SHIMAZAKI SAKE BREWERY
Established in 1849, Shimazaki Sake Brewery has a long history of brewing sake. It is well-known as The Cave Brewery in Japan. Shimazaki brewery ages their award-winning premium sake in a nearby cave, which was dug during WWII. Visitors can walk through the cave and sample their sake.
In 1849, Shimazaki Sake Brewery was founded in Nasukarasuyama, situated close to the Naka River, which begins at Mount Nasu in the northeastern part of Tochigi Prefecture. We have been brewing strong, rich sake that draws out the complex flavor of rice grown in a blessed natural environment.
Kumakichi, the second generation brewer and sumo enthusiast, named the sake “Azumai Rikishi,” meaning “Sumo of the East.” Our motto is “Azuma Rikishi, a famous sake that is unbeaten in a fight.” This is still the representative brand of our brewery.
We began a project to long-term age our sake in 1970. Since then, we have set aside a portion of each year’s Daiginjo without missing a year. By utilizing a natural cave as a warehouse for aging sake, we challenge ourselves to produce an interesting, new flavor of sake in a unique storage environment.
We use groundwater from the Nakagawa River, that flows from Mount Nasu, to brew our sake. This water produces sweet sake, ideally suited for the aging process. 100 years ago, there were as many as five breweries in the area competing for this water.
About half of the sake rice is locally grown, and comes from within a 50 km radius of our brewery. Typical types of sake rice such as Gohyakumangoku and Yamadanishiki are grown in the prefecture. We also use specific varieties of sake rice that are grown only in Tochigi Prefecture, such as Tochigi no Hoshi, Hitogochi, and Yumesasara.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
At NearbyTokyo we try to make your experience on our website as helpful, smooth and as enjoyable as possible. We use cookies to help us understand how our website is being used and how we can improve your experience on it. This type of “analytics” cookies can provide us with anonymous information to help us understand which parts of our website interest our visitors and if they experience any errors.
Performance cookies help nearbytokyo.com’s content and functionality. These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance, which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works.
These cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission.
Functionality cookies enable our website to store information already provided (such as registered name or language selection) and to offer you improved and more personalized functions based on this information. These cookies collect and store only anonymous information so that they cannot track your movements on other websites.
This cookie is set by Instagram to show you relevant content and improve your experience.