Yamakawa Shuzo
Shochu
About the Brewery
Yamakawa Shuzo was founded in 1946, the year after the end of World War II, in Motobu, with the aim of reviving and passing on koshu—a long-aged awamori that is Okinawa’s traditional culture, largely lost to the ravages of war.
In the 1950s, when inexpensive premium Western spirits circulated under U.S. administration and the market favored Western liquor, and in the 1970s, when awamori gained citizenship thanks to the shochu boom and the market expanded, we quietly continued to age awamori.
However, while awamori sleeps, it earns not a single yen and only incurs costs. There were times we survived by pig farming, and even had a tax accountant call our stock ‘bad inventory.’
How much easier it would have been financially to ship young spirits for quick cash during hard times.
Even so, having weathered those difficulties, we continue to make koshu more than 70 years since our founding, thanks to never forgetting the founder’s teaching: ‘No matter what, keep aging koshu—the era of koshu will come.’
Though laborious and time-consuming, long-aged koshu, which other breweries do not make, grows in value and becomes a taste unknown to anyone as years pass—allowing even a small brewery to compete.
Thanks to our predecessors’ efforts, in 2017 we were able to release a 50-year koshu said to be the oldest on the market.
In the 1950s, when inexpensive premium Western spirits circulated under U.S. administration and the market favored Western liquor, and in the 1970s, when awamori gained citizenship thanks to the shochu boom and the market expanded, we quietly continued to age awamori.
However, while awamori sleeps, it earns not a single yen and only incurs costs. There were times we survived by pig farming, and even had a tax accountant call our stock ‘bad inventory.’
How much easier it would have been financially to ship young spirits for quick cash during hard times.
Even so, having weathered those difficulties, we continue to make koshu more than 70 years since our founding, thanks to never forgetting the founder’s teaching: ‘No matter what, keep aging koshu—the era of koshu will come.’
Though laborious and time-consuming, long-aged koshu, which other breweries do not make, grows in value and becomes a taste unknown to anyone as years pass—allowing even a small brewery to compete.
Thanks to our predecessors’ efforts, in 2017 we were able to release a 50-year koshu said to be the oldest on the market.