SLEEPY ELEPHANT 22
A long-aged blend, not a single-age spirit: SLEEPY ELEPHANT combines rice-shochu components aged for twenty-two and forty-one years. A trace of dietary fibre preserves the cask colour within the liqueur category, leaving the long time in wood visible.
Twenty-two years alongside forty-one
SLEEPY ELEPHANT is made from a long-aged blend: a twenty-two-year component is combined with a forty-one-year component. The “22” therefore indicates the youngest stated age, not a single-origin or single-age bottling.
A category chosen for the expression
The added dietary fibre is used to retain the cask-derived colour and aroma while the product is classified as a liqueur. The base remains long-aged rice shochu.
Four directions from 22 and 41 years
SLEEPY ELEPHANT layers a 41-year aged spirit onto a 22-year aged rice-shochu base — two spans of time held together in one bottle. Using its recorded barrel-derived color and aroma as a guide, four directions for pairing are read out below. These are not pairings the brewery has officially presented; they are readings drawn from the recorded characteristics.
This pairing rationale draws on the following reference book: The idea of aligning a dish’s weight and aromatic direction follows the “harmony” perspective in Motohiro Okoshi’s Logical Pairing. Pairing barrel aroma with shellfish and crustaceans draws on food-pairing theory’s focus on shared aromatic compounds — the same logic behind the classic cognac-and-oyster pairing.
Makurazaki, Kagoshima — Satsuma Shuzo
Satsuma Shuzo was founded in 1936 in Makurazaki, Kagoshima. Its long-aged programmes are supported by an in-house team of coopers, a cooperage and cask warehouses—an infrastructure that lets the house care for shochu across long spans of time.
For current-lot specifications, availability, storage requirements and trade terms, please contact Bacchus Global.
