• Prefecture: Kochi

• Ingredients: Sparkling sake base, yuzu juice

• Style: Sparkling yuzu sake liqueur (500ml)

• Food pairings: Chilli crab, salt and pepper squid, chicken karaage, sashimi salad

• Taste: Zesty, fresh, sweet-tart, effervescent

• Alc.: 6%

A sparkling liqueur made from Bijofu sake and yuzu, which grows abundantly in Kochi's temperate climate and rich forests. Fresh yuzu greets the nose first, followed by a zesty, tangy palate and a clean, alluring citrus fragrance that lingers after each sip. A honey-like sweetness and the sourness of yuzu are well balanced, with a light savoury note from the sake base, and the fine bubbles carry it down easily. Serve well chilled, straight or on the rocks.

Keep refrigerated and open gently.

About the brewery

Hamakawa Shoten brews the Bijofu label in Kochi, using subsoil water from the Nahari River, which rises in the Yanase cedar country and which the brewery describes as among the softest brewing water in Japan. That water is easy to drink but hard to brew with, and the brewery's approach is to compensate for its weaknesses while drawing out its strengths. Alongside sake made chiefly from Toku-A Tojo Yamada Nishiki and local rice, the house produces liqueurs, including yuzu and ponkan bottlings.