Revival of MIYAZAKI HADAKA

While continuing to produce SHOCHU by being particular about making KOJI, about making SHUBO, the fermentation starter and about distillation, we always look to improve our taste. Then we found out that it is the barley. In pre-World War Ⅱ and post war times, barley cultivation was all over Miyazaki; however, it declined over time and was finally next to none at the end of the SHOWA era, around 1988.
I was wondering if barley, which is an ingredient for SHOCHU, would still be cultivated here. Since I wanted to try cultivating it ourselves, we borrowed a farm from an acquaintance in YAMANOKUCHI CHO in MIYAKONOJO City in 2005 and began our challenge. We learned about a kind of barley, “MIYAZAKI HADAKA Barley” at that time. MIYAZAKI HADAKA barley is the native variety of naked barley which had grown naturally throughout Miyazaki from long ago. It was the recommended variety of Miyazaki Prefecture in 1942 and it was the “representative barley of Miyazaki” . There was a record area planted that exceeded 20,000 hectares in Miyazaki Prefecture in 1960. However, because the domestic MISO making custom declined and the aging of farmers as well as an influx of inexpensive foreign barley, MIYAZAKI HADAKA barley was almost extinct at the end of SHOWA era around 1988.
One of our distillery’ s principals is “True JIZAKE local brew should be rooted deeply in your local region.” When we got to know MIYAZAKI HADAKA barley, we strongly wished to revive this native variety by ourselves and to produce SHOCHU by using this barley. We had started to step forward toward our wish.
We finally obtained the MIYAZAKI HADAKA barley seeds in 2007. The next year, CEO, Mr. Susumu Kamimizu of Miyazaki Kamimizuen Co., Ltd. which is a tea producing company located in our neighbor town MIMATA CHO regenerated the visionary barley. The barley was brought to the Miyazaki Prefecture Foods Development Center and we had trial brewing as joint research with Miyazaki Prefecture. As a result, it was confirmed that it is superb on KOJI quality and a unique mellow SHOCHU, especially by vacuum distillation, could be produced.
In November 2009, full-scale cultivation in commission started. We contracted “Judicial Agricultural Union, HANADO (Representative Director, Chikayuki Kuroki). With the cooperation between the barley cultivation technique of HANADO and grand climate of TAKAHARU CHO at the foot of KIRISHIMA mountain range, the great “MIYAZAKI HADAKA Barley” had been revived.
What we do is brew SHOCHU. We, with our pride, would like to continue to strive at producing SHOCHU which tells a story about the blessing of nature and warmth of the farmers.

The fifth head of the Yanagita Family, Tadashi Yanagita