Sole Mio

Spirits Distilled from Koji, Butternut Squash, and wheat

• 3 strains of koji grown in house on organic Kokuho Rose rice from CA + butternut squash from Treiber Farms + organic wheat from Oeschner Farms in NY
• 375mL
• 55% Alc. by Vol.

Suggested Serve

Into the Bottle

There are so many stories to tell with this bottle. There is the story of the koji - a mold that has been the secret powerhouse behind Eastern culinary culture - the catalyst for soy sauce, miso, mirin, sake, shochu.. Theres the story of how, through a friend of a friend, a sake brewery + laboratory representative traveled to our distillery and agreed to start selling us a newly bred brown koji strain. There’s the story of Pete Treiber and this incredible butternut squash he grew last year. They were maybe a little on the small side but big in flavor, with this glowy hue to it. We were swept away by it - buying the 200 lbs he had left without a plan in mind. And there’s the wheat - grown by a steward of rich organic New York grown grains - Thor Oeschner. We’ve been working on koji on and off for at least a year — playing with strains and substrates, the medium we use to grow the mold on. At the time, we were growing all three strains side by side on organic, heirloom kokuho rose rice grown by Koda Farms in California. We had a white strain, a black strain, and a mysterious, newly bred brown strain — which we were able to buy from a sake brewery and lab — a connection that was made for us by our local sake bar, Stirling Sake. Representatives from the lab and brewery actually came out to visit the distillery!

There is a classic style of shochu that involves koji rice, additional grain, and sweet potato. Ingredients are added slowly, over the course of weeks, in that order. We have several different bottles in the lab - they’re delicious and they taste like no other spirits we’ve had.

This is our version - it tastes like nutmeg, the late summer harvest and the sun, setting over the farm.. if sunsets can taste like such a thing.