Seifuku: Ishigaki Awamori, Undiluted and Unpasteurized

Ishigaki is closer to Taiwan than to Tokyo. It's the far southwestern end of Japan, and it's where Seifuku makes awamori.

The Distillery

Seifuku began as Kanna Sakaya, brewing from 1942 on Ishigaki. It introduced printed bottles for awamori in 1975, and became Seifuku Shuzo in 1992.

The reputation it has built since is specifically for kusu, aged awamori, and it has taken a number of awards for it.

Seifuku Vintage

Aged three years, bottled at 43%, and, the part that matters, unpasteurized and unreduced.

Most spirits get heat-treated and cut with water before bottling. Skipping both means the awamori arrives at the concentration it was aged at, with nothing flattened out by heat.

That's why this drinks fuller and more richly than the strength alone would suggest. It's a true tasting spirit, and it rewards attention.

In Okinawa an aged awamori is called kusu, and the whole culture around it is built on patience, traditionally families laid bottles down for decades.

The Coffee Liqueur

Seifuku also makes liqueurs on an awamori base, and we pour their coffee one.

Awamori is a good base for this. It's distilled once, so it keeps more character than a neutral spirit, and its slightly funky, grassy quality sits well underneath roasted coffee instead of disappearing.

It's the after-dinner bottle on our awamori shelf.

How to Drink Them

Vintage neat or with one rock, at least to start. At 43% and unreduced, adding water is legitimate, mizuwari is traditional, but meet it undiluted first.

The coffee liqueur cold, neat, after food. It also works over ice with soda if you want it longer.

Pair Them With

Vintage with pork kakuni, tonsouku, or yakiniku, the standard awamori territory.

The coffee liqueur with dorayaki or matcha mochi ice cream, or on its own instead of dessert.

Try Them at Juraku

Both are on the awamori list at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side, alongside Zuisen, Chuko and Kumesen.