Akita Bank-backed fund invests in vacuum-storage sake server

Funding the problem of freshness after opening

On 30 September, Akita Bank, based in Akita Prefecture (on the Sea of Japan coast of northern Honshu and known as one of Japan’s leading sake regions), announced that it had invested in Inter Holdings (representative director: Sho Yamaguchi), a Tokyo maker of vacuum containers, through a fund run by its investment subsidiary Akigin Capital Partners. The investment was completed in May, and the amount has not been disclosed.

Once a bottle of sake is opened, it comes into contact with air and its aroma and flavour gradually change. Delicate styles such as namazake, which is not heat-pasteurised, show this change more quickly. What Inter Holdings has developed is a server that holds sake in a vacuum container and pours it from there. It aims to limit the sake’s exposure to air so that it can be enjoyed in a state close to when it left the brewery.

Trials of “Kuradashi Shinku-shu” under way

The sake served from this server is called “Kuradashi Shinku-shu” (brewery-fresh vacuum sake), and trials are already under way in Akita Prefecture. A server has also been placed at Bishu Okoku Akita Sake-Navi, a hub in central Akita City for promoting local sake, where visitors can taste it for themselves.

What stands out about this investment is that a regional bank put money not into a brewery itself but into the technology of serving: how sake is kept and how it is poured. It suggests that interest in Japan’s sake industry is widening from making sake to delivering it with the taste it had when it was made.

Tasting with freshness in mind in Europe

Sake that reaches Europe has travelled a long way, and in bars and restaurants a single opened bottle may be sold by the glass for weeks. When ordering by the glass, asking when the bottle was opened can help you notice the difference in taste. At home, it is safest to store an opened bottle upright in the fridge and finish namazake within a few days. In the wine world, dispensers that pour without exposing the wine to air are already widely used, and equipment built on the same idea is now emerging for sake. No overseas rollout of Inter Holdings’ server has been announced so far, but if such technology spreads, more venues in Europe may be able to offer the taste of freshly opened sake by the single glass.