Practice JLPTMeaning
焼酎 (しょうちゅう, Shōchū) is Shochu — a Japanese food (alcohol, beverages).
What is Shochu?
Shōchū is a distilled beverage with less than 45% alcohol by volume. It is typically distilled from rice, barley, sweet potatoes, buckwheat, or brown sugar, though it is sometimes produced from other ingredients such as chestnut, sesame seeds, potatoes or even carrots. Typically shōchū contains 25% alcohol by volume, which is weaker than whisky or standard-strength vodka but stronger than wine and sake. Multiply distilled shōchū is called shōchū kōrui (焼酎甲類), sometimes abbreviated to " kōshu ". Singly distilled shōchū is called otsurui shōchū (焼酎乙類 ), sometimes abbreviated to " otsushu ". Rice shōchū (米焼酎[?], komejōchū ) shares its base ingredient with sake . It has a fairly thick taste, and appears to have originally developed in regions too warm for sake production. Barley shōchū (麦焼酎, mugishōchū ) is generally less distinctive than rice shōchū and easy to drink. However, if cask-aged, the taste can be quite sharp and strongly reminiscent of single-malt whisky. Sweet potato shōchū (芋焼酎[?], imojōchū ) uses sweet potato as its base ingredient. It tends to have a strong taste and a distinctive smell; more recently producers have made varieties whose aroma is somewhat suppressed. Brown sugar shōchū (黒糖焼酎, kokutō shōchū ) has a mild and not particularly sweet taste, as it contains no sugar. Soba, or buckwheat, shōchū (そば焼酎, sobajōchū ) has a taste that is milder than barley shōchū . Japanese law admits a very wide range of unusual base ingredients, such as perilla leaf, sesame and chestnut, and shōchū made from most if not all of these exists. For example, there is a milk shōchū brand called Makiba no Yume. Others are generic shōchū mixed with a particular fruit juice or extracts.