Nihon Chomiryo Tabi
Yamaroku Tsurubishio Shoyu (ヤマロク醤油 鶴醤)
Stories about this bottle
The story behind it
Shodoshima is the home of kioke (wooden barrel) shoyu brewing. Of the few thousand brewing barrels left in all of Japan, roughly 1,000 are on this one island.
Yamaroku Shoyu's Tsurubishio is a saishikomi (brewed twice, with shoyu instead of brine) shoyu made in those barrels. Raw shoyu brewed over 1 to 2 years is used in place of the salt water, then returned to the kioke together with soybeans and wheat. Twice the ingredients, and roughly 4 years of waiting. At the end of all that labor comes a thick, syrupy savoriness.
Yasuo Yamamoto, the fifth-generation owner, launched the Kioke Craftsman Revival Project to keep the barrel-making craft from disappearing. Protecting shoyu means protecting the barrels. Behind one bottle is a plan for the island's next hundred years.
How to use it
It shows its best as a finishing or dipping shoyu: sashimi, chilled tofu, rice with raw egg. A few drops at the end change how a dish lingers. It is also well known poured over vanilla ice cream.