Hirakawa 1427, Satsuma-cho, Satsuma-gun, Kagoshima, Japan
mail: info@jikuya-shuzo.co.jp
www.jikuya-shuzo.co.jp

In Miyanojocho Hirakawa at the foot of Mount Shibi, a sacred mountain in North Satsuma, Gonsuke Jikuya was the first Jikuya to begin making shochu in 1910. One hundred years ago. Gonsuke’s unyielding focus was on “a powerful taste, even when mixed with hot water” and it has been called “Karakuchi no Ken” shochu ever since.

This taste, which has been preserved by four generations over the past century, sleeps quietly after being stirred by paddles held in human hands and will continue to be preserved going forward.

Jikuya Distillery, is housed in a small building at the foot of Mt Shibi. Here is where the ingredients of sweet potatoes and malted rice are carefully nurtured by the master brewer’s adept skill and transformed into a shochu that is bursting with wholesome flavour.

Bringing the wholesomeness of nature to life in shochu is the creed that drives us and to which we stay faithful in order to preserve the distinctive taste of our shochu.

Don’t add anything that isn’t needed and don’t cut corners is the basis of our shochu production.

“The product is a person”.

To the East is the Kirishima mountain range, to the West, the East China Sea. To the North East, commanding a view of distant Amakusa, is Mount Shibi (summit 1066m), the sacred mountain of North Satsuma, a mystical mountain that is said to have been visited in olden times by Jofuku in his quest for the elixir of immortality and eternal youth under the orders of the first Qin Emperor (circa BC200). Its beauty changes with changing of the seasons: cherry blossoms in the Spring, green foliage in the summer which takes on autumnal hues before the hoar frosts of winter decorate bare branches.