Two breweries in Rokugō, the town of springs
Misato’s Rokugō has around a hundred springs. From the same town’s water come two very different sakes.
Rokugō in Misato is a town of water, with around a hundred recorded springs. Many households still draw their own groundwater. Two breweries work here.
Harukasumi: soft snowmelt
Kuribayashi Shuzoten was founded in 1874. Winters at the foot of the Ōu range are hard and snowy, but the soft snowmelt and the rice it raises are the heart of Harukasumi.
Okushimizu: the Hōmon spring
Takahashi Shuzoten opened in 1885 in what was then Senhata village, stopped brewing during the war, and moved to Rokugō in 1949. It brews with Hōmon Shimizu, a spring known since the Edo era.
Same water, different sake
Brewed from the same town’s water, the two sakes could hardly be more different. Taste them side by side and you see how water, rice and people together make a sake.
From the land to the glass: a year of mountain, water, paddy and brewery
Behind every glass of Akita sake is a yearly cycle that begins with snow on the mountains.
Reading Akita through its sake rice
Follow the rice behind Akita’s signature sakes and one local variety after another appears.
Five centuries: visiting Akita’s oldest breweries
Some breweries date back to the Muromachi era. Their founding years show how long this land has been making sake.