Kusu (aged awamori)

The rules are strict now. Since 1 August 2015 a bottle labelled 古酒 must contain only awamori aged three years or more, and a stated age such as five or ten years must be true of everything in the bottle, so a blend shows the age of its youngest part. Awamori blended with 10% or more kusu may be sold as a blended spirit if the label states the kusu share. Before that date, a bottle needed only a little over half aged spirit to be called kusu.

Shitsugi is how old kusu stays alive. A household kept a row of numbered jars, with the oldest spirit in jar No. 1. When they drew from it for a guest, they topped it up from No. 2, refilled No. 2 from No. 3, and so on down the line, so the spirit kept maturing and held its aroma. Before the war, Okinawan homes kept 100- and 200-year-old kusu as treasures, and nearly all of it was destroyed in the fighting. The oldest known kusu today is about 150 years old. Shikina Shuzo found its jars after a search of the ruined site, and it is not for sale.

The rebuilding takes generations. A group founded in 1997 lays down about 300 isshobin of awamori a year to open in 100 years, and more than 8,000 people have joined. In Naha's awamori bars you can taste kusu by age: Urizun ages its own house kusu in clay jars, and Shima Bar AWAMORI+ pours ten-year Tamayuki.