〈Brewer's Note〉kotokatoka

We’ve made it again this year: kotokatoka.
This is a seasonal, limited-edition mead made lavishly, oh so lavishly, with strawberries from Mr. Aoki in Nara.

"Once you eat these strawberries, you can't eat any others."

That is what Yamaguchi-kun, an Osaka-based sake navigator, says. I’ve known Yamaguchi-kun for quite a long time now; in fact, after three years, we’ve reached the point where he’s even shared the secret of an incredibly delicious curry shop at Osaka Station with me.

Since that nice guy Yamaguchi-kun told me there was a truly amazing strawberry farm in Nara, we went together to see "Mr. Aoki’s Strawberry Farm." You could tell just by the atmosphere created by Mr. and Mrs. Aoki that their strawberries would be delicious. Their love for strawberries just overflows—it’s so intense you could almost see a shocking-pink aura around them.

They explained every step of their process with such care; I can only express my gratitude.
We used an abundance of their delicious, freshly picked morning strawberries. It’s a special seasonal bottle, and while the price is a bit high, I really want all the strawberry fans out there to try it.🍓

〈Yasu ⇒ Nara〉

It was about a 90-minute drive from the brewery, and I managed to reach Mr. Aoki's strawberry patch without encountering a single deer. Mr. Aoki didn't waste time with small talk and immediately began telling me all about his strawberries. It wasn't your typical sales pitch; it felt more like he was so overflowing with love that he was just forced to express it in words.

It’s got to be delicious, no doubt about it.

He grows nearly ten varieties, led by "Kotoka," a truly magnificent cultivar with a superior balance of aroma, sweetness, and acidity. He put them all in a beautiful paulownia box for us to taste.

They were all delicious, but as expected, the Kotoka variety is exceptionally intense and wonderful.
And so, it was decided that he would pick the Kotoka and other various strawberries each morning and ship them to us in batches.

"I'll leave the rest to you. Please make it delicious," he said.

That simple request is what carries the most weight. We exchanged a manly vow that we would do everything in our power, and then I headed back to Shiga.

〈Tasting Note〉
The intense, yet purely natural aroma of strawberries blends with the warm ester notes derived from the yeast, creating a profile that feels both elegant and distinctly strawberry.

The reason you can strongly sense the honey in the aroma is because we mixed in a little orange honey for the finish. We tried to express the essence of strawberries, where the balance of acidity and sweetness is key.

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Style: Fruited Sour Sparkling Mead / Melomel

ABV: 8%

Carbonation: Yes

Volume: 500ml

Ingredients: Honey (Myanmar), Strawberries (Mr. Aoki’s Strawberry Farm, Nara)

Sweetness (10-point scale): 5 (Semi-Sweet)

Serving temperature: Serve well-chilled (4-8°C)

〈Mead making〉
Mr. Aoki picks the best strawberries of the day each morning. He never forces the picking; he only harvests what is best that day, and as he sent them to us in multiple shipments every week, we added them to the fermenter batch by batch.

Logically speaking, this meant the yeast was regularly supplied with strawberry nutrients, so the fermentation went very smoothly, allowing us to release it sooner than expected.

〈Naming〉

kotokatoka
The name is straightforward—we wanted to convey that this mead is packed not just with Kotoka, but with many other delicious varieties.
But at the same time, I couldn't forget the excitement I felt when I first tasted Kotoka, or the almost fanatical love Yamaguchi has for it—the way he’d go, "Is this Kotoka? Is this really Kotoka?"—so I made Kotoka the centerpiece of the name.