Thank you for visiting the Sakura Town Sake Store today!!
Sakura Town offers a wide variety of premium sake, low alcohol sake, sparkling sake, and pesticide-free sake, and we can ship worldwide. You can see our carrying items from here :)

Today's Topic

Have you already read Part 1 of our previous blog?
In Japan, sake is not only tasty but also considered sacred, sometimes even sacred to the gods.
This article will teach you more about the surprising relationship between sake and the gods.

Before the modern age of research and machines, sake was brewed exclusively by people's wisdom and manual labor.
Can you guess how it was brewed?

The first method of making sake [Kuchikami-sake]

Kuchikami-sake means "mouth-bite sake" in Japanese.

At this time, sake was made by putting rice in the mouth and chewing it, then transferring it once into a container and fermenting the rice. Sake made in this way is called "Kuchikami-sake."
Sake was so sacred that only shrine maidens were allowed to perform the chewing process.

How can the act of chewing rice produce sake?

Sake is made when the "sugar" in rice is broken down into alcohol. However, rice does not originally contain sugar, and the process of converting starch into sugar and then converting the sugar into alcohol must be followed. Koji is responsible for this process of converting starch to sugar.

Do you feel "sweet" when you eat a bowl of rice? This is because saliva in the mouth converts starch into sugar. This means that the function of saliva and koji are the same.

In other words, kuchikami-sake, from which sake originated, was made by using saliva instead of koji.

Today's SAKURATOWN Sake Recommendations

It is unthinkable today, but we are here today because people in the past did not rely on machines, but accomplished many things with only human wisdom.

Although not a kuchikami-sake, we recommend sake with a deep connection to Japanese history!

 KAMIHOTOKE

The ultimate sake for feeling and learning the history and enjoying its traditions.
If you are looking for a taste you can't get anywhere else, this is for you!
Brewery recreated Sake from 500 years ago. Sake made with yeast from Omiwa-jinja Shrine where the god of sake is enshrined brewed in a way described in a diary kept at Kofuku-Ji Temple, thus it is called liquor of god and Buddha. Even though the rice is hardly polished, it has a soft aroma and pleasant sweetness.

EDO-Shiran

It is a sake that is said to have been loved by Hideyoshi Toyotomi, reprinted and brewed based on the books of that time. This amber colored sake is completely different from modern sake and it is very rich and sweet.
It is very important for us to preserve the history that has been built up over the years, and in 1990, after a thorough research of the materials at Amanosan Kongoji Temple in Osaka, the taste of this sake called ""EDO Shiran"" was completely recreated to what it tasted like back then.
""Edo Shiran"" name comes from the fact that it is a sake drunk before the Edo period (the Warring States period), and so that does not know the Edo period. ""Shiran"" means ""do not know"".
Why not try the sake that was loved by the warlords of Japan's Warring States Period and is said to be the beginning of sake?
Enjoy it with ice on the rocks as a dessert, and with a sense of the romantic history.

How was the history of sake? There are still many interesting stories about sake that you may not know, so let us introduce you to many more. We are always open to requests for more information! Please feel free to contact us via comments below or inquiry form.
See you again in the next blog!