“At first, when I was still in my 20s, I thought using sokujo would be better because it can easily make prize-winning sake,” says Ohta over a plate of sushi at lunch. “But by the time I was 30, I realized even though no one then respected kimoto, one day they would, and kimoto would again become the pinnacle of sake brewing.” Ohta knew Daishichi had to be ready. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be alive when that day came,” Ohta says. He pauses, takes a sip of warm sake. “I didn’t found this brewery. I’m following in the footsteps of those who went before. My father left this brewery for me, and I am going to leave something for the generation that follows.”
Brewery president Hideharu Ohta.
The sake-making process at Daishichi includes hoisting steamed rice into a cooling machine, innoculating the rice with koji, mixing it and wrapping it. Daishichi brews some of its most special sake in kioke wooden tubs. The oldest of these is about 90 years old and made from Fukushima cedar.
NIIZAWA BREWERY’S SUPER-PREMIUM, SUPER-POLISHED SAKE
It’s unseasonably warm for February. Patches of snow dot the soggy earth. Nestled against a lush green mountain, Niizawa Brewery’s metallic silo glimmers in the morning light as a monkey scampers across the clearing. Here in the remote reaches of Miyagi Prefecture in the north of Japan, some of the world’s most expensive sake is being brewed—costing upward of $1,000 a bottle—as well as award-winning budget sakes such as Atagonomatsu.
Iwao Niizawa, the burly fifth-generation head of the brewery, strides through the building as workers raise a net filled with freshly steamed rice. All the brewers are young—in their twenties and thirties. “Sake breweries are unfair,” he says bluntly. “They ask people to work for low wages so they can make a profit.” Niizawa is different. Brewers are paid a living wage and given the opportunity to manage the brewery’s subsidiary companies, such as its rice-polishing business. Promotions aren’t based on age or gender, but skill. The toji (head brewer), a 22-year-old woman named Nanami Watanabe, is speaking to other brewers through a headset to ensure they’re all in constant contact.
Niizawa, who took over the family’s brewery at the tender age of 25 in 2000, knows that greater age doesn’t necessarily make one a great toji—talent does. Niizawa was the youngest master brewer in Miyagi Prefecture, and the first not to belong to a toji guild. At that time, 90 percent of the family’s sake was inexpensive futsu-shu. But the younger Niizawa wanted to make delicious sake that would enhance meals. Once he started realizing his vision, sake lovers took notice. By 2005, Japan Airlines was serving the brewery’s Hakurakusei-branded junmai in Executive Class. Five years later, Hakurakusei was the official sake of the FIFA World Cup and being served to the world’s most famous musicians at the Grammies. Then, disaster hit.
On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake rocked the northeast of Japan, unleashing tsunami waves that left death and destruction in their wake. Fortunately, no one was killed. But the brewery was destroyed, as was its inventory. Niizawa moved to its current remote Miyagi location because of the prime, unspoiled soft ground-water.
Excellent water isn’t the only secret to Niizawa’s premium sake. The brewery has been blazing trails in rice polishing. In 2009, Niizawa released Zankyo Super 9, made from Kura-no-hana rice with a 9 percent polishing ratio, milling away 91 percent of the grain. Zankyo means “reverberation”; true to this name, its impact was felt throughout the sake industry.
Niizawa wanted to make a sake a transcendent experience. He used the brewery’s in-house rice mill to see just how low the polishing ratio could go. At that time, the number was 9 percent. In 2014, the brewery had reached Super 8. Two years later, Niizawa hit a seimaibuai (polishing ratio) of 7 percent. Polishing the rice alone took 350 hours. The super-premium sake won fans, but drew denunciation for the amount of rice that went unused. “People criticize the 7 percent polishing ratio because they haven’t drunk it,” Niizawa says. “It’s like explaining what a Ferrari is to someone who’s never driven one.” Super 7 also had copycats. “When we were the first to release the 7 percent,” Niizawa says, “everyone ripped us off.”
Things had turned into the sake industry equivalent of the arms race. Tatenokawa, the first junmai-only brewery in Yamagata Prefecture, released its own 7 percent super-premium sake called Shichiseiki (the name refers to a seven-starred samurai battle flag) in 2017. That same year, Tatenokawa released a sake with a 1 percent polishing ratio called Komyo, or literally “great achievement.” This was the first time a brewery had made sake from rice with 99 percent of the grain milled away.
Polishing rice down to these teeny percentages is costly. The brewers discard more than 90 percent of the grains, and thus have to use more rice to brew. Rice can also crack during the polishing process. Once the polishing ratio enters single digits, it becomes harder, though certainly not impossible, to use traditional sake rice.
Niizawa wasn’t content to give up the rice-polishing crown. “We’ve made a sake with rice that’s been polished even more—to zero percent,” he says. “It’s a limited release, with 500 ml (1 pint) going for 350,000 yen.” But how can the brewery release sake with a zero polishing ratio?
Released in November 2018, the sake was Reikyo Absolute 0 Junmai Daiginjo. “Reikyo” literally means “zero reverberation.” The reaction within the sake industry has been far from zero. But the name underscores the definitive and absolute quality the sake has.
Until July 1, 2019, Japanese tax regulations stated that decimal points for seimaibuai were always rounded down. So, for example, a polishing ratio of 6.9 would be 6 percent. Under the old regulation, when Niizawa reached 0.85, the sake’s label should legally read zero. “When we went to get the label approved, we were criticized for possibly leading customers astray,” says Niizawa.
It wasn’t Niizawa that was the problem, however, but the liquor regulations. “I wasn’t trying to mislead customers,” says Niizawa. “I was trying to be a rice-polishing pioneer.” His Absolute 0 sake showed that the old regulations needed updating, which they ultimately were. “Until then, I could sell my zero sake.” The rice polishing alone took over seven months, costing $200,000. Niizawa had too much invested to give up now. Since it takes so long to polish rice to this percentage, and since the window during which zero percentage sake could legally be labeled was so short, Niizawa knew he’d have the final word in the rice-polishing race. That he did.
Niizawa brewery’s shop and main office are located in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Originally the brewery was located there too, but after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, it was destroyed. A new brewery was opened about an hour away.
Niizawa’s Hakurakusei Junmai Ginjo is reviewed on page 230.
The koji enzymes turn starch into glucose; yeast, whether introduced or ambient, will withstand the acidity and gobble up the glucose to make alcohol. These days, yeast is typically added to the starter mixture about 14 days after the process begins, but during the Edo period (1603–1868), ambient yeasts in the brewery naturally worked their way into the starter. Meanwhile, increasing amounts of lactic acid in the kimoto mix kill off unwanted bacteria