Yesterday, I had an inquiry about AWAMORI from one of Sake Japan customers. He tried Awamori at a Japanese restaurant recently and he thought it’s a beautiful Japanese spirit. Here I explain a little bit more about AWAMORI.
AWAMORI is the oldest distilled alcohol beverage from the southern island of Japan called OKINAWA. In 15 century, the method of distilling alcohol is introduced in RYUKYU (OKINAWA at present) from SHAM (Thailand at present) through the trading. After a certain period, the quality of AWAMORI had been much more improved and finally AWAMORI became one of the most important trading items to foreign countries. That’s the reason why RYUKYU Government gave only 40 breweries in the island to produce AWAMORI officially.
AWAMORI has strong fragrance of distilled rice wine as well as sweetness & richness. People in Okinawa often drink it mixing with water & ice to smoothen the flavour. It can be drunk during meal or even after meal. Sometimes, AWAMORI is aged in a bottle and after 3 years aged, AWAMORI become Aged AWAMORI and its called KUSU. KUSU has much rounded flavour and richness as you can imagine. AWAMORI is a distilled spirit so you can leave it in a shelf as long as you want even after it’s opened.
At Sake Japan, we have 4 different AWAMORI. They all have different characters so it’s very interesting. My recommended AWAMORI is RYUKYU CLASSIC made by Shinzato Shuzo, the oldest Awamori brewery in Okinawa and the only existing brewery who was officially permitted to make AWAMORI by RYUKYU Government since 1846.
Please try it and feel the history of Japanese spirit.
RYUKYU AWAMORI RYUKYU CLASSIC 
