The difference between Sake and Honkaku Shochu

Since the last English version of the content was popular, I decided to write the second English version of the content.

The theme of this time is about the difference between Sake and Honkaku Shochu.

To put it briefly…

Sake is alcoholic fermented alcoholic beverage made with 100% rice.

Honkaku Shochu is a distilled liquor made from potato, barley , rice, brown sugar and the like.

More specifically,

Sake：First, Koji mold transforms starch contained in rice into sugar. And yeast transform sugar into alcohol.

Honkaku Shochu：First, koji mold turns starch contained in rice and barley into sugar in the primary process. And yeast transform sugar into alcohol. Then add raw materials such as sweet potato, barley, rice, brown sugar and so on in the secondary process and distill it only once.

Sake

「Rice (starch)」 + 「Koji mold」＝「Sugar」 ⇒

「Sugar」 + 「Yeast」＝「Alcohol」 ⇒ Sake

Honkaku Shochu

「Rice (starch)」or「barley (starch)」 + 「Koji mold」＝「Sugar」 ⇒

「Sugar」 + 「Yeast」+ 「sweet potato, barley, rice, brown sugar and so on」＝

「Alcohol」 ⇒ 「To distill」 ⇒ Honkaku Shochu

（☟Sweet potato Shochu is made from local Kyushu fresh sweet potatoes！！）

As Sake does not distill, it contains sugar and has low alcohol content.

Because Honkaku Shochu is distilled, there is no sugar, it is characterized by high alcohol content.

Also, since Honkaku Shochu has a single distillation number, the taste of raw materials (potatoes, wheat, rice, brown sugar) is also felt firmly, which is also a major feature.

Supplementary

Distillation is to utilize the difference between the boiling point of water (100 ° C) and the boiling point of alcohol (78.3 ° C) and convert the alcohol content to steam by applying heat.
And distilled liquor is the liquid obtained by cooling alcohol which became gaseous.

Next time I will explain the difference between Soju and Honkaku Shochu！！