Suo-Oshima, an island in the Seto Inland Sea, to brew sake again after 20 years

Suo-Oshima is an island in Yamaguchi Prefecture, floating in the Seto Inland Sea. Yamaguchi lies at the western tip of Honshu, Japan’s main island. Kawamura Shuzojo, founded on the island in 1879 (the 12th year of the Meiji era), will resume brewing at its own brewery this winter for the first time in about 20 years. According to the local newspaper Chugoku Shimbun, it plans to use water and rice from the island. Sake-making, which had long been absent from the island, is about to begin again.

Bringing a dormant brewery back to life

Kawamura Shuzojo is preparing to restart brewing at its brewery in the Komatsu district of Suo-Oshima. To cover part of the cost of renovating the brewery, it has launched a crowdfunding campaign (a way of raising money from the general public over the internet), with new sake among the rewards for backers. Brewing in a building that has stood unused for so long requires major spending on the structure and equipment. This fundraising is a practical step towards getting production going again.

A sake of place, made with the island’s water and rice

The most important point of this revival is that the ingredients all come from the island. Sake is made from rice, water, koji and yeast. Because most of the drink is water, the character of a sake changes greatly depending on the water used in brewing and where the rice is grown. By sourcing its ingredients from a limited area, the island, the brewery hopes to put the flavour of that particular place into its sake.

In Yamaguchi Prefecture, efforts to rebuild breweries on the brink of disappearing have drawn attention before. One example is Choshu Shuzo in Shimonoseki. A local company took over a brewery that had been due to close, and in 2020 released its first sake, Tenbi, from a newly built brewery. Kawamura Shuzojo’s venture is part of the same movement to pass regional breweries on to the next generation.

At present, no plans to sell overseas have been announced. For European readers, we suggest getting to know Yamaguchi sake first. The prefecture grows its own sake rice, Saito no Shizuku, which is the second most widely grown in the prefecture after Yamada Nishiki. When browsing an importer’s list, look out for “Yamaguchi” as the region of origin. If the day comes when sake from Suo-Oshima arrives, enjoy the youthful aroma of the freshly pressed winter new sake with seafood such as white fish and shellfish. It is a fitting pairing for a sake born on an island in the Seto Inland Sea.