From Kanegasaki Town! "Barrel-aged ONI no amaro KZ" is a medicinal herb liquor made with Iwate rice shochu and Japanese ingredients

"Barrel-aged ONI no amaro KZ," a herbal liqueur with an eye-catching label featuring a demon mask from "Onikenbai," a traditional performing art centered in Kitakami City, Iwate Prefecture, is produced by Kanegasaki Herbal Liquor Brewery in Kanegasaki Town, Iwate Prefecture, which manufactures various plant-derived liqueurs .

We tried out herbal liquor, a type of alcohol that is not very familiar to the general public, to see what it's like!

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Amaro is a liqueur native to Italy

"Amaro" means "bitter" in Italian , and it is a general term for traditional liqueurs with a bitter taste that have been mainly produced in Italy.

The alcohol content is approximately 16-40% (depending on the brand), and is made by steeping various herbs, roots, bark, spices, etc. in spirits to extract flavor, and then adjusting the sugar content after aging

In Italy, this drink has been enjoyed for many years as an aperitif to stimulate appetite with its bitterness and as a digestif to aid digestion . In Japan, it might be comparable to a health tonic like Yomeishu.

The name "Amaro" might not be very familiar, but apparently, common"Campari"and"Aperol"are also types of Amaro. Considering that, many people may have actually tried it in cocktails.

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"ONI no amaro KZ" is a purely Japanese amaro

"ONI no amaro KZ"is made using the traditional amaro method but with Japanese ingredients. The base spirit is rice shochu from Iwate Prefecture, and the herbs include mainly Japanese plants such as kuromoji, shiso, kihada, and chrysanthemum, with ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, and wormwood added.

The resulting raw spirit is then aged in American whiskey barrels, which adds a mellow, sweet aroma reminiscent of vanilla and honey

The unique taste of herbal liqueur is something that people either love or hate when drunk on the rocks or straight, but its moderate bitterness and refreshing botanical taste make it the perfect drink for a hot summer day if mixed with lots of ice and soda

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Kanegasaki Herbal Liqueur Factory

Kanegasaki Yakusou Shuzo, the company behind ONI no amaro KZ , is the liquor brewing division of its parent company, KSP Co., Ltd., and manufactures a variety of liqueurs.

In addition to Amaro, we also produce a variety of other Japanese botanical liqueurs, such as "Waka," a Japanese herbal liqueur that expresses the four seasons of Japan by mixing in ingredients other than herbs, such as vegetables and fruits, and "Chashu Kuwanokida 30," which uses Saraki mulberry tea and Ise roasted green tea .

Furthermore, the company's agricultural division,"KSP Herb Farm,"operates a herb garden where it cultivates approximately 50 different types of herbs that are used as ingredients for these liqueurs, and the company handles everything from raw material production to liqueur manufacturing in-house.

Kanegasaki Herbal Sake Brewery <Information>

• Name: Kanegasaki Herbal Brewery (KSP Co., Ltd.)
• Address: 30 Nishine Shimo Kuwanokida, Kanegasaki-cho, Isawa-gun, Iwate Prefecture, 029-4503
• Phone number: 080-4510-4636
• Official URL:https://www.kspyakusou.com/

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