Naze-daikuma

Amami Oshima (“big island”) is one of eight islands in the Amami Archipelago, with a population of 73,000 over 712 square miles. These are some of the islands that are in the 745-mile stretch of sea between mainland Japan and Taiwan. The culture was shaped over the years by its isolated location. Japan’s southern islands are where many Japanese often go for a beach vacation since the rainfall is an average of 115 inches per year (twice that of Tokyo), so it has lush forests and mountains , rivers, waterfalls and mangrove forests. Interestingly, there are very few Shinto shrines or Buddist Temples here as the grounds themselves are considered sacred ceremonial platforms to welcome native deities who are believed to travel down from the mountain’s or from the seas. For more information read about the Noro priestesses and Yuta female shamans religions practiced here there is a lot of information on Google.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, much of the island is within the borders of the Amami Guntō National Park. The Island is known for its mangrove forests, its distilleries and oshima tsumugi fine silk fabric made and used for making kimonas here.

We arrived at the Naze Port which is in the northwestern part of Amami Oshima Island. As a port for trade with mainland Japan as well as countries to the south, it played a key role in the development of transportation and economy in the area. We took a bus into town and then walked around this quaint town and the Amami City Shopping Area until we found a wonderfully small distillery that made and sold Kokuto Shochu. Amami Kokuto Shochu or brown sugar distilled liquor is 25-45% alcohol and is unique to this area. After WWII when the US returned the Islands to Japan in 1953 it had changed the liquor tax laws but the Japanese government decided to celebrate the return of Amami Island and they created a special category of “drink” called Kokuto Shochu that was exempt from taxes. The process of making Kokuto Shochu is first the rice is washed, soaked, steamed and cooled for 50 hours to create a koji (malt) and then left to ferment. Then brown sugar from boiling sugarcane extract is added for 15 days and then distilled.

YES, we acquired two bottles from different companies with totally different tastes ... and potencies, since you can only get it here. As of this writing, one of them is almost "gone". YUMRead more