4 Years Matured Mirin (Isshi Soden) – The Special Made Ogasawara Mirin 600ml

Making Mirin in Early Spring, Performed by a Small Number of Elite People

Before shipping, mirin is roughly divided into koji making, preparation, saccharification, squeezing, and aging manufacturing processes. Koji making and preparation are the most important tasks that affect the taste of mirin produced that year.

Koji-making and preparation work will be done around March. During this period, when the average temperature is around 15 degrees Celsius, glutinous rice is saccharified, and the sweetness of mirin increases.

Work starts at 5 o'clock in the early morning before the sun rises. Even in early spring, the brewery is chilly, and just standing up deprives their toes of body temperature. Before the scheduled time, Mr. Ogasawara and several craftsmen had already gathered at the brewery. When human resources are needed, they invite people to help only during preparation.

Raw Mirin That Made Through Manual Work

Hekinan City, Aichi Prefecture, has been brewing mirin since the latter half of the 1700s, but now the number of breweries has decreased to four. Ogasawara Mirin Brewery is a brewery that provides "the real" mirin through manual work, although it has only two employees, the representative couple.

Ogasawara Mirin Brewery produces "raw mirin", which has a small number of viable bacteria and does not require heat sterilization. It features a mellow flavor and an elegant sweetness.

Ogasawara Mirin is made possible only by careful old-fashioned manual work, 100% domestic ingredients, and careful hygiene management. Still, Mr. Ogasawara says, "I'm just doing the obvious things".

Mirin, which requires a temperature of about 20 degrees Celsius during the brewing season, is brewed in spring and autumn, unlike sake brewed in the cold season. Ogasawara Mirin Brewery is brewed every spring, but the amount is only 6 in a tank of about 5,000 liters. It doesn't make much more, so it doesn't hit the market much. Some people come to buy from afar, saying, "I like the one from here".

"Isshi Soden" is made from domestically produced mirin and has a particularly fragrant raw mirin. The sweetness is intense, and the aroma of shochu spreads softly, giving it an elegant taste that makes Shaoxing wine mellow. Even using only a small amount seems to enhance the dish's deliciousness.

How to Use Mirin?

Hon Mirin as Condiment

Mirin is popular to use for making nimono (simmered dish), and many other Japanese cuisines.

As we know, mirin is familiar as an essential condiment for Japanese cuisine.

Every Japanese household will always stock a bottle of mirin because mirin’s subtle sweetness is suitable for almost every dish. It is no exaggeration to say that mirin is an irreplaceable taste for Japanese cuisine.

If you are interested to add authentic Japanese taste in your cooking, consider mirin as a must-have condiment.

Hon Mirin as Liquor

Mirin was originally meant for drinking around the Edo Period before replaced with sake.

Mirin as liquor was actually derived from its own history.

Mirin was originally meant for drinking as a high-end sweet liquor that even women could enjoy before being replaced with Japanese sake at the end of the Edo Period (the 1800s).

However, the taste of the mirin those days seemed not so sweet as today’s mirin. That is because there was no technique to create rice malt (rice koji), which become the reason behind the mirin’s sweetness.

The traditionally made hon mirin can still be enjoyed as a liquor, even after mirin used as a condiment and few other types of mirin established.

You can find some bar or restaurant that serves hon mirin in Japan. For instance, a long-established bar in Kyoto serves hon mirin as a liquor to their customers. Proofing that hon mirin also delicious to enjoy as a liquor even now.

Yakitori (Japanese Grilled Chicken)

Yakitori is a Japanese dish of chicken pieces grilled on a skewer (mainly chicken meat, but there are other meat and vegetables, too). Yakitori is usually served with flavorful soy and rice wine dipping sauce called tare. Japanese usually enjoys eating yakitori with beers.

Ingredients

• ⅔ cup Soy sauce
• ½ cup Water
• 2 tbsp Mirin
• 2 tbsp Rice vinegar
• ⅔ tbsp Light brown sugar
• 1 tbsp Ginger, minced

How to Make

1. Remove the skin and fat from the chicken thigh, cut into 2 cm squares, then skewer the chicken.
2. Combine the all the ingredients for seasonings.
3. Heat the frying pan over medium heat and add yakitori. Bake for 2 minutes and brown. Flip to another side.
4. Close the lid and heat on low heat for 5 minutes to cook the chicken.
5. Once baked, place it on a plate.
6. Boil the seasoning ingredients on medium heat until the smell come out
7. Put the yakitori to the frying pan.
8. When the sauce is boiled down, it becomes more shiny and thicker, and the color becomes darker like caramel. Quickly flip both sides of the yakitori and turn off the heat.
9. Keep an eye on it as it is easy to burn at the end.
10. Serve on a plate, drizzle with the sauce left on the frying pan, and sprinkle with shichimi pepper if you like.

Japanese Eggplant Recipe

Nasu no Nimono. Japanese Simmered Eggplant Recipe that you must try at home. It's time to challenges yourself and make your own "Mugen Nasu"!

Ingredients

• 3 or 4 Eggplant
• 2 tbsp Vinegar (Optional)
• Olive Oil

Nimono Sauce/Stocks

• 1½ tbsp Mirin
• 1 tbsp Dashi
• 1 tbsp Shoyu
• 1 tbsp Sugar

How to Make

1. Wash the Eggplants and cut it into half (vertically).
2. Score the skin of the eggplants. (Avoid cutting too deep!)
3. Add 2 tablespoon of vinegar into a bowl of water, simmer the eggplants into that bowl of vinegar for about one minute. (This is to prevent eggplants against oxidation, but this is optional.)
4. Pour some oil into the pan, place the eggplants' skin down to the pan with medium heat. Heat both side evenly for around 4-5 minutes.
5. While cooking for eggplants, mix all the ingredients for Nimono sauce/Stock together and put it aside.
6. Cook the Nimono Sauce/Stocks by pouring into the pan until it start boiling.
   Then, cover with lid and simmer it with low heat for 8-10 minutes.

Related Article

Hon Mirin: The Real Deal Japanese Sweet Rice Wine

Hon Mirin is one type of mirin, which has the best quality of all.
Hon mirin not only can be used as a condiment,but it is also delicious to drink as a liquor.
What is the difference between hon mirin and other mirin?
We will discover thoroughly about hon mirin in this article, so please check it out!

Message from Ogasawara Mirin Brewery - The Mirin Producers

What we do in the Ogasawara Mirin Brewery - "Isshi Soden":
1. Use only domestic rice as raw material
2. Use the handmade koji
3. Use the natural sedimentation process
4. Any heating process is not performed because it is row mirin.
Therefore, this product has a mellow flavor and sweetness. It is mirin that is delicious even if you drink it.

We support the "Food Safety" issue so that problems such as contamination of foreign matter and microbial contamination don't occur. We are also trying to make a manufacturing place that doesn't allow compromise, so we have refused any entry except for the brewer itself at the time of brewing.

This is not the usual mirin you could find. First of all, we would like you to try to drink it a bit. While trying to drink it, please remember that we made the mirin with many hardships. The manufacturing process is considered to take irrational time and labor. It is manufactured by the Ogasawara method, which continues from the ancestors. Sometimes, the manufacturing process takes several days, so we have to sacrifice our sleep. Lastly, we are securing the domestically produced glutinous rice as our material in an optimum way. These are some difficulties we faced.

But we will smile when we see the completion of the product. That's why we will make it again next year.

- The Representative of Ogasawara Mirin Brewery

Product Details
Quantity	600ml
Alcohol Content	13.5% ~ 14.5%
Ingredients	glutinous rice, rice koji, shochu
% of Mirin Extracts Remaining After	45% or more
Shelf Life	about 1 year