Brand introduction

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  The history of Sawada Sake Brewery

  Nara Prefecture, where Sawada Sake Brewery is located, is home to Omiwa Shrine, worshipped by people from all over Japan as the god of sake brewing, and the Sake Hall of Kasuga Taisha Shrine, the oldest surviving brewing facility.In addition, during the Muromachi period, Nara was a major production center for monk's sake, and used innovative techniques that became the basis for modern brewing methods to produce high-quality sake that was the prototype of today's sake, making it the birthplace of sake.

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  Sawada Sake Brewery is located in Goido, Kashiba City, in the mid-western part of Nara Prefecture, overlooking Mount Miwa in the far east and Mount Nijo, mentioned in the Manyoshu, to the west. The brewery was founded in 1830 (the first year of the Tenpo era) at the end of the Edo period, when the first generation Sawada Teishiro established a dyeing shop in Goido, where the brewery is currently located, and also began brewing sake using rice harvested from the surrounding rice fields. In the early Meiji period, the third generation Sawada Teijuro began full-scale sake brewing as a "sake brewer." In the Showa era, during the time of the fourth generation Sawada Teijiro, the brewery was forced to suspend brewing due to food shortages caused by the Pacific War and faced hardships such as the death of his successor in battle, but sake brewing resumed shortly after the war.

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  Sawada Sadako, who became the fifth generation head of the family in place of her brother who was killed in the war, created "Kankiko," a high-quality brand centered on junmai sake, in 1975 (Showa 50), and in 1988 (Showa 63), "Kankiko" won a gold medal at the National New Sake Tasting Competition. In the Heisei era, due to various reasons such as the aging of production staff, there was a period when the main production process was outsourced to partner companies, but in 2019, in-house brewing resumed. In a situation where there were no brewers with knowledge of the old-fashioned sake brewing methods, with the cooperation of other companies in the industry, Sawada Sake Brewery resumed sake brewing in February 2020 for the first time in about 30 years.

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  Sawada Sake Brewery

  Sawada Sake Brewery is a small sake brewery. Our production scale is small, and we do not have extensive production facilities. Furthermore, due to a period of inactivity, we do not have experienced brewers who have been involved in sake brewing for many years. What we can do is to stay true to the basics while not being bound by preconceived notions, and always approach sake brewing with ambition, passion, and care. For this reason, at Sawada Sake Brewery, we carefully monitor even the slightest changes in the mash during all brewing, and we carry out small batches that allow for strict temperature control and uniform fermentation. We also actively use locally grown rice as raw material, working to ensure sustainable sake brewing in which local agriculture and the brewery thrive together.