If you ever get the privilege to visit a kura, as you are led through the rows of fermenting tanks, stepping over hoses and watching your breath form in the chilled air necessary to keep the huge cauldrons of rice moromi bubbling at a slow and leisurely pace, you might just start to catch a … Read More
News Archives: Japan
Nishiyama Shuzo: Poet of the Sake World

Founded by the Nishiyama family in 1849, the sake brewery Nishiyama Shuzo is located in the heart of Hyogo Prefecture, one of the finest sake regions in the country. While sake from Hyogo is most famously associated with a cluster of huge sake breweries all built on a famous water source close to the port … Read More
Some Like it Hot: The Surprising Elegance of Warm Sake

I personally survive the sweaty trials of the Japanese summer with the help of a strong and spicy genshu served over ice. At the end of a bitter winter day in a freezing brewery I am revived by good, workaday sake, warmed to thaw the chill in my bones. Somehow I find there are persuasive … Read More
Isojiman Shuzo: Sake from the Seashore

Few breweries in Japan have as defined a sense of purpose and as clear an identity as the revered Isojiman Shuzo from Shizuoka prefecture. Eighth-generation Yoji Teraoka, the current president of Isojiman Shuzo, began to take over the business from his father in the mid-1980s. He brought a renewed sense of drive and purpose to … Read More