Kumesen Black

 Let me tell you, I’ve been mulling over how to put this blog together for over a year now and have yet to write a single word. And now that I’m finally getting round to writing it, I’m at a stage in my life where I’m drinking less and less.

Don’t get me wrong. I still like a good stiff drink. It’s just that I’m finding that I’m starting to enjoy a good night’s sleep even more. Go ahead, call me an old man. I won’t hold it against you.

Today marks a happy milestone of sorts in my life. As of this afternoon I am no longer an employee of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Sciences and Technology (What a mouthful!), having resigned from my part-time teaching position at the Kyûshû Institute of Technology. (KIT, Kyūkōdai)

The six years I spent at KIT (I’m practically a grad student) were not always happy ones. The ninety-minute commute by bus, the ghost town the school is located in, the uninspiring campus, the sullen full-time teaching staff, and the miserable students all contributed to making Wednesdays and Thursdays the two most dreaded days of my workweek.

Adi drinks water as if it were 80 proof.

This past year, however, has easily been the most pleasant, or should I say, least unpleasant of my tenure at the university. Instead of the usual required freshman courses, I was given a slew of elective classes to teach. Elective classes, while involving more effort on the behalf of the instructor (class size is sometimes three times bigger), offer a lot of freedom in how the class is taught and who may take part in the class. So, instead of twenty to thirty self-conscious freshmen, most of whom are 18-year-old boys, you get a group of fifty to sixty boisterous sophomores and juniors, a fair portion of whom are coeds. Let me tell you, the atmosphere is like night and day.

This year, I was also fortunate enough to have a Nepali in my class. Adi was the antithesis of the typical Kyūkōdai student. Funny, gregarious, flirtatious, curious, and fairly well-traveled, he became the mood-maker of the four classes he attended this year. I so took a liking to the young man that I even invited him to hunt for girls in my classes at another university I was teaching at  which has a more favorably apportioned student body.

As the second semester was nearing its end, Adi came up to me after class one day and said, “In my country it’s common to give your teacher a present.” And, he handed me a bottle of Kumesen Awamori. When I got home, I immediately opened the bottle and poured myself a glass over ice.

Normally, I don’t drink much awamori in the wintertime, preferring to drink shōchū mixed with hot water or hot saké (atsukan), instead. Oh, I might have a few glasses if I’m at an Okinawan restaurant, but the potent clear liquor has always been a summer drink for me.

The first time I had awamori was on my first visit to the island of Okinawa ten years or so ago. My girlfriend at the time and I had checked into a hotel and were waiting in the lounge where we were served “welcome drinks”. Ordering “something local”, the waiter presently brought me a glass of awamori served in Ryūkyū glass. As I looked out at the clear blue sea just beyond the coral beach I took a sip of the drink and my mouth filled with that distinctive awamori fragrance, unlike anything I had ever drunk before. I was hooked.

The gift Adi gave me took me back, as so many glasses of good awamori do, to that hotel on the quiet northern reaches of the Okinawan mainland and all the tension melted like the ice in the glass.

Shortly after our final class, Adi wrote the following on my Facebook wall: “Thanks for those great classes. It was a wonderful year. At last, there are some teachers who teach life rather than morals and equations. Thanks for everything.”

 “Thank you, Adi,” I said, raising my glass towards that miserable town, Iizuka. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” 

久米仙

Kumesen Black

久米仙 ブラック

Kumesen Burakku

Produced by Kumejima’s Kumesen Co., Ltd. located in Uegusuku Kumejima-chõ, Shimajiri-gun, Okinawa. Kumejima, which lies due west of the Okinawan mainland, is about thirty minutes’ flight from Naha. It has a population of roughly 7,600. Kumejima’s Kumesen Co., Ltd. has been in business since 1949.

Awamori, Japan’s oldest distilled liquor, is made from long-grain indica rice imported from Thailand, what the Japanese call tai mai, and black kōji, a fermentation starter prepared from rice. The distillation technique was introduced to the Ryūkyū Kingdom, modern-day Okinawa, through trade with China and Southeast Asia in the early 15th century.

The longer the maturation, the deeper the tastes and fragrance of awamori, and “Kūsu” (古酒, literally “old liquor”) refers to awamori aged for three to ten years.

Unlike saké, which is made with yellow kōji, awamori is made with black kōji which grows throughout the year in the subtropics, allowing awamori to be produced year-round. Black kōji also produces a lot of citric acid which prevents the souring of the moromi (醪), or the main mash mixture in the brewing process.

Kumesen Black, aged for seven years, contains 43% alcohol by content.

A word about dialects, or hōgen. Rather than say kampai (乾杯, lit. “dry cup”, i.e. “bottoms up”) as most people do in Japan before drinking, the Okinawans say “Karii!” This can be written in katakana as カリー! or in kanji as 嘉利! Karii is used on celebratory occasions and has the same meaning as medetai (めでたい, “joyful, auspicious”) or sachi ōkare (幸多かれ, “May there be many blessings”).

In Naichi, or mainland Japan, it is often the custom to refrain from drinking at a party until everyone has his or her drink or until the toast has been given, but in Okinawa they don’t bother to wait.

Oh, before I forget, Adi. You get an A+. Karii!

Kampai is available in paperback and ebook for at Amazon.

I wrote the above in the winter of 2011, only 8 years ago, but it seems like a lifetime. So much has changed since. Originally, I was leaving KIT to work part-time at two other women’s colleges closer to home, but was then offered a full-time position at one of colleges. I would spend the next seven years there—seven pretty good years, I should add—before I was suddenly let go. This caused quite a bit of soul searching, as you might imagine, but things worked out in the end. That first year being freelance again was one of the best. Money was tight, but I had a lot of time to spend with my boys, and was able to take my family to the States for a month-long holiday which was the best.

In the meantime, Adi moved to the US where he is currently in California working on his PhD. He, too, became a father about two years ago.

Iichiko

A previous post on last year’s disappointing shōchū sales piqued my interest anew in Iichiko, Japan’s largest shōchū distillery in terms of revenue and producer of the best-selling Iichiko mugi (barley) jōchū. As I mentioned before, I had never tried their mugi jōchū, but was familiar with the Ichiko brand as the company has for many, many years run an advertising campaign with large posters featuring a bottle of their shōchū, sometimes hidden like Waldo, in a variety of outdoor settings.

I’m not sure what the message of the ads is supposed to be, but I’ll admit they do make an impression. That said, I have never once looked at the poster and thought, “I wouldn’t mind give that stuff a try.” 

The article in the Keizai Shimbun (see below), however, changed all that. "Best-selling mugi jōchū? Surely, a million-plus consumers can't be wrong."

Well, last week when I was barhopping (梯子酒, hashigo zaké) with some friends I got sozzled enough to finally give Iichiko a try. I'd drunk just about everything else on the menu, what the Japanese call champon-ing (ちゃんぽん, champon), and figured a glass of mugi jōchū wouldn't kill me.

Boy, I wish I hadn’t.

Iichiko’s catch phrase, “The Napoleon (as in the brandy) of the Working Class Neighborhood” (下町のナポレオン Shitamachi no Naporeon), should have been fair warning.

My first sip of the shōchū evoked an unusual reaction from me—the very same one I often witness in others when they have just tried the firewater I happened to be drinking: “Wah!”

Mugi jōchū is supposed to be one of the more drinkable varieties of shōchū, but this Iichiko had the zingy palate of paint thinner. Surely, a million-plus consumers didn’t know shit from Shinola.

いいちこ

Iichiko Mugi Jōchū

Kampai?

いいちこむぎ焼酎 (Iichiko Mugi Jōchū)

25% Alc/Vol

Rate: ★

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This is the original article I quoted from. When new data is released later this month, I will report it here.

Teikoku Databank released the results of their annual survey of the shōchū market August 12th, reporting that the top fifty shōchū and awamori makers had gross sales of ¥298.1 billion in 2010, a drop of 2.5% over the previous year. This is the second consecutive yearly decline--sales fell 1.1% in 2009. Reasons for the drop include a slump in consumer demand and the recent popularity of highballs. (I am guilty of this. I never enjoyed drinking whiskey until Suntory released it Kaku Haibōru which I drink like soda now. Hic!)

The gross sales of the top fifty shōchū and awamori producers was studied from January to December of 2010. Forty-six of the companies are based in the Kyūshū-Okinawa region.

Of the fifty companies, roughly sixty percent, or 29 companies, showed a drop in sales. The firm with the greatest sales, mugi jōchū maker, Iichiko, based in Usa City, Ōita Prefecture, saw a decrease of 4.9% in sales. (I have long been familiar with Iichiko from their ad campaign--every month they pin up large posters at train stations like the one at the top of this post--but I have never once tried their mugi jōchū. High time I did.) Four of the top five companies all experienced a reduction in revenue. Only second placed Kirishima Shuzō of Miyakonojô City in Miyazaki Prefecture enjoyed a 10.4% increase in sales. (Kuro Kiri, as everyone calls it, is okay. Not the best shōchū in the world, but not the worst either.)

A leading force in the imo (potato) jōchū market with Kirishima Black (黒霧島) at the center, its sales have continued to grow. The company has placed second in gross sales for eight years running. The Kirishima Black brand is well known in metropolitan areas and has maintained steady growth.

Among awamori makers, Kumejima’s Kumesen has enjoyed a 7.4% increase in sales, coming in 19th, up four places from 2009. On the other hand, Higa Shuzō of Yomitan City, Okinawa Prefecture, which produces Zampa brand awamori, has seen their sales slip 13.6%. (Kumesen is much better than Zampa--full stop. It's no mystery that one distillery's sales have gone up while the other's has suffered.)

As consumers continue to turn to cheaper products (more on this in a later post), competition among shōchū producers has intensified. With the popularity of the comparatively inexpensive highball, Suntory Holdings has seen sales of whiskey increase 17%. It can be said that some of the demand for shōchū has been “drunken” by thirst for highballs. (This pun works better in the Japanese.)

From the Nikkei Shimbun

The Shiranami at Shokichi's

When Shōkichi[1] first opened for business about eighteen years ago, Taishō[2] had a policy of taking ten days off a month. If it looked like it was going to rain or if there was a K-1[3] kickboxing match on TV, you could be fairly certain that Shōkichi would not be open for the night. Over the years, however, Shōkichi’s business hours have grown terribly erratic. Taishō claims Shōkichi is now open twice a week, but I’ll be damned if I ever see his yatai[4] on the corner anymore. In those astrologically rare occasions that I do find that he is open, I am usually overcome by a sense of urgency, an imperative almost, to go: there’s no saying when I’ll find him open again. It could even end up being six months later, as was the case last night when on my way home from my wife’s parents’ place, I saw Taishō assembling his yatai.[5] I hadn’t been feeling well that day—I had almost passed out while shopping earlier—but there was his yatai beckoning me. My wife, who would have otherwise poo-pooed my going out for a drink in my condition, agreed. Why, she was even envious. Since the birth of our son almost two years ago, she has only been to Shōkichi a handful of times.

“I’ll bring some oden[6] home for you,” I offered.

When I peaked under the noren curtain, Taishō smiled at me and said, “Long time no see!”

“And whose fault might that be?” I shot back. The customers sitting at the counter laughed.

I took my customary seat in front of the oden tub and warmed my hands on it. Then, recognizing the woman to my left, I said, “O-hisashi-buri desu ne.”[7]

The nice thing about Shōkichi is that most of the customers are regulars, motivated by that very same imperative to go to the yatai whenever they find it open. I’ve recommended that he use Twitter or Facebook to inform people when he’s open—I would be more than happy to help him set up an account—but Taishō is so hopelessly analog in his ways that he can’t be bothered.

“You realize how long it takes me to just answer your text-messages?” he says. “Takes me more than ten minutes just to reply to you that, no, I am not open for the night.”

“How about sending up a flare or some fireworks just before you open?”

Taishō groaned.

You might get the impression that Taishō is an old fart, but he is in fact only a year older than me. When he first opened his yatai for business he was about 29 years old and had a full head of hair. (He now hides his balding head with a towel; and his beard has more salt than pepper in it.)

I was living and working in the neighborhood then and would pop into Shōkichi for dinner and drinks once or twice a week. And though I was studying Japanese at the Y[8] in those days, my real classroom was the yatai. It’s where I learned the local dialect, Hakata-ben. It’s also where I learned how to talk to Japanese men (though, I still have trouble catching everything Taishō says.)

Over the years, Taishō and I have become friends. I think he’s been living vicariously through my romantic escapades. He often jokes to the other customers that it’s not fair that he is still a bachelor while I’ve already been married twice.

The best time to be at Shōkichi is when there aren’t any other customers to interrupt our conversation. It’s when I can be truly honest with him. He has been critical of the things I have done, such as my womanizing past, but he has never allowed it to come between our friendship. In that sense, he’s been a tolerant observer of the vicissitudes of my life. Perhaps that’s because he, like myself, was raised Catholic, and he has managed to retain the positive aspects of that faith—tolerance, love, charity, honesty, mutual respect, and so on—while ridding himself of the baggage—guilt, sexual repression, rigid conservatism, mindless religious formalism, etc.

Speaking of Catholicism, Taishō once told me a funny story about the time he had to serve as an altar boy. He was assisting at Christmas Mass and was dressed in the flowing altar boy vestments of a long black cassock under a crisp white surplice, the same kind of kit I had to wear when I was a naughty little Catholic schoolboy. During what I suspect was a special extended service for the holiday, he was standing next to the altar, holding a large candle in his hands.

As he was standing there with that big candle in his hands he dozed off for a few seconds and the burning end of the candle touched his surplice. It must have had some flammable chemicals in it keeping it so stiff because it suddenly went up in flames.

“I was a ball of fire when I woke up,” Taishō recalled. “The priest took the decanter of water off the altar and threw it at me, then tackled me to the ground and rolled me over and over until the flames were out. It’s a miracle that I wasn’t burnt.”

Taishō added that he was never asked to serve as an altar boy again after that.

Ostracism by fire.

“What’ll you have?”

“Shōchū, o-yu-wari de.”[9]

“Imo?”[10]

“Yeah.”

Shōkichi was serving Satsuma Shiranami Kuro that night. Why? Because it’s cheap and tastes okay. The food at Shōkichi, on the other hand, while dirt cheap—you can enjoy a satisfying meal and a couple of drinks for less than ¥1,000 ($12)—is damn good, so much so I’ve given up eating yakitorianywhere else.

After warming myself up with the shōchū, I ordered some oden for starters, then skewers of yotsumi, butabara, aspara maki, ume shiso maki, jaga batah . . .[11]

“That’s a lot of food. Have you eaten?”

“No, I haven’t,” I replied. “I’m going to take half of it back for my wife.”

“I see.”

“She isn’t expecting again, is she?”

“No. We’ve been trying, but no luck.”

“Need me to pinch hit?”

Oden (おでん)

The oden, as always, was served first. I’ve tried my fair share of oden over the years and nothing quite compares to Taishō's. In the bottom of the tub, he’s usually got an egg that’s been simmering for several days and has become nice and brown. He’ll usually fish around for one of these and give it to me. (This reminds me of a comic strip my wife drew after we had been to Shōkichi a couple years back.)

The skewers of grilled meats and veggies came about twenty minutes later, along with a second glass of Shiranami Kuro.

Like the oden at Shōkichi, the yakitori can’t be beat. And nothing is better than the butabara. Order butabara at any other yakitori-ya or robatayaki-ya[12] and you’ll be served a half-cooked slab of pork, but not here. Taishō always grills to perfection—nice and crispy. A niece of mine once stayed with me a few years ago and every now and then she mails me to say that she’s hungry for that “pork thing” she used to eat at Shôkichi.

“The butabara?” I ask.

“Yes! Butabara! I could kill for it right now.”

From top to bottom: two skewered with chicken with shiso leaf, yotsumi (四つ身, more chicken), and wiener.

I’ve mentioned already that most of the customers are regulars and that seems to be the way Taishō likes it. He can’t quite relax whenever a new customers sits down at the counter and you can see the relief in Taishō’s face when after a few dishes the stranger leaves. Nothing is worse than when a wet blanket comes around and lingers on for longer than he is welcome.

One time a dreadfully nerdy man in his early thirties sat down between my wife and me in our usual spot and a group of customers with whom we had been yukking it up. The guy tried in vane to strike up a conversation with Taishō but the normally loquacious master of the yatai became tight-lipped. An awkward silence descended upon the food stall.

The guy ordered a beer and asked for a second glass so he could share it with Taishō.

“I don’t drink,” was the brusque answer.

It was a lie, of course. Taishō did drink from time to time, but with the punishment for drunk driving having become so severe of late, he can’t indulge the way he used to.

When the guy tried to share some of his food with the others, there were no takers. And later, when he went to pay, he offered Taishō a tip. This in a country where tipping is a rarity.

Taishō refused outright.

“Well, then, give it to your wife.”

“I’m not married!”

Asparagus wrapped in pork

As I ate, I ordered a third glass of shōchū with hot water.

There are a number of ways to drink shōchū, o-yuwari being one of the most popular. Hot water has a way of bringing out the sweet fruitiness of the potatoes and as I write this I can’t help but wonder if the same is true of vodka. I tend to drink my shōchū o-yuwari in the wintertime to warm me up on cold nights, and on the rocks the rest of the year rather than mizu wari,[13] like so many people prefer it. Shōchū can also be mixed with beer, called bīru wari,[14] coffee[15], or even with tomato juice, a drink I have christened the “Bloody Hanako”[16]. (Try it, you might like it.) One thing I have never seen is a person drinking shōchū straight the way vodka of is drunk in Russia. I don’t even think I, Boozer of the Hill, have ever had shōchū straight, which makes me kind of curious right now.

 When the alcohol is flowing and the atmosphere in the yatai has become convivial, the conversation can be frank and downright hilarious.

I remember once bullshitting with two men in their fifties. One of them was going on and on about how his friend beside him was a womanizer and refused to settle down.

“Fifty-five years old and he’s still chasing girls in their twenties!” the man chided. “Can you believe that?”

I took a sip of what must have been my sixth or seventh glass of shōchū and declared, “As long as a man still has hair on his head, it is his Moral Duty to fool around with young women!”

The man elbowed his friend in the ribs and said, “But this guy’s got no hair!”

Looking up from my glass, I noticed for the first time that his friend was wearing an awful toupee. How I failed to notice it earlier is a testament to how much I had been drinking.

Last night, I stopped at three drinks. Ordered some more oden to take home to my wife and paid the ¥2,000[17] bill.

As I was leaving, I turned around and said, “See you again, soon.” 

---

Update: it’s been years since I last went to Shōkichi, but rumor has it he still on very rare occasions opens. The last time I know for certain that he opened for business was in February of this year. The last time before that was a year and a half earlier. There probably isn’t another yatai, or any business period, that operates like that. All the more reason to love Shōkichi.

さつま白波

Satsuma Shiranami

 さつま白波黒 (Satsuma Shiranami Kuro)

25% Alc/Vol

Rate: ★★★

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A very, very nice surprise this morning. My latest work, Kampai, has managed to break the top ten in Japan.

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 [1] Shōkichi (小吉, literally “little lucky”) is one of the fortunes you’ll find on o-mikuji (お神籤, sacred lot, written oracle) at shrines. Daikichi (大吉, lit. “big lucky” is the best fortune you can get. Many people prefer shōkichi or chūkichi (中吉, lit. “middle lucky”) as it leaves room for improvement. With daikichi, there’s nowhere to go but down. It’s always better to be at the beginning of a lucky streak than near the end of one.

[2] Taishō, which literally means “general” or “admiral”, is what customers often call the owner of a Japanese style restaurant. Even though I know his real name, I always call him Taishō.

[3] K-1 is a kickboxing promotion based in Japan. It combines techniques from Muay Thai, Karate, Taekwondo, and so on.

[4] Yatai (屋台), food wagons or mobile food stalls which were once common throughout Japan, are something of a rarity nowadays. Fukuoka City, however, still has about 200 or so licensed yatai. While most yatai in the city serve yakitori and ramen, some specialize in Chinese, Italian and Okinawan dishes. The City of Fukuoka has an incomprehensibly schizophrenic policy towards the food stalls: promoting them as a tourist attraction on the one hand and, on the other hand, ensuring their eventual demise by putting strict limits on who is eligible for the licenses. It would be a crying shame if they allowed the yatai to die out.

[5] The yatai are usually hauled out by hand or towed to their regular spot and assembled a few hours before opening. Because Shōkichi opens for business at eight in the evening, Taishō can usually be found setting up his stall as early as five-thirty.

[6] Oden is a Japanese winter dish made with boiled eggs, Japanese radish, bamboo shoots, thick slices of deep-fried tōfu, kon’nyaku, and so on, stewed in a broth flavored with dashi and soy sauce. It is usually served with a mustard spicy enough to singe your nosehairs.

[7] Japanese for, “Been a long time, hasn’t it?” Remember this phrase, you will use it.

[8] Yes, the YMCA. I also studied Japanese for several years at the YWCA.

[9] O-yuwari (お湯割り) means mixed with hot water.

[10] Imo means potato and refers to the sweet potato variety of shōchū that I like as opposed to the other types (rice, barely, sugarcane).

[11] That is, small cuts of chicken, fatty boneless pork ribs, asparagus wrapped in pork, thin slices of chicken with pickled plums and beefsteak leaf, and potatoes with butter.

[12] A robatayaki-ya (炉端焼き屋) is a restaurant which serves fish or meat and vegetables grilled over a sunken hearth as opposed to a yakitori-ya (焼き鳥屋) where skewers of (predominately) chicken are grilled over a charcoal fire. Incidentally, Fukuoka (and possibly Kyūshū) is unique in that you can find pork dishes, such as butabara and bēkon maki, served at yakitori-ya.

[13] Mizu wari (水割り), mixed with water.

[14] A relative’s 90-something-year old grandfather drinks his shōchū this way.

[15] Yes, coffee.

[16] Bloody Hanako © 2011 Aonghas Crowe. All rights reserved. No unauthorized use of any kind.

[17] About twenty-four bucks.

Kuro Shiranami

It’s always nice to pop in the local sake shop and pick up something new. 

(Kuro Shiranami isn’t technically new—I think it’s been around for decades—but this was my first time to try it.)

Shiranami produces a fairly generic line of imojōchū (sweet potato shōchū) and other distilled products. This particular product—Kuro (黒, black), which is made with black kōji (麹) fermentation starter, has a deeper flavor and, can I say, body compared to imojōchū made with other types of kōji. (More on that later.)

Shiranami Kuro is a pleasant drink. Not off-putting like some other “kuro” imojōchū can sometimes be for those new to the drink and the price (less than ¥900) makes for affordable experimentation. 

I can see myself buying this again.

Wait! Stop the presses! I have drunk Shiranami Kuro before. It's this shorter, stout bottle that's new to me. 720 ml instead of the usual 900 ml. I think I have been had. Oh, well. I enjoyed it all the same. 

さつま白波黒
Satsuma Shiranami Kuro 

Shiranami Kuro is produced by Satsuma Shuzō in Makurazaki, a small town of 22,000 located on the southern coast of the Satsuma peninsula. Makurazaki is famous for katsuo-bushi, dried bonito fish flakes, which is used to make soup stock. The whole town is said to smell of bonito. The terminus of JR’s southernmost train line is also located there.

25% Alc./Vol.

The "kuro" in Kuro Shiranami, as I mentioned above, comes from the kuro kōji (black malt starter) used in the manufacturing process. Like Tomi no Hōzan and Satsuma Fuji, Kuro Shiranami is also made kogané sengan sweet potato. Shiranami's website says Kuro can be enjoyed mixed with water, hot water, on the rocks, or straight. Seems anything goes with this shōchū.

http://www.satsuma.co.jp/con-shouhin-imo-kuroshiranami.html