Sales of the drink soar as distillers target a whole new market

The setting is unmistakably Japanese: a mountainous backdrop and, out of view but menacingly close, an active volcano. And nestling amid barren rice paddies seeing out the winter, a distillery producing a spirit whose roots lie far from rural Kagoshima.

The administrative district on Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu is famed for shochu, a spirit, often made with sweet potatoes or barley, that has sustained family-run businesses here for centuries.