Oishii Japan 2015

Oishii Japan is ASEAN's largest dedicated Japanese F&B Showcase in Singapore and it was held on 22-24 Oct 2015 at Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibision Centre in Singapore. This year, there were more than 300 exihibitors from Japan were participated in the show and exihibited lots of Japanese seafood, sake, vegetables/fruits, pickles, earthwares, meat etc.

 

My focus this time was to reunion to 2 shochu distilleries that I visited during the last Kagoshima trip on Jun-July 2015 and taste/learn shochu more because I can hardly have a chace to taste such a variety of shochu in Singapore. (Please refer what's SHOCHU if you don't know.)

 

Reunioned 2 distilleries;

• Yamamoto Shuzo distillery (Left) -> blog when I visited them will be uploaded shortly.
  • Tasted their signature brand of "Tekkan Kuro" and "Tekkan" to compair the difference between kuro koji (black mold) and shiro koji (white mold). It is usually told that shiro koji is lighter and sharp while kuro koji is richer and mellow flavor. Could I find the difference ? - When I taste with straight, not really. Mix with water - yes, I could feel that kuro koji is more mild and soft than shiro koji. This is a great experience to know it.
  • The brand are already in the market of Singapore, you will find them at Isetan or Meidiya.
• Jikuya Shuzo distillery (Right) -> please refer the previous blog here when I visited them.
  • As wrote in the blog, they are a small distillery and the brand has not arrived in Singapore yet.
  • They brought a few different types of shochu for the exihibition.
    • Shibi-no-tsuyu Sou: A very light and refreshing imo (sweet potato) shochu bottled in a stylish blue bottle (shown in the picture below). As It was specially designed to suit for summer, perfect shochu in Singapore, a tropical country and some of them may be released in Singapore soon.
    • Grape Liqueur: This is a liqueur made by mixing sweet popato shochu and grape juice. Surprisingly you don't feel any sweet potato flavour. It tastes like wine.
    • Satsuma Koukaden: Sweet potato shochu made from purple sweet potato. The gorgeous aroma with a natural sweetness from sweet potato, rich and mellow flavour.

 

Other shochu distilleries from Kyushu area in Japan I met in the exihibition.

 

(Pictures - Left side from top to bottom)

Ikinokura Distillery Co., Ltd (Nagasaki Prefecture) - They are located in a small island called Iki. Iki island is the birthplace of mugi(barley) shochu in Japan. The brand "Ikinoshima" has toasty/mellow aroma with a rich taste. I love it!!!

 

Kyoya Distiller & Brewer Co., Ltd (Miyazaki Prefecture) - Picture with their signature brand of Kameshizuku(甕雫) and  jasmine tea liqueur. Kameshizuku was a very smooth, light and soft sweet popato shochu bottled in a jar earthware. It was great!!!  The flavour of jasmine tea liquer was the one for real jasmine tea itself, made by mixing shochu and jasmine tea.

 

SENGETSU Shuzo (Kumamoto Prefecture) - They produce shochu made from rice, which flavour is a bit simillar to sake. A rice shochu made in the area is specially called Kuma Shochu. This time, Singaporean really loved their red-shiso (Japanese herb) liqueur (pink box in the picture).  

 

(Pictures - Right side from top to bottom)

SATSUMA Shuzo (Kagoshima Prefecture) - One of the leading sweet potato shochu maker in Japan. Their brand "Satsuma Shiranami" is my regular banshaku shochu at home. I tasted 3 sweet potato shochus with different type of koji mold, yellow koji, white koji, and black koji. I could identify the different flovour of yellow koji while white and black koji were identical... They recommend to try it by mixing with hot water. I will definitely try it again!!

 

Kitaya (Fukuoka Prefecture) - They produce shochu as well as sake. They makes a variety of shochu such as rice, barley, sweet potatos and liquer. Singaporean also likes their KOIZORA - Umeshu (plum liquer).

 

Sanwa Shurui Co., Ltd (Oita Prefecture) - All shochu fan may know their brand "Iichiko", a leading brand of mugi (barley) shochu. This was the first time for me to know and taste Iichiko sweet potato shochu called "Iichiko Kogane no Imo", which I thought is good to drink by mixing with hot water due to the strong/musculine flavour.

 

 

 

 

A shochu seminar was held on 23rd Oct at ABC cooking school after the exhibition. 100+ participants were seriously learn what shochu is and enjoyed the tastings with food pairing. I am looking forward to the day that shochu becomes as popular as wine or sake in Singapore.

 Kampai!!!