distillery2 bottles · Official site
- Tsutsumi Shuzo2 bottles · Official site
- Jufuku Shuzojo1 bottle · Official site
- Matsushita Jozojo1 bottle · Official site
- Torikai Shuzo1 bottle
A producer is linked only where a page on their own domain was read while researching one of their bottles. The rest have no link rather than a guessed one.
Others who distil here
The Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association lists these as distilling here. We hold no bottle from any of them, so there is nothing to recommend and no tasting note to give. What follows is a record that they exist, with their own site where the association publishes one.
- Bishonen1879
Brands: Maruo (Kome)
- Fuchita Shuzo Honten1903
Brands: Sono no Izumi (Kome)
- Fuchita Shuzojo1878
Brands: Fuchita (Kome)
- Fukano Shuzo1823
Brands: Saiba (Kome)
- Fukuda Shuzo1933 · Official site
Brands: Sanga (Kome）
- Hananoka Shuzo1902 · Official site
Brands: Wani (Kome)
- Hayashi Shuzojo1700
Brands: Gokuraku (Kome)
- Kawazu Shuzo1932 · Official site
Brands: Shibasaburo (Kome)
- Kinoshita Jozosho1862
Brands: Bunzo (Kome）
- Matsu no Izumi Shuzo1875
Brands: Matsu no Izumi (Kome)
- Matsumoto Shuzojo1908
Brands: Banryoku (Kome)
- Mercian1934 · Official site
Brands: Hakusui (Kome)
- Miyahara Shuzojo1896
Brands: Miya no Homare (Kome)
- Miyamoto Shuzojo1720
Brands: Kyudaime Miyamoto (Kome)
- Nasu Shuzojo1915
Brands: Kuma no Izumi (Kome)
- Oishi Shuzojo1872 · Official site
Brands: Oishi (Kome)
- Rokuchoshi Shuzo1923
Brands: Tokuginrokuchoshi (Kome)
- Takata Shuzojo1960 · Official site
Brands: Gojyushimangoku (Kome)
- Tsunematsu Shuzohonten1917 · Official site
Brands: Kanata (Kome)
- Yamatoichi Shuzomoto1898 · Official site
Brands: Onsenshochu Yume (Kome)
- Zuiyo1867 · Official site
Brands: Toh-hi Ippon-yari（Mugi）