Event

If you’ve only recently moved to Hiroshima, you may not yet be aware that you are in one of Japan’s three great centers for sake production, the other two being in Kobe and Kyoto. Of the three, Hiroshima is both the youngest and, by some metrics, the most innovative. Until the end of the nineteenth century, the soft, mineral-poor water of the Hiroshima region was considered unsuitable for sake production, because local wells and streams undernourished the “koji” mold that replaces yeast in most east Asian fermenting. As elsewhere, there were “jizake” brewers turning out what they could for the local market, but none of them were making a drink you’d want to bring home as a souvenir. All of that changed sometime around 1887 when a local brewer named Senzaburo Miura worked out a new method for soft-water brewing. By carefully cultivating his koji until it had spread deep into the core of the rice grain, and then fermenting his mash slowly and at temperatures below those used traditionally, Miura was able to produce sakes that could compete with the very best. By 1907 these new “ginjoshu” style of Hiroshima sakes were winning national awards, and from there the…