Colorful Sweet Potato Shochu

Safe! We made it to another Shochu'sday.

It's my privilege this week to talk about Colorful, a new imo shochu to hit the shelves at Umami Mart, and one I've been really taking my time in getting to know. This is a blended shochu comprising of two sweet potato distillates, one distilled from black koji and Miyazaki Beni sweet potatoes and one distilled from white koji and Tama Akane sweet potatoes.

As the name would suggest, this spirit offers up an array of flavors evocative of a lush sunset. Sipping this neat, I notice its juicy and plump texture and aroma, like papaya, apricot and olive oil with a hint of black tea. As a shochu soda (6:4 shochu and club soda over ice), the abundant fruity flavors and buttery backbone are sublimated into something akin to a blueberry scone. I drank this highball with Yumi Matsutoya's Beni Suzume playing in the background, an album equally full of whimsey, decadence, and the color purple. 

This gem of a shochu is one of many brought in by our good friends at Honkaku Spirits, a new importer dealing in the fresh, fantastic, and wild word of Japanese distilled drinks. We'll be hosting Christopher Pellegrini, Tokyo-based co-founder of Honkaku Spirits, on August 25th at our bar. Hope you can all make it!

As a shochu evangelist in the U.S., I'm always thrilled to see more styles in this category hitting our shores and this bottle is one of many in a line of new and exciting expressions available. Pick up a bottle of Colorful now, and let's talk about this shochu with haste!

Kanpai,
Ian

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