The Quirkiest Brewery in Japan?
After visiting sake breweries in icy cold Hokkaido and chilly Nagano Prefectures, stepping off the plane at Kochi City felt like returning home to California, complete with balmy temperatures, bright sunshine and palm trees.
During the two days we spent in and around this prefectural capital on the island of Shikoku we tasted our fill of the light, easy-drinking and bone-dry sake typical of Kochi. We also experienced the friendly, laid-back hospitality of a people who love to eat, drink and have fun. Their sake is full of wacky creativity, too: yeasts that have been sent into space on the Russian Soyuz rocket, or buried in 30-degree waters three-and-a-half miles under the sea. (In our book, we’ll be writing all about Kochi yeasts as well our yeast sensei, the amazing researcher and Kochi sake booster Haruhiko Uehigashi.)
One of the quirkiest makers we visited was Takagi Brewery (their labels include Toyonoume and Tosa Kinzo) in the tiny town of Akaoka. For a long time the smallest town in Japan, Akaoka is famous for two events, the Dorome and Ekin festivals. Dorome are whitebait, a term for small fry fish of varying species, though in Akaoka we were told they are small sardines. One dictionary I consulted calls dorome “gluttonous goby,” a much more fun and Kochi-iike name.
The main draw of the Dorome Festival, besides gorging on goby, is a drinking contest in which men and women compete to see who can drink the most Takagi sake in the shortest amount of time. The current record is 11.8 second to down an issho-bin, or 1.8 liters! Brewery president Naoyuki Takagi proudly showed us the giant, shallow red lacquerware bowl out of which contestants chug his sake.
Eikun, the subject of the other Akaoka festival, was a native son who became a famous painter of the Tosa (the ancient name for Kochi) aristocracy. He seems to have run into some kind of trouble though, so he came home to Akaoka to hide out with his aunt and continue painting in a sake warehouse. He became well known for highly theatrical, often macabre works for the kabuki theater.
The quirkiest thing Takagi-san showed us was his Toyonoume junmai daiginjo Ryuso (“the Dragon God’s Musical Performance”). He presented a laminated photo of his brewery being threatened by a huge column of mysterious white light. In 1994, a massive tornado whirled its way directly over the brewery, then miraculously disappeared without a trace. From that point on, the quality of the sake brewed at Takagi noticeably improved. “We think the sake-loving Dragon God descended from the tornado and is brewing here,” the placard reads.
In honor of this event, in 2009 the brewery created its Ryuso, or Dragon God, sake. It’s a hyper-local daiginjo made with local Gin no Yume rice, and Uehigashi’s own Cell 19 space yeast and Cell 11 yeast, offering up an elegant fruity nose, a hint of spice and a balance of sweetness and acidity. I wish it were available in North America but I don’t think it is yet. Ryuso went on to win a slew of awards, which to Takagi-san just proved that his belief in the workings of the dragon god was justified.
Kochi is such a beautiful prefecture filled with friendly, quirky people, great food, sake and even dragons. I hope you’ll be able to visit one day and experience all (or most) of them first hand.
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