In Okinawa, there was sake that has been nurtured and loved by the common people since the days of the Ryukyu Kingdom. That is homemade potato distilled liquor.
Imge
People familiarly called the liquor as follows. Written in kanji, it is "Imoshita". It means "common people's potato sake".
Kumesen on Kumejima
During the Ryukyu Kingdom era, awamori made by the government, which is a distilled liquor of rice, was not a liquor that ordinary people could drink on a daily basis.
Therefore, Imge made sake koji in the same way that women in each village made miso koji by devising familiar materials such as "sweet potato" and "brown sugar".
Homemade potato liquor that has always been with the lives of ordinary people during the Ryukyu Kingdom era and the Meiji era. Relatives get together, friends get together, drink, sing, and dance together.
Imge was at the center of such a feast.
Imge loved by the Ryukyu people.
However, in the latter half of the Meiji era, the sake brewing law prohibiting homebrewing was enforced, and Imge, which was made at home, suddenly went down.
And it almost disappeared in the Taisho era. Eventually, the Taisho era, Showa era, and Heisei era passed, and Imge was someday far away from people's memories.
It is no exaggeration to say that there are almost no people in Okinawa today who know their existence.
The common people's potato liquor, which can be said to be a phantom, has been revived for the first time in a century by the hands of three Awamori breweries on remote islands. Three companies will start full-scale sales at the same time
Imge arranged in the modern version
that name as well IMUGE.
If "Awamori" is the culture of the Ryukyu Kingdom, "Imge" is the culture of the overwhelming majority of the Ryukyu people. Only with these two can we talk about Okinawan sake culture.