Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten




We believe that it is only working by hand that you can bring out the best flavour when brewing sake. But even then, simple repetition isn't enough alone to brew good sake. Just as the taste and quality of agricultural produce varies from year to year, so too will the nature of our brewing change with the natural environment. Each day, we watch, listen to, and work closely with our rice. It is this attention to detail that is key. Our hope is to merely take another step closer to our ideal sake with each passing day.

In our modern world, productivity and efficiency are often prized above all else, with many brewers using large-scale automated machinery to realise these goals. We don’t believe, however, that it is possible to produce our ideal sake taking that approach. Instead, we utilise small fermentation vessels, which allow us to pay close attention to the delicate workings of the fermentation process. We do our best to carefully manage our yeast, our koji, our water, and our rice, exactly so we can brew the best sake we can.

It goes without saying that rice sits at the heart of the lives of all Japanese people. This year, like many that have come before, the harvest was thankfully a bountiful one. And so it is that we have the privilege of making sake from our most precious rice. If we are sure to respect the rice we use, we can always be proud of the sake we make.

This is our sake-zukuri – our way of making sake.