 This is State Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Good afternoon. My name is Ray Tsuchiyama, and I am the host for another show on the series, Business in Hawaii. And we have a unique guest today named Ken Hirata, and he is the founder of a company called Hawaiian Chouchu Company. In fact, he represents a growing trend of entrepreneurs coming to Hawaii and starting new businesses, new ventures. And we're going to talk today about a product in a world that some people in Hawaii may not be aware of called Chouchu, and it's an alcoholic drink not to be confused with Japanese sake, which we will talk about differences in a few minutes, and it's a unique drink that it has experienced a boom in Japan over the past few years, especially among young people. And it used to be a much more of a conservative old people's drink called Chouchu, but now it's really taken a big boom kind of trend in Japan. Welcome to the show, Mr. Hirata. Thank you so much for having me today, thank you. And I want to start off, and with your background, where were you born and raised? I was born in Osaka, Japan, and I grew up there until I graduated from high school in Osaka. And from there, did you go to college? Yes, I was lucky enough to attend a college on the mainland. Yes, which one was it? I went to Lui San Clark College in Portland, Oregon. No, in college, did you study anything dealing with like wine or beer or anything about making beverages at all? No, my major was business, but I surely practiced drinking. Okay, so afterwards, after college, what kind of career did you have? I first started off with financial, I started working for a financial institution in Hong Kong. Right. I went back to Japan and worked for other companies, and yeah, then my last career before I started doing this was product development. Oh, good. Now, when did you have the idea of becoming a person who will make a show true? When did that happen? It was about 15, 20 years ago when I was visiting Hawaii from Japan as a tourist. I was, that time I was eating poi in Hawaii, and then I thought, if they have something like this, poi is a fermented food from taro, so I thought maybe I can make a show true in Hawaii. Okay. But that time I was just joking with my friends. Right, but that was where the idea suddenly appeared one day. Yeah. Now, so we'll get to the question right now. What is show true? Show true is a distilled spirit native to Japan. And how old do you think people have been making show true and drinking in Japan? That's a good question. I heard that they started making show true in the 15th century. Wow. That's the 15th century, so 1400s. Wow. Yeah. And now, there's many ingredients that is the base for show true. Can you name some of them? Yes, show true, as you said, show true can be made from a variety of ingredients. Ours is made from sweet potatoes. I think it's the most popular show true consumed in Japan today. That show true can be made from barley, mugi show true, rice, kome show true, buckwheat, soba show true, sugar cane show true, chestnut show true. You can find a variety of show true. And I've heard of carrots also. Some unique ones too. And shiso. Sometimes they make show true from milk. From milk? Yeah. And this is a sample of the sweet potato. And this is grown in Hawaii. What part of Hawaii does it come from? You know, in Hawaii, there are over 30 varieties of sweet potatoes grown in Hawaii. So this is the Okinawa sweet potatoes. If you break it, it's purple. Oh, wow. You're strong. You're young. Yeah. So this purple sweet potato can be grown in many areas, including here in Oafuru or Big Island, Kawaii Maui. Yeah. And of course, though, sweet potatoes are not the only ingredient in show true, right? What other ingredients form show true or are there other ingredients? To remix authentic show true, in order to be called authentic show true, koji has to be applied in a fermentation process. What is koji? Well, koji is a microorganism. It is actually a mold, a fungus. Is it not a yeast, but it's more like a... It's a mold. Oh, mold. It's a good mold, fungus. You might not be familiar with koji, but many people have been eating koji. We use koji for miso making, we show you making, mirin, katsuobushi, sake, no namu. Not all. No, not all. Okay. All kinds of Japanese fermented food. Why don't we put up the first slide here? And while we wait, oh, here it is. Okay, this is the first slide. Yes. That's our product. And what's the name of this, of your product? Our brand name is Nami Hana. Right? And Nami is what, in Japanese? Nami means wave. And Hana? Flower. Flower. That's a very beautiful name. Now, did you come up with a name yourself, or with other people? My wife and I thought of it, and then we decided to name it. All right. And what is that besides the bottle? Oh, that's ceramic pots, or what you can call it, vat. It's a big ceramic pot that we use for fermentation process. My master in Kagoshima gave us. So they all came from Kagoshima, Japan, and they're about 150 years old. 150 years old. Now, why don't we go to the next slide? Oh, this looks like the color of the sweet potato here. What is that? That's the mash. We are actually fermenting the ingredients in vat. The mixture is the koji rice and the sweet potatoes. That ingredient is being fermented inside the vat. So it's kind of bubbling away and making alcohol? Yeah, that's what it's doing right now. Now, when you compare this to Japanese sake, or made of rice, is it similar kinds of operation or is it different? In some ways it's very similar. But so up to the fermentation process, sake and shochu are similar. Both sake and shochu, we must use koji as a key ingredient. After fermentation process, for sake, you just drink the extract from the mash, shochu, we distill the mash. Okay, so distill is the major word here, distillation. And are spirits like vodka and whiskey also distilled? That's correct. They're more similar to shochu than sake, the Japanese sake. Yes, shochu is similar to those distilled spirits. Next slide, please. I forgot to ask, your kura or distill is in haliva, am I correct? Yes. Okay. And there it is. No, this is what is this? This is my master's distillery in Kagoshima. I was an apprentice under my master, Manzen, and then this is where I learned traditional hand-graft shochu-making techniques. Now shochu is big in Kyushu, that's where Kagoshima is prefecture of Kyushu. And I've heard that each region within this island of Kyushu has a different ingredient to base for shochu. Can you explain that? Yeah, that's very true. Kagoshima is known for sweet potato shochu. Next to Kagoshima, it's a Kumamoto. Kumamoto is known for rice shochu. About Kumamoto, if you go up Nagasaki, Oita, they make barley type of shochu, so even within a small island of Kyushu, if you visit a different part of Kyushu, people drink different type of shochu. Well, that's interesting because Kumamoto and Kagoshima are right next door to each other. They're not very big places, but what you're saying is one region of Kumamoto or prefecture is much more focused on sweet potatoes, the other on rice, you say, because my ancestors come from Kumamoto. And that's how we drink shochu with raw horse meat, Basashi, which is a big lunchtime treat there. So this kura, this shochu distillery where you apprenticed, is it old? Yeah, I think so. It's a small distillery, family owned, and all the traditions and techniques has been passed on to generation to generation. And how long were you there as an apprentice? Only three years. How long? Three years. Three years. That's a long time. Three years. Wow. I don't know. It's like getting a full education. Next slide, please. Oh, and what is this? That's my wife. Okay. And your wife and you are... Yeah, myself. And what do you call those right in front of there? We call them kametsubo, vats, clay pots. We use those, you saw a previous photo, we use those to ferment the ingredients. Now, I heard just recently that you've completed a phase, so is it a fall and a spring production schedule or cycle that you do? We do two batches per year in spring and fall. And we just finished fall production work around Thanksgiving. So what I'm hearing is that you do everything? Yeah. It's really tezukuri in Japanese or like a really handcrafted shochu. I mean, it's like having a whiskey made by a little family in Scotland. And so when you also put the shochu in the bottle, why isn't it purple? Like it wasn't a mash. It's because shochu is distilled. All the distilled spirits, including whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, right after they are distilled, they all come out clear. Because distillation process, it's a separation of alcohol from the ingredients by using the heat. And the alcohol gets evaporated from the mash so that the steam doesn't transfer the color. It's hard to explain here. Yeah, but it's a very chemical engineering kind of discussion that we're having already. But you're correct that a lot of people expect a scotch whiskey to be brown. Actually, they add coloring later, as you know, sometimes. Sometimes the coloring comes from the barrels, the sherry or wine barrels or bourbon barrels and so forth. But sometimes, and I'm sad to hear, but they add caramel coloring. Because they expect that. And they expect that to be part of the scotch, you know, ambience there. But this is so it's very clear. And so, who is your best market for namihana or what are you trying to do with shochu in Hawaii? Are you trying to build a community of shochu drinkers or people who would expand to drink shochu in Hawaii? That's a good question. When I started, I wasn't really thinking about it. It's made from local ingredients, sweet potatoes. So the first thing is we would like people in Hawaii to know that this is come from the land of Hawaii. Okay, well, let's hold that thought because we're going to take a break and return with more of your insights about shochu. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Despeng, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. We're back in a discussion about this vegetable, a sweet potato, that becomes this. And we're here with Ken Hirata discussing the history and really the world of shochu. And this drink has become really a part of Japanese izakaya or drinking culture. So now this is expanded to Hawaii and we're just in the middle of Mr. Hirata's kind of view of how, why shochu in Hawaii, and is it a Hawaiian product, is it a Japanese product in Hawaii, is it going to be part of Hawaiian culture, or you can make a very traditional Japanese drink out of a potato grown in the land of Hawaii. Go ahead. So what is this shochu all about? It's difficult to explain, but shochu is a value-added product made from agricultural processed food. So since I came to Hawaii and become a part of a community, I was hoping that we can help each other with the community members. In order for us to develop value-added products as agricultural resources, I thought it would be a good promotion for Hawaiian agriculture and of course shochu itself and value-added products from Hawaii, I think, would sell and has a big appeal to the world. That's very exciting. And what you're saying, I believe, is very, very instructive or gives insights to really creating new products based on very Hawaiian things, which is on the ground, and could lead to exports and could really create new jobs and create feelings of, I guess, uplifting economy and community in the end. But it's very much something, like you said, not exist by itself, but you have to develop it so it has a nice bottle, a marketing, a name, and all of that. I think that's the value-add also, not only the distillation itself. So going back to Nami Hana, what were the reactions of people who first tasted it or are the reactions different among people, local people and or visitors of Japan? What happened to responses? Oh, good question. Many people in Hawaii think we, the Japanese people, drink sake. So still many people don't know much about shochu, but when they come and do a tour at Uplies and do the tasting, they find out shochu is suitable for what they eat in Hawaii because Hawaii has a warm climate and they tend to eat rich-flavored food. Shochu is dry compared to sake, so shochu can be paired with rich-flavored food better compared to sake. I drink sake, so I love sake too, but sometimes what you pair with, it's very important when you drink. Going back to the shochu in Japan, and you talked about different regions even within an island about shochu, what has been the history of shochu in Japan itself? As you know, it's made a comeback last few years, actually shochu has been experienced a boom, especially among young people. Why is that? That's a good question too. Just like a few years ago in America, Hawaii, vodka was a cheap drink for blue-colored workers and stuff. Now you find a premium type of vodka with tequila. I think the same type of a train came to the shochu world. Sake was a drink of, you know, it's more expensive, used to be, and shochu was kind of cheap, drink everyday drink, but shochu producers have made a big effort to make shochu more attractive and suitable for younger generations. Now for local people, if they wanted to come to your Haliva Kura, and you have a very beautiful building and a very lush area near the ocean, how can they get in touch with you so they can arrange for a tour or just to talk to you and get more of a real flavor of how these sweet potatoes are made into? I know you have very limited times during your production period, but when are the best periods to call you up and say, how can they do that and visit you? People in Hawaii have been really supportive and amazing. We feel really grateful. I don't know how they found out about us, but we have an email address, so they sent us email requesting a tour or place orders, and then, so sending us an email. And what's the email? Our email address is K-A-L-A-S-S, oh no, my mistake, that's my personal one, K-A-L-O-I-M-O at gmail.com. K-A-L-A-M-O at gmail.com, all right, that's great, that's great, and when they come, what kind of questions do they ask about making shochu? What are they curious about? Just like I just mentioned, they don't know much about shochu, so they ask me what shochu is and how shochu is different from sake, or different from other types of shochu. So they have fundamental questions. Next slide please, Rich. Oh, what's this? I think this is mixed, I'm so sorry. Okay, let's go on to the next one. Oh, this is good. What's this? This is in the small building on the left side is our shochu distillery. Okay. This is a sweet potato farm in our backyard. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's like a farm to kura. Our good friends, local farmer, grower, they come into a place and they grow sweet potatoes for us. So this is a picture of a sweet potato. Oh, there it is, of course. Yeah, just like as I mentioned, you can find a variety of shochu, I mean the sweet potatoes in Hawaii. Over 30 varieties I heard that they already can find. So yellow one, purple one, white one, brown skin, red skin, all kinds of sweet potatoes you can find. That's amazing. Oh. Oh, small dog is our dog pet, imo. imo means sweet potato. But those big vats, that's the one that we use for fermentation process. Now how many of those vats did you bring? We have 15 of those. 15. Now that must be a tremendous issue to bring each of those vats all the way from Kagoshima. This is a picture when they arrived in Hawaii from Japan. So I'm really thankful that none of them broke. Is this the only way to make shochu in these vats? No, no, this is a traditional way of making shochu. In Japan, not so many people use these anymore because they have been replaced by the big vats, containers, stainless steel vats. Just like drinking beer or whatever. So not so many people use these anymore. Oh, interesting. So it's unique that you're in Hawaii in Haleiva making shochu, but you're making it in those vats that are very, very traditional. Right. That's two things. That makes it very unique. We wanted to bring the Japanese beautiful traditions and history along with the shochu making. Oh, that's very fascinating. Now what's the future like for you in Hawaii? Are you going to increase production? Or are you going to stay the same? Or are you going to make new types of shochu? What's your dream? My dream is to people to recognize that Hawaiian shochu is this island's spirits, spirits of aloha. And then that would be the first thing that I would like people in Hawaii to know what Hawaii can offer by using the Hawaii local ingredients. And production-wise, we are up to the max right now, just two of us. And how many bottles a year? We make about 6,000 to 7,000 bottles. And that's, from a Kagoshima viewpoint, it's very small. Oh, that's tiny, tiny. Like several weeks in Kagoshima? Yeah. And a big company can make our annual production in like a few hours. Wow. Okay, so it's really handicraft, Tezukuri shochu in many ways. But is there any other ingredient that you thought of in the future? Actually, I have already made a shochu with pineapple. Okay. Is it sweet? No, it's dry. It's dry. Okay. Shochu is always dry, right? As long as you ferment and distill it becomes dry. And how was it? Was it good? It was unique. Different. We made one too. And last year we tried with Ulu, the bread foods. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we played with them. How was that? Ulu. That was another unique thing too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Because they've always tried to make valiant products with Ulu for a long time, bread foods, because of course it disintegrates very quickly. Yeah. It can't be kept. It really falls apart. And they talked about making flowers. Any other ingredients? Besides, we've been playing with all kinds of ingredients. And besides the ingredient, we used the wood, kiabe wood, or strawberry guava wood to age our shochu too. Oh. So, you know, all the ingredients, but we wanted to use Hawaii local stuff as much as we could. No, no, when you say aged it, you mean making barrels? Or you put the wood inside that? Okay. We dip the wood into shochu and mature the shochu with the wood. Okay. So people usually put the spirits in the wood. Yeah, yeah, right. In the spirit. Okay. And that adds a more mature taste to it. It becomes like whiskey. Oh, okay, okay. A deeper flavor. It gives the wood, gives smokiness. Smokiness, yeah. All the characteristics from the wood to the shochu. Because in Scotland, they used the peat and so forth, and adds the smoke and so forth flavoring to scotch whiskey. This is a very dynamic product that you have. Thank you. And I hope that more people will visit you or turn to shochu. Is it sold only from you right now or is it sold in any stores in Hawaii? I'm so sorry, but people have been really supportive, so they come all the way to the North Shore to pick up their orders. This is very exclusive. You have to come to you to get this tremendous local shochu. Am I correct? Yes. Okay. But they get an opportunity to talk to you and see the maker of the shochu that you can't do at a store. Yeah, I'll be there to sell our shochu. Yeah, right. So this is really a community endeavor in which you are the face of your product and you're actually the maker of your product at the same time. So we're coming to the end of the show. Is there anything else you want to tell the people of Hawaii about your product? So far, Hawaii people have been really supportive and we are so grateful for what we are doing here in Hawaii, so I really appreciate it. Well, we're excited to have you on the show as an entrepreneur from far off Japan and with an apprenticeship in a very traditional kura in Kagoshima by using really Hawaii ingredients, like you said, and making a Hawaiian product. I mean, that's the name of the game and to make more products that we can really promote in our business world. I think that's a tremendous achievement, Mr. Hirata. Thank you. So this is the end of the show and we're really exploring new products every week on business in Hawaii. This is Ray Tachiyama. Thank you very much.