“You Should Go and Do Your Best Somewhere Else” — President Norihisa Komasa of Komasa Brewery on Coming Home to the Family Business (Kagoshima, Japan)

2026.10.05

In short: an interview with Norihisa Komasa, president of Komasa Brewery — the shochu brewery founded in 1883 in Hioki, Kagoshima, Japan, behind Kanosuke Distillery. Raised being told “You should go and do your best somewhere else,” he left home, then came back to repay the company; he insisted “If we have to hide shochu, we shouldn’t do it at all”; and he values “Let’s all do it together.” By Mika Tanimoto, owner of Bar Little Happiness in Hiroshima.

Kanosuke Distillery has another president.

Put that way, it may sound a little strange.

To be precise, the president and representative director of Kanosuke Distillery is Yoshitsugu Komasa.

And the president and representative director of Komasa Brewery Co., Ltd., the parent of Kanosuke Distillery, is Yoshitsugu-san’s younger brother, President Norihisa Komasa.

Komasa Brewery is a shochu brewery founded in 1883.

Kanosuke Distillery was established from it as the company in charge of the Western spirits business, and is now a separate company from Komasa Brewery.

In other words, the more you learn about Kanosuke Distillery, the more the company “Komasa Brewery” always appears in the background.

And leading Komasa Brewery is President Norihisa.

“What kind of person is the younger brother?”

Looking him up, there are plenty of interviews and articles about the older brother, President Yoshitsugu, including about Kanosuke Distillery.

But about President Norihisa, there is surprisingly little information.

Then my bad habit kicks in.

“I want to ask him myself.”

That’s what I ended up thinking.

We had never met.

Even so, I contacted him out of the blue.

President Norihisa welcomed me warmly.

And so I headed to Kagoshima.

To hear about KOMASA RUM.

…And even more than that,

to hear the story of a man named Norihisa Komasa.

---

It was a clear day.

The Kagoshima sun was beating down.

Komasa Brewery’s Hioki Distillery.

In the wide space, sweet potatoes waiting to be processed were lined up, and big machines were running.

As I walked, staff passing by greeted me with a smile:

“Konnichiwa.”

And another.

“Konnichiwa.”

I visit all kinds of distilleries.

And there is always an “atmosphere” you feel there.

It’s hard to put into words, but I think the air of a place shows in the faces of the people who work there, the way they greet you, and the distance between people.

What I felt at Hioki Distillery that day was a very gentle atmosphere.

And somehow, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I didn’t yet know why.

---

Starting with KOMASA RUM

That day, I came to hear about KOMASA RUM.

Kikuchi-san looked after me.

How the rum was born.

What raw materials they use, and what thinking goes into making it.

Kikuchi-san had prepared very thorough materials.

I was apparently the first person to come and ask about KOMASA RUM.

Listening to the story of the rum itself, I paid attention, wanting to know what lay behind the words.

Partway through, President Komasa joined the conversation.

“Well, you see…”

He added the company’s history and the background.

Little by little, Komasa Brewery itself came into view.

Why did KOMASA RUM become this kind of rum?

Behind it was the long road Komasa Brewery had walked.

▶️ I wrote about KOMASA RUM in detail in this article.

But what I most wanted to know that day lay beyond that.

“What kind of person is President Norihisa Komasa himself?”

But the time for my next appointment was approaching.

The next appointment was Kanosuke Distillery.

“I still haven’t been able to ask what I most wanted to ask!!”

“I’ll drive you,”

President Norihisa offered.

I got into the passenger seat.

It isn’t far from Hioki Distillery to Kanosuke Distillery.

Which meant the time to ask was limited.

As the car pulled away, I asked my questions one by one.

Then President Norihisa began to speak, slowly.

From here on is President Norihisa’s story, not written anywhere else.

---

“You should go and do your best somewhere else”

President Norihisa was born into the founding family.

But it was his older brother who was expected to take over.

In fact, from childhood, he grew up being told,

“You should go and do your best somewhere else.”

That’s what he was told.

The older brother takes over.

The younger brother goes out.

That was decided from childhood.

“Children are sensitive,”

President Norihisa says.

They don’t just take their parents’ words at face value.

In their own way, they think about what lies behind those words.

And so,

“Maybe nothing is expected of me.”

He came to feel that way.

By junior high school, he says, even being in that house felt uncomfortable.

Then he dropped out of high school.

He learned about the world working part-time as a scaffolder.

Around then, his older brother said to him,

“Are you fine staying a frog in a well like this?”

he was told.

Those words led him to take the high school equivalency exam and go to university in Tokyo.

For four years, he worked part-time at an izakaya.

The owner of the place told him,

“Take over this place,”

he says.

He was glad to be expected of.

But,

“Then I could never go back to Kagoshima…”

That thought was there too.

---

Coming back on his own

Job-hunting season came.

What would he do with his life?

Facing himself, President Norihisa says he realised something.

He had been able to grow up because the company was there.

The employees had worked for it.

His parents had protected the company.

Behind his life, there had always been a company called Komasa Brewery.

When he thought that,

“I want to repay it,”

a feeling was born, he says.

But his older brother was there.

At the time, Komasa Brewery and Kanosuke Distillery had not yet been split into separate companies.

His older brother was set to take over Komasa Brewery as a single company.

When he talked to his parents,

“Ask your brother,”

he was told.

“Ask Yoshitsugu. Yoshitsugu is the one who will succeed.”

President Norihisa went to his brother and bowed his head.

His brother let him into the company.

But,

“As the Komasa family, I won’t go easy on you,”

he was told.

Hearing this, I thought

the words “heir of the founding family”

alone could never tell the story of President Norihisa’s life.

President Norihisa

“doesn’t need to take over” —

grew up being told that.

He went outside the family and walked his own life once.

And then, on his own,

“I want to repay this company,”

he thought, and came back.

I don’t think that was easy at all.

Because they are brothers, there are things you can’t say.

Because it’s the founding family, there are things you can’t run from.

How much struggle lay behind the single phrase, “taking over the company”?

That’s what I was thinking as I listened.

---

The road Komasa Brewery has walked

The Komasa Brewery President Norihisa returned to did not only have good times, either.

It took on all kinds of businesses as times changed.

Some didn’t work out.

There were times when they even had to consider letting go of the company itself.

In the previous generation, they travelled all over Japan looking for someone to take over the company, he says.

Even so, they didn’t let it go.

Then the shochu boom came, and they were able to carry the company on.

Today’s Komasa Brewery stands at the end of that history.

And then Komasa Brewery moved into the next era: whisky.

---

“If we have to hide shochu, we shouldn’t do it at all”

Why did Komasa Brewery make whisky?

Its starting point was shochu.

Komasa Brewery had

“We want to bring shochu to the world”

as its wish.

But even when they took shochu overseas and people said,

“It’s delicious,”

it was hard for it to spread any further.

Then let’s use our distilling skills to make a spirit that the world understands.

That is where the road to whisky began.

That is Kanosuke Distillery.

But there was one conflict.

The idea came up of hiding the word “shochu” for a while.

At that time, President Norihisa

“If we have to hide shochu, we shouldn’t do it at all,”

pushed back, he says.

Make a new spirit.

But don’t hide who you are.

I think that connects to KOMASA RUM, too.

Making rum.

Making whisky.

But at the root is a shochu brewery dating back to 1883.

That’s why KOMASA RUM carries the name “KOMASA.”

Not throwing away the past to do something new.

Moving into a new world while holding on to everything you have built up.

That’s how it looked to me.

---

“Let’s all do it together”

The car had arrived at Kanosuke Distillery.

It was already a little past the time we had arranged.

Even so, President Norihisa didn’t get out of the car right away and kept talking.

In the parking lot, for maybe 30 minutes.

About the company.

About the future.

About people.

Among it all, I heard the words President Norihisa holds dear:

“Let’s all do it together.”

That people can grow as people in the place called a company.

That the people working together can do their jobs in their own way.

He cares about these things.

Hearing that, I suddenly remembered the scene at Hioki Distillery.

“Konnichiwa,”

the staff who greeted me.

The people who seemed to enjoy their work.

And the life President Norihisa had told me about.

Then one thought came to me.

He doesn’t want anyone else to feel the loneliness and conflict he once felt.

Maybe that feeling is there, too.

“Let’s all do it together.”

When I heard those words, that’s what I thought.

Of course, this is just what I felt after hearing his story.

President Norihisa didn’t explain it that way.

But I think the life a person has walked always shows, somewhere, in what they hold dear.

---

That day’s “Konnichiwa”

Soon it was nearly closing time at Kanosuke Distillery.

It really was time.

“Let’s definitely meet again!”

With those words, we shook hands and said goodbye.

On the way back, I remembered the gentle air I had felt at Hioki Distillery.

How the staff had greeted me so naturally that day.

How everyone somehow seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Now I feel I understand the reason a little.

A person who once searched for his own place

is now trying to make a place for others.

That’s how it felt to me.

That’s why the

“Konnichiwa”

I heard at Hioki Distillery that day felt so warm and gentle, I think.

To me, that gentle air itself

felt like one answer to the life President Norihisa has walked.

President Norihisa Komasa,

thank you so much for kindly making time for me, even though I contacted you out of the blue.

What I most wanted to hear on this trip to Kagoshima was your story.

There wasn’t enough time, and this time I could only write a small part of it.

Please tell me the rest another time.

And to everyone at Kanosuke Distillery:

I’m truly sorry for running so far past our scheduled time.

Thank you for welcoming me so warmly anyway.

It’s thanks to you that I could hear, to the very end, the story I so wanted to hear on this trip.

Thank you so very much.