Many of us at The Liquid Muse get around the world a bit.  This overview of shochu is provided to us by Vanessa McGrady, a LA-based writer who also blogs at 40Licious and Art of the Find.

I’m a lucky person, it turns out. So lucky, in fact, that I was invited on a 10-day press trip to Japan, where the good folks of the Japanese External Trade Organization gave me and seven other American writers a crash course in Japanese food, drink and culture.