Top 50 Best Bars awarded SG Group releases a new Shochu style Series, ready to hit the world!

March 2020 saw the release of a new Shochu Series made by SG GROUP and for the best bartenders in the world further to recent interest and approach to this love-hate drink that actually ranks number 1 in liquor sales in Japan.

Shingo Gokan, the visual face behind the SG Group (SG Management Tokyo Co., Ltd.) and founder, which develops and operates and innoavtes top bars in Japan and overseas, and for those unaware of this group, in last year Top World’s 50 Best Bars awards they manage to list 3 places in the 2019 ranking, if just the fact of listing one bar it is a extremely hard task, they struck the epic 3 listings at once, no words.

Shochu ranks number 1 in liquor sales in Japan.

The SG Club (Tokyo) The World’s 50 Best Bars 24th / Asia’s 50 Best Bars 13th (2019)
Speak Low (Shanghai) The World ’s 50 Best Bars 35th / Asia ’s 50 Best Bars Top 10 for 4 consecutive years
Sober Company (Shanghai) The World ’s 50 Best Bars 45th / Asia ’s 50 Best Bars 16th (2019)

Like many top bartenders, at some point of their careers, they tend to get an itch for creating their own labels or spirits, and in the end curiosity is a skill that only Top Bartenders possess within their personalities, to stay on top you have to innovate and go beyond what others can simply not, and this is what sets apart Shingo Gokan form the rest, his eager curiosity as well as his passion and dedication for his industry.

The SG Shochu is here to reimagine “shochu,” a deeply flavourful single distilled spirit with a vast history and diversity.

Our recent section Discover Shochu highlights some of the basics and the reasons behind why it’s captivating more and more bartenders around the world, if you happen to be connected with Japan, very likely you are aware of the hidden gems and wonders of this drink, however if you are just novice to it and simply have n ot heard, it is about time you start putting into practise your researching skills and study a bit about it, as a simply boom, it’s about to happen.

And that it what Shingo Gokan must have foreseen when they went into a collaboration with 3 top Shochu industry distillers in Japan to create a Honkaku type of SG SHOCHU Series and recently saw them launching KOME (rice), IMO (sweet potato), MUGI (barley).

Some of the challenges that shochu portrays within the bartenders is the lower volume of alcohol, due to honkaku type Shochu being distilled just once, hence the difficulty of introducing it as a base for any cocktails, in Japan this type of Shochu are mainly drunk on the rocks or Mizu-wari (water-added), so if someone is up to the challenge of changing this, it’s the SG Group and the energy to innovate an spread the word.

Shochu tends to be an underrated spirit that needs time and nurturing within the bar industry to get it into the spotlight, but letting it into the wrong hands and people with almost no knowledge is something the industry should avoid to prevent off-putting bartenders minds, therefore Jetro here plays a crucial role in times ahead to start kicking some marketing campaigns off the ground for this spirit, in the end, believe it or not, it is the national drink with centuries long history behind, so it is about time innovation, energy and word-spread collide to boost this magical drink.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Shingo Gokan: Instagram
Speak Low: Instagram
Sober Company: Instagram
The SG Club: Instagram
The SG Shochu: Instagram

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