Jidai Kurahachi, with its lovely rice paper label, is an uncompromising rice shochu, foregoing the smooth light taste that many kome shochu strive for while attempting to deliver a robust, rich taste using black koji and clay pot aging. It was worth the effort.

Kumesen was our first Awamori. We'd read about these unique Okinawan spirits and were drawn to the artfully drawn lion-god on the stout bottle. As our first, it still stands up as what we expect from the style, though we've come to learn that Awamori can be as diverse and complex as single malt scotch. There is no one flavor that captures the essence of these full bodied, traditionally distilled spirits.

Nakanaka is the main brand of barley shochu from the very well respected Kuroki Honten in Miyzaki, which makes a wide range of delicious shochu across two different distilleries, but under the same ownership. Their premium barley shochu, Hyakunen no Kodoku, a 40% ABV barrel aged barley shochu, is arguably the most famous barley shochu in Japan. Nakanaka takes a more straightforward approach with atmospheric distillation and 100% barley.

In the US, Satoh Kuro is simply known as "Satoh" as none of the distillery's other product lines reach our shores. In Japan, their national premium labels are Satoh Kuro (black koji sweet potato, Satoh Shiro (white koji sweet potato), and Satoh Mugi (barley). All are delicious, but only Kuro comes Stateside.

Toki No Kokuin is an award winning shochu, reciving a Gold Medal at the 2009 World Wine Championships. This reflects, no doubt, the extremely neutral and easy-drinking nature of the spirit. This pure rice shochu is very easy drinking despite aging for 3 years in oak barrels. While there is very little English language information avialable, my guess is that these are virgin oak barrels as there is no hint of any other oak-aged spirit in the flavor.