真土不二
TRUE TERROIR
Gassan water, Haguro rice, Haguro hands.
Shindo Funi
Since 1858 — Haguro, Tsuruoka
Water and rice, soil and climate,
cannot be separated.
Takenotsuyu stands at the foot of Mt. Haguro, one of the three sacred Dewa Sanzan mountains in Tsuruoka, Yamagata. Founded in 1858 and descended from Miyamoto-bo, a pilgrims’ lodge of the Haguro yamabushi, the brewery carries the memory of this land.
Water that springs in Haguro, rice grown in Haguro, brewers who live in Haguro. Hakurosuishu captures a taste only these three can express.
The Year of a Grain
01 / WINTER
The mountains store the water.
Seasonal winds off the Sea of Japan bury the Dewa Sanzan mountains in snow — the source of next year’s water for both paddy and brewery.
02 / SPRING
The water descends through stone.
Snow and rain on Mt. Gassan seep through the strata for some 5,000 years, polished by quartz gravel, until they reach 300m beneath our brewery.
03 / SUMMER
The plain grows the rice.
Cold, clear mountain water floods the paddies, and warm days with cool nights ripen the grain — sake rice raised on the same water we brew with.
04 / AUTUMN
From harvest, into winter brewing.
After harvest, the sake rice is carefully polished at a rice mill before it arrives at the brewery. Each grain grown in Haguro is handed on to the winter brewing season.
05 / WINTER
Mountain water turns it to sake.
Rice of this land, brewed with water from the same source. We call it ikujo-dogen — “grown and brewed from one origin.” This yearly cycle is our terroir.
01 — Water
Water polished by Mt. Gassan
for 5,000 years.
Three hundred metres beneath the brewery lies a bed of quartz gravel. Snow and rain from Mt. Gassan, polished over millennia, rise into our well. We use this Gassan deep water for every step of brewing.
02 — Rice
Rice from Haguro,
one hundred percent.
All our rice is contract-grown by our own brewers and the members of the local Haguro Sake Rice Research Group, on paddies fed by the same Gassan water we brew with. Quality before yield, grown by people we know by name.
03 — People
Those who grew the rice
brew it in winter.
At Takenotsuyu, some of the rice farmers become brewers in winter. Every brewer commutes from nearby, and the koji is watched around the clock in shifts. “Growing the rice weighs on us more than brewing it” — that feeling is the backbone of our sake.
How we brewHakurosuishu
Hakurosuishu
Complete fermentation gives our “rich and dry” style — full-flavoured, yet never lingering too long. Sake made for the table.
All our sake
Four Seasons of Shonai
Every season of this land,
in a single cup.
A brewery’s interior can’t tell you the whole story. Gassan’s snow, wind across green paddies, golden ears, summer night skies — the climate of Shonai itself makes Hakurosuishu.
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At the Table
In harmony with the
white fish of the Sea of Japan.
In 2014 Tsuruoka became Japan’s only UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy. Hakurosuishu belongs at the Shonai table.
Flounder, sea bream, sea bass
Our favourite pairing. Clarity that respects delicate fish, and a structure that cuts through richness.
Kandara-jiru (winter cod soup)
The Sea of Japan in winter. Hakurosuishu has the body to stand up to miso.
Heirloom vegetables
Fujisawa turnip, Tonouchijima cucumber, Mindenasu aubergine. Kairyo Shinko sake especially lifts their sweetness.
Dashi & moso-jiru
Yamagata’s summer “dashi” relish and spring bamboo-shoot soup meet a soft, gentle finish.
Kura Festival
On Sake Day,
we gather at the kura.
Around October 1 — Japan’s Sake Day — Takenotsuyu Brewery usually hosts “Korafes”, a gathering where neighbours and friends come together over sake and share in the harvest and the life of the brewery.
Dates are announced on Instagram.
Instagram
Brewery Shop
Bottles you’ll only
find at the brewery.
Hakurosuishu is sold only through specialist retailers — and here, at the shop inside our brewery, where every label is available.
Visit the shop