Date of visit: 2 Jul 2015 - Day 6 in Kagoshima trip
MAO is a famous brand which is a part of 3M in premium shochu made by the distillery called Shiratama Jyozo (白玉醸造合名会社) . Other than MAO, they have "Shiratama no tsuyu(白玉の露)", regular sweet potate shochu, which is more popular to locals.
This is the main event of Day 6 of my Kagoshima trip because Shiratama Jyozo does not usually accept the visitor. My uncle living in Kagoshima made an effort and created the opportunity for me.
Shiratama Jyozo is located in Kinkocho, a small seaside town in Kimotsukigun of Kagoshima prefecture, about an hour drive from Tarumizu city where I stayed. Mr. Tamari, the president of Shiratama Jyozo welcomed us and brought us to a tour of the distillery where they just installed a new machine.
Surprisingly, the distillery was modern than expected and well machinized.
Accoding to Mr. Tamari, he, about 20 years ago, concerned about the future of the shochu because young people are away shochu, and launched MAO which has a very light flavor with no tipical strong sweet potate aroma when you drink on the rock. It was successful in the market and MAO became one of unavairable shochu in the market. With their strong advantage and focus on the product planning and developement, they also have a strong brand of barley shochu named "Genroin(元老院)" aging in oak barrel just like whisky, rice shochu blended with sweet potate shochu named "Tenchu(天誅)" and plum shochu liqueur. I thought he had a good foresight, a right concentlation and selection.
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