Ryusen by Ryusen Brewery
Awamori of Awamori from Nago City in Okinawa

Date：12, Jan, 2012
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
About our introductory articles

Tweet

This is the Year of the Dragon in Chinese astrology in 2012. Among Chinese astrology, it becomes an imaginary creature, next Tiger and Rabbit.

So Ryusen, the millet brandy associated with Dragon, is introduced now.

Ryusen is brewed by Ryusen Brewery; it is in Nago city in Okinawa prefecture. Come to think of it, G8 Summit was held there in the last Year of Dragon, 2000. The city is picturesque scenery in north-central Okinawa.

As other millet brandy, seventy or eighty percent amounts of Ryusen are consumed just in Okinawa. In other words, it might be little familiar to people in other prefectures.

With a unique manufacturing tool called Hine Kohji, they succeeded in the development of a stronger taste like Awamori than usual millet brandy. They use blacker yeast and that is called Hine Kohji.
Kohji is a tool indispensable for brewing Japanese sake. Adding kohji mold to fermented grain, usual kohji is made. For making Hine Kohji, they take longer time and make it have stronger enzymatic activity.

Awamori is not usually so fermented as other kinds of alcohol drink like wine or whisky. But from Ryusen Shuzo sometimes, old millet brandy fermented for several years becomes on sale. By the way, the old Awamori is called Ku-Su in Okinawa. The Ku-Su tastes deeper. So try once.