Although just a short two-hour train ride north of Tokyo on the bullet train, the mountainous area of Niigata is a world apart from the lights and hustle of earth’s largest urban center. Niigata faces out to the Pacific Ocean and at its back is a rippling and dramatic mountain range crisscrossed by narrow valleys. … Read More
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
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
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
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