Co-founded by Yoshie Kakimoto and husband Chandrakant Mohanty, Mizunara promotes unique Japanese spirits and cocktail craft in Hong Kong
Yoshie Kakimoto introduced shochu to the Hong Kong drinks market a decade ago, anticipating a feverish love for the Japanese distilled liquor and drinking culture in the city.
Made from sweet potato, barley, rice, and buckwheat, shochu is consumed more than sake domestically in Japan, also growing in popularity overseas.
When the southern Japanese native joined her husband, Chandrakant Mohanty, to open Japanese cocktail bar Mizunara: The Library nine years ago, Yoshie saw great potential to inaugurate shochu’s powerful flavours within the chic Wan Chai venue.
“At Mizunara, it was the perfect place to introduce my hometown’s [Kagoshima] distilled spirit of shochu to Hong Kong’s bar scene,” Yoshie shares in a Zoom interview. The clear spirit is ubiquitous in Kagoshima, one of four Japanese regions designated with protected status in distilling the liquor.
Yoshie and Chandrakant can be seen as leading figures in promoting shochu to Hong Kong. Stocking products from a handful of Kagoshima’s 113 distilleries at Mizunara: The Library and their whisky and spirit store Mizunara: The Shop, shochu can be served and appreciated in various forms, as compared to sake. The pair began distributing to Singapore in 2023, with similar efforts educating the Lion City.
“We typically enjoy shochu with hot water and cold water in the summer. Served with carbonated soda water is also popular. The locals enjoy drinking it during their meal.”
The shochu market was nonexistent 10 years ago, when Yoshie began importing the liquor. Today, shochu is gaining popularity, helped on by Mizunara’s rise in regard with Hong Kongers seeking a kiss of Japan when they are unable to travel to the country.
Hidden deep inside a 1970s Wan Chai building, the Japanese craft cocktail bar is an escape from Hong Kong to a zen and artisanal Japanese world.
Led by head bartender Massimo Petovello, Mizunara stocks more than 700 Japanese, Scottish, American, and Taiwanese whisky bottles, alongside a curated selection of shochu from Kagoshima and sake from neighbouring Japanese prefectures.
In classic Japanese fashion, the cocktail curation at Mizunara is obsessive, with deft attention paid to perfecting the drinks’ flavour profiles. The bar is dressed in oaky brown colours, matching the essence of a high-class Ginza bar in Tokyo. Mizunara’s zen garden, located on the bar’s outdoor patio, transports customers to the Land of the Rising Sun.
“We have run Mizunara for nine years, and we feel that we are giving an authentic Japanese bar [experience] to Hong Kong. You can’t find this atmosphere in Hong Kong. [The bar] is a great stage to introduce new spirits that Hong Kong may not have encountered, created with authentic Japanese drinks.”
Compared to other Japanese distilled or fermented liquors, shochu is entirely crafted from natural ingredients. Made from sweet potato, barley, and rice, amongst the most popular varieties, the liquor is created through complex atmospheric and vacuum distillation processes that package the sweet and earthy notes found within its body.
Located in Wong Chuk Hang, Mizunara: The Shop stocks one of Hong Kong’s largest collections of shochu and Japanese whisky, rum, sake, and gin. Opened originally as an online store in 2015, the couple distribute and supply venues citywide with imported distilled spirits from their “showroom exhibiting true Japanese drinking”.
Beyond their foothold in Hong Kong’s Japanese drinks scene, Yoshie runs a tour agency in Japan, hosting trips to Kagoshima to introduce foreign visitors to the local shochu culture, visiting distilleries to learn about the culture and history of the liquor.
Since 2021, Yoshie and Chandrakant have produced their own label of The Hachi Shochu from several distilleries in Japan. Sold at the shop and bar, the barrel-aged shochu brings a rarefied oaky flavour to the palate.
Entering into their tenth year of operating the Mizunara brand and promoting shochu in Hong Kong, the couple are continuing their mission to educate and serve. From early summer this year, Mizunara’s Tokyo location will open, introducing “the brand concept as a real, authentic Japanese bar” and completing the full circle of Yoshie’s spirits journey.
Mizunara: The Library is open from 6PM to 2AM Monday through Saturday to serve you a taste of shochu and Japanese cocktails.
