Yatsuo Blend 2019

This is the story of two breweries in Yao (八尾町, nowadays part of Toyama City), which had been bitter rivals ever since the Edo period: Tama-Asahi Brewery (玉旭酒造), founded in 1808, and Fukutsuru Brewery (福鶴酒造) founded in 1848. Yao is famous for its late summer festival called Owara Kaze no Bon (おわら風の盆). Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the festival was cancelled in 2020 and 2021. The two breweries decided to bury the hatchet and release a blend of their sake in 2021. The 2021 blend, a Junmai and a Honjōzō Genshu was available only in Toyama Prefecture and sold out completely. The 2022 blend was intended to be distributed Japan-wide and crowd-funded. The breweries decided to release a 2019 blend, the year before the pandemic started, and a 2022 blend, representing the year the worst of the pandemic was over. Recently, there have been several cases where Japanese breweries began to blend their products, but this is one of the rare cases where three-year-old sake was made into a new, matured product. Fortunately, both Tama Asahi and Fukutsuru had enough 2019-old sake left in their breweries to blend. They blended the two sakes at a ratio of 1:1 but decided to keep the ingredients secret. They recommend first enjoying the '2022' set chilled and then savouring the '2019' set slowly. The box containing both blends displays the handprints of both brewmasters.