Jizake-dokoro Tachibana Liquor shop

For Japanese people who live outside of Japan, sake is one of those items on top of the shopping list when they come back to Japan. It makes a great souvenir, enhancing your meal as well as adding a little magic to your time with your family and friends.

Sake is brewed all over in Japan, with each region and producer creating its own flavour. It’s such a pleasure when purchasing some bottles to find your favourite brand. It’s a similar idea to what Americans, Australians and European connoisseurs experience when they find their favourite wines.

Jizake-dokoro Tachibana Liquor Shop sources selected sakes directly from producers in Kumamoto and other prefectures. You would be excited when you see their huge variety of stock, starting from sake from Kumamoto such as Reizan, Ubuyama-mura and Taito, as well as Hakkaisan, Koshino Kanbai, Dassai and Dewazakura from other prefectures. They also stock Shochu such as Ubuyama-mura and Hyakunen no Kodoku, as well as wines from Japan and overseas. You could take quite a while to make your selection. On their website they say that they don’t sell online as they prefer to “serve our customers directly with our selected items”. So if you talk with them, “I love this type of sake…,” they would definitely give some recommendations. Even if you don’t travel all over Japan, you should be able to find your favourite brands here.

The shop has a high ceiling, with white walls and wood coloured shelves. An array of bottles is a part of their interior display. There is a walk-in fridge at the back of the building for ginjo-shu flavoured sake and wines. The salon is located next to the cashier and you’d find brochures as well as books for sale. From this labour of love we can see the passion of the owner for sake.

Accessing here by car is driving on the Hamasen Bypass southbound from the city and passing the Higashi Bypass intersection. The car park is spacious and it’s easy to turn into the shop from the bypass. They re-opened the shop only ten days after Kumamoto Earthquake. We’d like to support the shop by visiting there.