Oita大分県
The barley shochu kingdom. Light, dry, and made at scale.
23 bottles here · 7 producers · Mugi (barley)
Oita is barley country, and it is a relatively recent invention. Nikaido and Sanwa Shurui built the modern mugi style here in the 1970s and 80s. Barley and barley koji only, no rice, distilled under reduced pressure so the heavy notes never form. The result is light, faintly fruity and very easy, and it is the style that took shochu national in Japan.
Two firsts in this catalogue belong to Nikaido and both matter. It made the first vacuum-distilled barley shochu, and it is credited with inventing 100 percent barley koji shochu, meaning the koji is grown on barley rather than on rice. Before that a barley shochu still had rice in it.
This prefecture holds the second and third largest shochu makers in Japan by sales: Sanwa Shurui, which makes Iichiko, and Nikaido. Only Kirishima in Miyazaki is bigger, and Kirishima makes sweet potato. The style's critics call it neutral; its defenders point out that being clean enough to drink all evening with food was the entire design goal.
Producers here
- Sanwa Shurui8 bottles · Official site
- Yatsushika Shuzo8 bottles · Official site
- Minami Shuzo2 bottles · Official site
- Nikaido Shuzo2 bottles · Official site
- Bungo Meijo1 bottle
- Fujii Jozo1 bottle
- Kuge Honten1 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.
- Agataya Shuzo1950 · Official site
Brands: Honkaku Shochu Koseihaku Ajimugura
- Akamine Shuzojo1885 · Official site
Brands: Dotton (Mugi)
- Asahi Shuzo1935
Brands: Yababijin
- Aso Honten1868 · Official site
Brands: Yakkosan
- Hamashima Shuzo1889 · Official site
Brands: Saburo (Mugi)
- Inoue Shuzo1804 · Official site
Brands: Shodai Momosuke (Mugi)
- Jotokuya Shuzojo1907 · Official site
Brands: Jotokuya (Mugi)
- Kayajima Shurui2009 · Official site
Brands: Bungo no Seimei (Mugi)
- Kotegawa Shuzo1855 · Official site
Brands: Hakuju (Mugi)
- Kubo Shuzo1789 · Official site
Brands: Kubo (Mugi)
- Kuncho Shuzo1932 · Official site
Brands: Toyo no Kuni (Mugi)
- Murezuru Shuzo1904
Brands: Murezuru Oushiki (Mugi)
- Ochi Shuzo1885 · Official site
Brands: Bungo Joruri (Mugi)
- Oimatsu Shuzo1789 · Official site
Brands: Mugi Shochu Enma (Taru)
- Ono Shuzo1912 · Official site
Brands: Yufudake (Mugi）,
- Yotsuya Shuzo1919 · Official site
Brands: Kanehachi (Mugi)
