Nagasaki and Iki長崎県・壱岐
Iki island, where barley shochu was invented.
25 bottles here · 7 producers · Mugi (barley)
Protected origin: Iki壱岐焼酎
Barley and rice koji, roughly two parts barley to one of rice, fermented with the island's own water, then distilled and bottled on Iki.
Designated 1995 by Japan’s National Tax Agency. Source.
Barley shochu was invented on Iki, a small island in the strait between Kyushu and Korea, some five hundred years ago. Farmers there paid rice as tax and were left with barley, and distilled what they had.
That history is why Iki shochu is legally two parts barley to one part rice koji rather than all barley. The rice koji is the older method. The Oita style that dropped rice entirely came four centuries later. An Iki bottle tastes rounder and sweeter than an Oita one for that reason, and the difference is structural rather than stylistic.
Iki was designated in 1995, one of the first three protected names alongside Kuma and Ryukyu. Japan built that system to meet its WTO TRIPS obligations. That isn't the same as the name being registered with the WTO. TRIPS obliges member states to protect origin names and keeps no register of spirit names itself.
Producers here
- Gotonada Shuzo6 bottles · Official site
- Gotoretto Shuzo5 bottles · Official site
- Shiratake Shuzo5 bottles · Official site
- Ikinokura Shuzo3 bottles · Official site
- Omoya Shuzo2 bottles · Official site
- Yamanomori Shuzojo2 bottles · Official site
- Genkai Distilling Company1 bottle · Official site
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.
- Aimusume Shuzo1940
Brands: Nagasaki Kunchi (Mugi)
- Amanokawa Shuzo1912 · Official site
Brands: Amanogawa (Mugi)
- Fukuda Shuzo1688 · Official site
Brands: Jagataraoharu
- Ikinohana1900
Brands: Iki no Hana (Mugi)
- Kubo Shuzojo1907
Brands: Seiippatsu (Mugi)
- Muhyo Shuzo1909 · Official site
Brands: Nagasaki Manman (Imo) (Mugi)
- Oshima Shuzo1985 · Official site
Brands: Migaki Oshima
- Sarukooizu Shuzo1903 · Official site
Brands: Sarukoo (Mugi)
- Umegae Shuzo1955 · Official site
Brands: Ginta
- Yamasaki Honten Shuzojo1884 · Official site
Brands: Shichimangoku （wakame)