RIHEI GINGER

Ochiai Distillery

Crafting Shochu for More Than a Century. Ochiai Distillery is a family-run shochu distillery with more than 100 years of history. Shochu is most commonly distilled from sweet potatoes, barley or rice. At Ochiai Distillery, we specialize in ‘Imo’ sweet potato shochu. Our sweet potatoes are sourced from one designated farm that only uses plant-based fertilizers. The sweet potatoes grown via this method, or called green manure crop farming, have low moisture content. Shochu made from these firm, dense sweet potatoes are smooth to the palate and have a deep taste. The Birth of Rihei Ginger. In 2004, the third generation of Ochiai Distillery, Ippei Ochiai, ventured on a new initiative and crafted unconventional shochu during a Honkaku Shochu boom that was occurring in Japan. Although it was a small portion against the total volume of products manufactured at the distillery, Ippei started making a unique shochu from ‘yomogi’ leaves or Japanese mugwort. This was something other distilleries did not make. Later, Ippei also made shochu from green bell peppers and other novel base ingredients. This created a buzz, and various people from Japan Agricultural Cooperatives, as well as local governments, started knocking on our door, requesting we create a new shochu with their locally-grown produce. Hence, a brand new page was added to Ochiai Distillery’s 100 year history of shochu making. The ginger shochu that preceded RIHEI GINGER also started out this way, when a ginger farmer came to us with their ginger. Appealing To A Global Audience. Currently, Ryohei Ochiai is the fourth President of Ochiai Distillery and is eager to connect the world with our special shochus. Ochiai Distillery will start offering Japan’s traditional distilled spirits to connoisseurs outside of Japan and will first set out to the US market where a wide selection of spirits exists. Japan’s Shochu is gaining popularity in the US - during shochu tasting events in the US, ginger shochu proved to be most popular amongst guests. The new ginger shochu to set to embark on a new challenge for Ochiai Distillery, that was named after the distillery’s founder, Rihei Ochiai.