Asahi Shuzo plans to use that moromi to produce a single 100-milliliter bottle of "Dassai MOON–Space Brew." This special bottle will be sold for a suggested retail price of 100 million yen ($653,000), with all proceeds going to domestic space development projects. The company believes that sake brewing is more suitable for space experiments than winemaking, since rice is lighter and contains less water than grapes.
Takahashi is one of a small group of female toji, or master sake brewers. Only 33 female toji are registered in Japan's Toji Guild Association out of more than a thousand breweries nationwide. That's more than several decades ago. Women were largely excluded from sake production until after World War II. Sake-making has over a thousand years of history, with strong roots in Japan's traditional Shinto religion. However, an unspoken rule barred women from breweries when the liquor began to be mass-produced during the Edo period, from 1603 until 1868. The reasons behind the ban remain obscure. One theory is that women were considered impure because of menstruation and were therefore excluded from sacred spaces, said Yasuyuki Kishi, vice director of the Sakeology Center at Niigata University. "Another theory is that as sake became mass-produced, a lot of heavy labour and dangerous tasks were involved," he said. "So the job was seen as inappropriate for women." However, the gradual breakdown of gender barriers and a shrinking workforce caused by Japan's fast-ageing population have created space for more women to work in sake production. "It's still mostly a male-dominated industry. But I think now people focus on whether someone has the passion to do it, regardless of gender," Takahashi said.
According to trade statistics from Japan's Finance Ministry, the East Asian country's sake exports to India totaled ¥29 million last year, far lower than the ¥12.4 billion in sales to China, which has a similar population size. Nakagawa said he is glad that sake brewing skills became listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage as this has made it easier to explain sake to people in India, where the drink is not well known. Ingredients other than koji mold, such as rice and water, will be sourced locally in order to create an Indian local sake. Nakagawa expressed "worry and excitement" as this may lead to the sake tasting differently from that made in Japan. Imports of sake from Japan are subject to high tariffs, and sales prices can be up to 10 times higher depending on the store, said Aditya Kumar Vijay, 42, head of Takahashi Shouten's local unit. The unit aims to distribute sake across the country by reducing costs through domestic production.
By promoting sake breweries to overseas travelers and getting them to travel to rural areas they otherwise might not visit, Sugino says the council hopes to relieve the issue of overtourism. Each brewery takes a different approach to incorporating the tourism element. Sasaki's company in Kyoto conducts tours all year round for visitors who sign up either through group trips organized by tourism companies such as JTB or directly at the company's website. Employees guide visitors around the actual factory where sake is made, and give them an explanation of the art and techniques that go into the process. The tour ends off with a sake tasting session and depending on the chosen tier — ranging from around ¥3,000 to ¥10,000 — visitors might get to sample higher-quality sake and an accompanying meal. Visitor numbers have increased every year since Sasaki incorporated the tour at his company around three years ago. Beginning with around 1,300 visitors in 2022, the number rose to 2,972 in 2023 and as of September this year, some 3,750 visitors had already taken the tour.
With a long history dating back to the Eishō period (1504-1521), Kenbishi Shuzo has delighted sake consumers for hundreds of years and even found its way into contemporary art. Take the following Edo-period ukiyo-e woodblock print in Hiroshige Utagawa's famous Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido series, for instance, in which a sake barrel with Kenbishi Shuzo's distinctive emblem is shown being carried by two men in the lower right.
The brewery, whose predecessor was founded in 1770, is aiming for annual sales of 100 billion yen ($641 million)--30 billion yen at home and 70 billion yen abroad. Hiroshi Sakurai, the third-generation president of Asahi Shuzo who now serves as chairman, developed Dassai around 1990 and expanded its business to Tokyo. Almost all Dassai products are top-quality "junmai daiginjo" sake made of highly polished rice. The brand became popular for its fruity flavor and refreshing feel. [...] The company said it sold 19.5 billion yen worth of Dassai products in the business year ending in September 2024, including 10.8 billion yen in Japan and 8.7 billion yen abroad.
Tamura had heard from a farming acquaintance, "Even if a special zone allows us to make doburoku, there's no sales channel for it. We end up consuming most of it ourselves." Hiramatsu pondered how to make use of this revived traditional taste. His attention was drawn to a staple dessert served at the restaurant. "What if we made doburoku into ice cream?" he wondered. [...] After more than a year of trial production, they succeeded in creating a doburoku ice cream with an alcohol content of 5%. They began selling it at roadside stations in Tochigi Prefecture and other locations last autumn.
Living national treasures are currently recognized in two fields: performing arts, such as theater and music, and craft techniques including pottery and dyeing. No one holds this status in a food-related field at the present time. To pass on valuable food-related skills and improve the social status of food-related artisans, the agency is expected to recognize them as living national treasures in the field of "life culture." There are established criteria for recognizing performing arts and craft techniques — the art involved must be "of particularly high artistic value" and artisans must "embody the techniques at a high level." Similar criteria will also be established in the field of life culture.
This seems like korean makgeolli? I've drunk a lot of that once upon a time...conversation turned to "doburoku," a traditional form of unrefined sake. The brewing process is straightforward: steamed rice is combined with water and rice malt and then left to ferment.
makgeolli
Brooklyn Kura's foray into Japan comes at a challenging time. While sake continues to grow in popularity globally, its consumption has declined in Japan, where its image as an old man's drink remains hard to shake off. However, Polen thinks Japanese consumers are "open to trying" American-made sake. "Just like Japanese whisky finding success around the world or Californian wines winning awards in France, we believe Japanese consumers will recognize the quality of our products and the care that went into making them," he says. "In our taproom in Brooklyn, many of our customers are Japanese, and since our first sale in 2018, we have had active and continuous support from the Japanese sake industry and Japanese consumers."
Yamaguchi-based Asahi Shuzo, known for its Dassai sake brand, in February took a leap forward, unveiling at an event in Tokyo a bottle of high-end sake that it will attempt to brew in space. The price for the 100-milliliter bottle of Dassai Moon is 110 million yen -- the going rate for an alcoholic beverage produced in space given that it will be the first of its kind. Inspired by the U.S.-led Artemis moon exploration program and other efforts to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon, Asahi Shuzo is serious about wanting the eventual inhabitants to be able to enjoy a low-gravity tipple.
Sake rice varieties are more difficult to grow than staple rice. Their yields per unit area are also lower, which has resulted in higher prices than rice varieties for eating—until recently. Data compiled by the agriculture ministry shows that a 60-kilogram bag of Yamada Nishiki rice cost around 24,000 yen ($159) before tax during the 2013-2023 harvest seasons, well above the 11,000 yen to 14,000 yen for staple food rice. The Gohyakumangoku species, which originates from Niigata Prefecture and is described as the top-quality sake rice in eastern Japan, was valued at around 16,000 yen, excluding tax, during the same period. Over that time, staple rice prices never exceeded those for sake-brewing variants and were sometimes less than half the price. That all changed during the latest supply shortage of staple rice, which caused the price to skyrocket. The price of staple rice harvested in 2024 hit a record high of 24,006 yen before tax, or 25,927 yen after tax, in January 2025. The figure further rose in February to 24,523 yen and 26,485 yen before and after tax, respectively. These figures are higher than the average trade value of 23,655 yen for Yamada Nishiki, the most expensive sake rice variety, for the 2013-2023 period.
The Japanese have long known that sake is their cuisine's most reliable friend, having the capacity to perk up even the humblest of foodstuffs (dried squid and sesame seeds, anyone?). Now it seems the rest of the world is catching on. Having an authentic sake-plus-Japanese food experience is one of the top five reasons why inbound tourists head to Japan. Tokyo bars are crowded with foreign travelers staring at the sake descriptions on translated-to-English menus. For the Japanese however, the strokes on the canvas are less bold. According to a survey conducted by a sake maker in Yamagata prefecture, young people in their 20s and 30s say that sake is not their drink, preferring fizzy cocktails. But sake has found a wider fan base among Japanese women. Compared with 2017, the number of women who prefer sake has doubled, according to PR Times, a Japanese business information provider. These women are in their mid-30s or older, and are discerning drinkers who have a favorite sake region and kura (independent sake brewing house) making handmade brews. They frequent small, tucked-away sake bars and are knowledgeable about which drinks to pair with foods.
At Kobayashi Sake Brewery in Kuriyama Town, Hokkaido, a brewery with a history dating back to the Meiji period, the soaring price of rice is having a significant impact. Kobayashi Sake Brewery's Director, Kobayashi Beishu, states, "If the retail price of sake increases suddenly, restaurants and consumers will find it harder to afford." Concerns are growing that the price increases may lead to a decline in sake consumption, with some consumers turning away from sake due to higher prices. To address the increasing cost of raw materials, Kobayashi Sake Brewery is also working on refining its rice milling process to improve efficiency. "We are experimenting with 'flat milling,' which aims to reduce excessive polishing of the rice while maintaining a high yield, expecting to produce better sake," Kobayashi explains.
Gekkeikan conceived the idea of using rice harvested outside Japan when deliberating how to maintain its sake business. The company underwent a trial-and-error process to create the main "koji-mai" rice, which promotes the proliferation of "koji" mould. Rice varieties from Africa, Asia, North and South America and Italy were used in the experiments. Unlike Japan-made rice species, the foreign grains made the ingredient fermentation process "unpredictable." After close monitoring, the team realised distinctive flavours from the challenging phase. "We finally completed the intriguing sake," Mase recalled. "Their aromas are completely different from products brewed with domestically harvested rice." One of the brews utilises Vietnamese kake-mai and Thai koji-mai. Once chilled, the sake gives off a characteristic pineapple-like fragrance.
Niigata on the west coast of Japan's Honshu Island has more sake breweries than any other prefecture. The area is is renowned for its frigid winters which create the perfect low-temperature setting for slow, gentle fermentation, resulting in a smoother and mellower tasting sake, Japan's famous rice wine.