Discovering schochu

This is the story of a dinner organised around a very interesting theme, in an old-style restaurant in the ancient historic centre of Tokyo, Nihonbashi. The protagonists of this event, are two locally well-known families: the former runs the Taimei-Ken restaurant in Yoshoku, an establishment that successfully mixes Japanese and Western cuisine; the latter owns Yukari, serving traditional Japanese cuisine, and supplying the Imperial house in Tokyo. Both are family run restaurants and have reached their third generation.

The dinner was focused on the matching of the different dishes with shochu, a local spirit which usually has a 25% alcohol content. However, in this case the schochu was a special one, produced by Kumamoto, a spirit with over 400 years of history, acknowledged by the Kuma-Shochu, a sort of Japanese AOC and produced in Kyushu, an island at the Southern end of Japan. The production area is called Hitoyoshi-Kuma, it is surrounded by tall mountains and by the very speedy river Kuma.

This Kuma-Shochu is distilled from kome (rice), just like sake. The rice cultivated on the island is special because it receives the positive influence of the soil and the water. It’s no chance that the area is also known as the Japanese Scotland. The difference between this product and sake is based on the distillation method. Producer Takahashi Shuzo uses a low pressure and low temperature system, which allows him to keep a fresh aroma and a neater flavour, in comparison with common shochu which usually has stronger and rougher flavours.

This “innovative” spirit is more versatile and easier to match with delicate dishes such as sashimi, the typical steamed Japanese fish. Its flavour is more suitable for Western palates. It is a good match for the meal as it doesn’t disturb, in fact it valorises, the flavour of the dishes. It can boast a pleasant and rich aroma of rice and its alcohol content(25%) “cleans” the mouth.

Over the past few years we’ve witnessed a boom of shochu in Japan. Besides, there are many versions of this product: it can be made from sweet potatoes, buckwheat or barley. It has a strong aroma which reduces its food-matching possibilities. There is also an aged Kome-Schochu, which can be kept in barrels made with three different kinds of wood. It is suitable for strong-flavoured dishes such as the Japanese style stew of wagyy ox tongue, a beautiful speciality prepared by Taimei-Ken’s team, or the Kamo aubergines (from Kyoto) fried in miso sauce and served with 5 different kinds of meat, as prepared at Yukari.

The dinner, for the equivalent of 55 euros each, received a huge unexpected success: the 50 available seats were soon booked, and in fact they received reservations for about 800 people! The lucky few enjoyed 15 small dishes prepared by the two teams. Guests had chopsticks in one hand, and this beautiful Kome-Shochu in the other.