~1.5h evening — the round trip from the gangway, with the 60-minute margin kept aside.
Six hundred years old, distilled from Thai rice with a black mould, and aged in clay. Order kusu — three years or more — and take it mizuwari. The gap between kusu and new is larger than the price suggests.
Awamori is distilled from long-grain Thai rice with black koji, a method Okinawa learned from Siam in the 15th century, which makes it Japan's oldest distilled spirit. Kusu is awamori aged at least three years; some family jars are far older. It is drunk cut with water and ice, not neat.
The one the queue agrees on, the one people who live here use instead, and the one nearest your ship. Opening days change; check before you build a day around one.
A Shuri distillery you can visit, with kusu aged at least three years. Drunk cut with water and ice, never neat.
Open in Google MapsClosest to the berthKokusai-dori awamori shops国際通り 泡盛Several shops on the main street will let you taste before you carry a bottle aboard.
Open in Google MapsEach of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare on a 6-hour stop ashore.
Each one is a finished day we have walked and timed, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
2 hr 30 min for bothPotters have worked this street since 1682, when the kingdom gathered its kilns here.
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3 hr for bothOkinawa's reef fish are the wrong colours — electric blue, parrot green, hard red.
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3 hr for bothBitter melon stir-fried with tofu, egg and pork, and thick wheat noodles in pork-and-bonito broth that contain no buckwheat at all.
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