Seifuku Awamori Distillery (Ishigaki)

Kayoko Akabori on Dec 06, 2024

Just down the road from Ikehara Shuzo on Ishigaki Island is Seifuku, renowned awamori and liqueur maker. President Kenryu Kanna graciously met with a group with us to talk about his range of bottles, which runs the gamut from awamori and rum and sweet potato "shochu", to an array of fruit liqueurs made with awamori as the base.

Kanna is humorous and adventurous, and open to take on many kinds of projects within Japan, and internationally. We brought back the umeshu and ginger liqueurs, and they were a huge hit at our Awamori Festival – and their Jikabi Awamori is one of our most popular on our shelves. This month, we feature Seifuku Vintage that we got imported just for our Shochu Gumi – we tasted it with Kanna and I wanted it for the club right away!

We spent a very short 24 hours on Ishigaki Island and it was cold and rainy. We can't wait to return in the warmer months to go snorkeling and tasting more awamori with President Kanna! We were unable to see any production while we were there but hope to see their jikabi open-fire stills working in action someday!