N2 · terroir / geographical indication
Shochu
- Location
- Japan
- Protection
- Regulated sales denomination, with no link to origin
- Validation
- Seed entryawaiting the scholarly board
Not a geographical indication: shōchū is a category of the Japanese Liquor Tax Act (酒税法, Art. 3, 9° and 10°), defined by its raw materials and its distillation, with no link to a region. Four shōchū bear a Japanese geographical indication that the Union has protected since 1 February 2019 under the Agreement between the European Union and Japan for an Economic Partnership (Arts 14.24 and 14.25, Annex 14-B): Iki, Kuma, Ryukyu — Okinawan awamori — and Satsuma. This protection stems from the Agreement, not from registration: none of them appears in eAmbrosia. The fifth, Tokyo Shimazake (Izu Islands, 2024), is not in the Annex. The Atlas once carried « Shochu de Kyushu », which matches no geographical indication.
Not every well-known name is a geographical indication. Some are protected by an agreement between states, others by a national appellation that the European register does not carry over, others still describe only a method of production with no link to a place. The difference is not cosmetic: only a geographical indication delimits an area, imposes a product specification and is subject to control. The Atlas keeps these entries, because a museum cannot ignore bourbon or mezcal, but it says what they are.
The distilleries of this area
A survey of the producers in this area is under way. This level of the corpus — the distillery, its history, its equipment, its archives — is the Atlas's next documentary undertaking. You can help with it.
Sources and validation
- Sources of the corpus
- Names and statuses: eAmbrosia, the official register of geographical indications of the European Union. Geometries: INAO, Délimitation des aires géographiques des SIQO (27/07/2026), Licence Ouverte v2.0, reprojected to WGS84.
- Corpus updated on
- 1 August 2026
- Validation
- Seed entry Corpus under construction. Each entry is checked and sourced before validation by the future scholarly board. Protection status and mode of location are carried by each entry: an area delimited by a product specification and a reference-town point do not carry the same weight.