Shingo Gokan and The SG Shochu MUGI
February 14, 2020. It was Shingo Gokan’s 37th birthday. The bartender had won the Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition, been named International Bartender of the Year at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards, and now leads SG Group, which operates more than a dozen bars across Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, New York, and Madrid. For his birthday, he chose to release a new shochu brand. This was not a mere coincidence, but an answer to a question he had contemplated for years from behind bar counters around the world.
The Era When Shochu “Didn’t Work”
The history of honkaku shochu stretches back more than 500 years. Rooted in the land of Kyushu, its single-distillation technique is the crystallization of Japan’s unique fermentation culture and distilling craft. In December 2024, Japan’s “traditional sake brewing,” including shochu production, was inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Despite this profound heritage, honkaku shochu remained largely undiscovered within the global cocktail scene for many years.
The problem was structural. Traditional honkaku shochu typically sits at 20 to 25% ABV. Faced with dilution from ice and the strong personalities of other ingredients, it lost its power; the aroma of barley and the umami from koji disappeared before they could fully reach the glass. Even at the bars of New York, where Gokan spent nearly a decade, Japanese shochu was little more than a footnote on the menu.
Imagining the Cocktail First, Then Working Backward to the Spirit
“After years of searching for the perfect, expressive spirit, the answer I arrived at was in my own home country.”
The production philosophy behind The SG Shochu MUGI is consistent: start with the finished cocktail, then work backward to create the base spirit. Made with 100% barley, the fermented mash is produced using koji made with white koji mold, which generates citric acid. It is then distilled in two ways: atmospheric distillation, which brings out deep richness and body, and vacuum distillation, which extracts lighter, more floral components. The resulting spirits are aged separately in three types of vessels—American white oak barrels, sherry butts, and stainless-steel tanks. These distinct component spirits are then blended with precision to achieve a harmonious master blend.
It presents a sophisticated duality: the complex profile of a brown spirit, accented by notes of cacao, vanilla, and oak, alongside the intrinsic character of a Japanese spirit defined by barley and koji. This duality gives MUGI a rare versatility: a single bottle capable of standing in for both whiskey and gin.
At bottling, the alcohol content is 40% ABV, on par with whiskey and gin. While many traditional honkaku shochu sit around 25%, this higher strength gives MUGI the structure to withstand virtually any bartending technique. Production was handled by Sanwa Shurui Co., Ltd. in Usa, Oita Prefecture, known for its barley shochu Iichiko. Born from a collaboration between a world-class bartender and one of Japan’s leading barley shochu distilleries, MUGI went on to win a gold medal at the 2021 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
“The Next Mezcal”
Soon after its release, the global spread of COVID-19 struck the bar industry worldwide. Yet Gokan made use of government export-promotion support to send bottles to 200 top bartenders around the world, successfully raising awareness of MUGI through social media. The difficult circumstances, in the end, became the very catalyst that helped this spirit’s reputation spread globally.
“Ten years ago, almost no bartenders in Asia knew what a Mezcal Margarita was. Now it’s common knowledge. Shochu has 500 years of history. Next, it’s shochu’s turn,” Gokan says.
In 2025, exports of honkaku shochu rose 16% year on year to a record high, and global awareness of shochu as a category has been steadily growing. In Bangkok, too, opportunities to encounter the story of this shochu are beginning to expand in places such as KOUJI ALCHEMIST by salon du japonisant, where cocktail culture can be explored in depth. As shown by Sawadee-Cup, the official cocktail Gokan created from the Thai greeting “sawasdee krab,” MUGI was also a bottle designed from the beginning with dialogue across Asia in mind.
Such is the depth of narrative distilled into a single bottle of MUGI.
Five hundred years of single-distillation history, crossed with the backward-thinking approach of a bartender who conquered the world. Born at this intersection of tradition and modern mixology, MUGI represents an evolving chapter for shochu, as its heritage begins to resonate on the global stage. (Mr. Bacchus)
This article is intended solely to explore the distillation techniques and cultural heritage of Sanwa Shurui Co., Ltd. and the SG Shochu brand, and does not aim to promote or encourage the consumption of alcohol. / บทความนี้จัดทำขึ้นเพื่อนำเสนอข้อมูลเกี่ยวกับเทคนิคการกลั่นและมรดกทางวัฒนธรรมของ Sanwa Shurui Co., Ltd. และแบรนด์ The SG Shochu เท่านั้น มิได้มีเจตนาเพื่อส่งเสริมหรือโฆษณาเครื่องดื่มแอลกอฮอล์ สำหรับผู้มีอายุ 20 ปีขึ้นไป โปรดดื่มอย่างรับผิดชอบ