Fukuhachi: a sake brewed with ingredients tied to the Shirakami Mountains

A sake planned by a construction company

Akita Prefecture is a rice-growing region on the Sea of Japan side of northern Honshu. Omori Kensetsu, a construction company in Noshiro in the north-west of the prefecture (president: Sanshiro Omori), has planned its own sake brand, Fukuhachi, which has now gone on sale. According to the local newspaper Akita Sakigake Shimpo, it is brewed using ingredients linked to the Shirakami Mountains, and about 1,500 bottles have been released. What sets this sake apart is that the brand was launched not by a sake brewery but by a local company from a different line of business.

Rice, water, cedar and snow from Shirakami

The Shirakami Mountains straddle Akita and Aomori prefectures. They are covered by primeval beech forest that has been left almost untouched by people, and were inscribed as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site in 1993. Fukuhachi is reported to be a brand built around four elements tied to these mountains: rice, spring water, Akita cedar casks and a snow room (yukimuro). Akita cedar is Akita’s signature timber. In Japan, sake that takes on the scent of wood from cedar casks is called taruzake. A yukimuro is a storage room packed with snow that has piled up over winter, keeping it cool and humid; in snowy regions it has long been used to store sake and vegetables. However, details such as the rice variety, the polishing ratio (the figure showing how much of the rice grain has been milled away), and at which stage the casks and snow room were used could not be confirmed from publicly available information.

How to enjoy it in Europe

Given the figure of about 1,500 bottles, Fukuhachi itself is unlikely to reach Europe for now. Even so, the elements it combines can be enjoyed in Europe too. Taruzake, scented by cedar casks, is also made for export, so one idea is to compare it side by side with wines and whiskies matured in cask, paying attention to the differences. Cedar’s aroma is clean and said to pair easily with smoked and grilled dishes. If you come across a sake labelled “yukimuro storage” or “snow-aged” in English, try it not too cold and see how gentle the mouthfeel is after slow maturation at a low temperature. The idea of expressing the nature of the land where the ingredients grew in a single bottle should also feel familiar to European readers, who value terroir.