Chiyomusubi Honjozo ‘Oni-No-Shitaburui’ Cho Karkuchi (300 ml)

Chiyomusubi has operated from Sakaiminato City — at the northwestern tip of Tottori Prefecture, facing the Sea of Japan — since 1865, with the Okasora family steering the brewery through at least the Taishō era. The brewery's most deliberate logistical commitment is its water source: a natural spring in Daito Town, Shimane Prefecture, drawn from the foot of the remote Chugoku Mountains and collected by hand each brewing day, a round trip of roughly three hours. That slightly soft water underpins the clean, dry fermentation character that defines this expression.

Oni-No-Shitaburui ('the demon's tongue trembles') is a honjozo — a grade that permits a small addition of distilled alcohol, here used not to inflate volume but to sharpen aromatic lift and drive the finish toward extreme dryness. The brewery cools steamed rice by hand rather than machine to ensure uniform core temperature before fermentation, and maintains a proprietary yeast collection, selecting the best-performing strains annually. Cho Karakuchi designates super-dry on the SMV scale, placing this well beyond standard dry honjozo territory. What makes this expression categorically unusual is its pairing of honjozo technique — a grade often associated with lighter, more approachable styles — with an aggressively dry profile that most breweries reserve for junmai expressions.