Iwate Prefecture’s oldest sake brewery, starting a new chapter in Shizukuishi
Founded in 1772, the Kikunotsukasa Sake Brewery is the oldest sake brewery in Iwate Prefecture.
In 2022, the 250th anniversary of the brewery, the brewery moved from the city of Morioka to a new location in Shizukuishi, where it began a new journey at a new brewing facility installed with with state-of-the-art equipment. Built on land where a primary school once stood, the new location is nestled in the deepest natural environment in Iwate Prefecture and is blessed with the underground water that flows down from Mount Iwate.
In setting up the new brewery, the opinions of the brewery staff, from Toji to the most junior Kurabito, were taken into account, and the latest equipment was enthusiastically procured. The brewery layout was created by visualizing the work flow of the brewing process. Thes impeccable brewing facilities, arranged to draw out both the strengths of the brewery staff and modern equipment to maximum advantage, may be the Kikunotsukasa Sake Brewery’s greatest asset today.
Freshly brewed sake, produced year-round
One of the most significant objectives in constructing Kikunotsukasa’s new brewing facilities was to improve the quality of the sake by installing temperature control equipment throughout the brewery.
Not only the brewing area, but also the rice storage and shipping facilities are now temperature-controlled, allowing them to extract the maximum potential of the raw rice used for brewing and to ship the finished sake in the best possible condition.
These installations have allowed the brewery to eliminate a significant external factor influencing the quality and style of a sake. The resulting sake is all very clean and transparent.
Although the region has always been cool, these facilities also make it possible to consistently produce sake all year round, as well as providing the perfect environment for making sake in a fresh, fruity style.
Handcrafted sake in state-of-the-art facilities
Kikunotsukasa’s vision for the future of its sake brewing has become a reality at its new facilities,where mechanisation and hand-crafted brewing are fused together.
The koji room is equipped with a table that can precisely weigh the steamed rice to determine its dryness, crucial information to the brewery throughout the koji-making process. Thermal tanks in the fermentation room all have built-in temperature control to better control fermentation, and a conveyor system that performs the pasteurization process from heating to cooling in an automated sequence has been installed.
The new brewery has been designed so that traditional sake brewing can be continued even with a limited number of people – in rural areas such as Shizukuishi, staffing breweries is an ongoing concern – while the Toji and Kurabito put their heart and soul into each and every step of the brewing process. The modern equipment serves not to take the brewing process out of the hands of the people making the sake, but to provide a greater degree of information and control, allowing them to refine their craft to the next level, while eliminating some of the more laborious processes.
The natural environment of Shizukuishi
In the past, the novelist and poet Kenji Miyazawa often visited Shizukuishi, and landscapes such as “the Seven Forests”, which appeared in his works, have been designated as a national scenic beauty spots. Another popular tourist destination, the Koiwai Farm, with a history dating back more than 130 years, is also located in Shizukuishi.
With spring water flowing from the foothills of Mount Iwate, the area has long been recognised a fecund rice-growing region, growing table rice such as Hitomebore, Akita Komachi and Iwate’s own table rice Ginga-no-Shizuku, as well Iwate-specific sake rice Yui-no-Ka, Ginotome and Gin-ginga.
Rich in nature, with high-quality local rice and Mt Iwate’s water, it is understandable why many people want to taste the sake brewed in Shizukuishi.
Aromas of white flowers
When the Mottox team approached the Kikunotsukasa Sake Brewery and asked them to brew a new sake for us, the result was a sake that was transparent and graceful, with elegant, excquisite aromas, like holding a bouquet of white flowers in one’s arms. It was this image that inspired Muku-no-Kaori’s label design. Created by our very own design team, it perfectly captures the beauty and elegant aromatics that make this sake so special.
