Itami - Sake's Other, Other Birthplace(?)

0:20Welcome to Sake Deep Dive, the sake podcast for the beyond beginner. I am Jim Ryan, sake writer, translator and man about town in Western Japan Joined as always by my friend and co-host Andrew Russell How are you doing today Andy? I'm good Jim, it's good to be back It's been a long hiatus this time It has been Raring to go for a well needed episode Yes, yeah, good to be back on the horse And I hope it's not out of line for me to say you were feeling under the weather and I'm glad that you are recovered. It seems to have been a rough time, but you're looking and sounding much better. So welcome back.

1:07Yeah, thank you, Jim. We don't like to miss podcasts. We are quite good at keeping the schedule, but sometimes life just gets in the way. We are but mortal men. So I'm sure everybody is willing to forgive and forget a couple of missed months. But yes, we are here and spring, I think, is officially sprung. I don't know about up there in Kyoto, but down here in Yamaguchi, the last gasp of winter is behind us and the temperatures are rising. The flowers are blooming and the seasons have changed. Are the cherries out up there in Kyoto yet? They're started to, yeah It's a It's a miserable rainy night here But it has been nice up until today So yeah, I'm glad If this is going to be a rainy spell I'm glad it's now before the cherry blossoms Have all started to blossom Because obviously rain is the Rain is the ruiner of Sakura So yeah, hopefully going into the weekend We'll get the Get to enjoy some nice Kyoto cherry blossoms You get to that prime viewing weather Yeah, I was thinking that same thing today And you know, there's nothing Quite like Sipping some sake Under the cherry blossoms Particularly Clear sake Seishu, not that nigori stuff Nigori stuff doesn't go with cherry blossoms The seishu, and of course we all know that seishu The filtered sake Was invented in Nada where Andy used to work isn't that right Andy?

2:51Jim that's fantastic I have to give you a round of applause for that one that is your best segue yet of course no it is not Nada it comes clear Saki Seishu or Sumizaki comes from close by but further north in a place called Itami Yes, so Itami, and this is going to be a very history heavy episode because as important and as sort of influential Itami has been in the development of the sake industry as we know it and today, it has dwindled significantly. And I think, you know, one of the major reasons is because, like Andy said, it is just a little bit north of Nada. And that little bit north ends up making quite a huge difference when the rubber hits the road in the industry.

3:53So now, yeah, like I said, it's a historical sort of question that we're going to be talking about today. And I have to admit, I personally was not super informed about this before I started researching this episode. The history of Itami goes back quite a bit further than I was expecting. but I think Andy you're definitely more of the expert on the the roots of Itami so how do we start off with this? Let's start off by just quantifying how important this is for like you said for the history of Saki because it's not a big player nowadays but Itami was once the biggest most prestigious brewing region in japan it goes back to way before nada we're talking about 150 to 160 years before nada has has any significance really on on the sake industry this is the forerunner to nada but their histories are quite closely linked because obviously nada is a very storied region and it's very famous it's arguably the most significant brewing region in the entire history of the sake industry and it's got lots of famous breweries that exist to this day we've done an episode on nada we've mentioned nada so many times on this podcast but the story of nada's rise sadly is also the story of itami's demise so they they do follow that trajectory unfortunately and it's inevitable it's going to be that kind of a podcast because that that is the the story of itami it was once this massive big brewing region with all these famous brands and now there are what two breweries left i think is i think i found three yeah there are three in the shizu kumiyai right i mean yeah everyone's gonna know shirayuki but the other two i didn't even realize there was a third one Oimatsu so yeah that's the brief on Itami but there is a lot to get into right so to clarify you mentioned that it was sort of to the north of Nara this is Hyogo Prefecture right Hyogo is still you know the center for sake brewing and this area of Itami is it's not a coastal region but it is sort of gifted with lots of rivers which I think we've spoken enough about the importance of rivers for sake brewing and transport in the past that people could probably figure out how that is important but so Itami is this there is an Itami city now but it's more I guess county maybe would be a little bit closer to our understanding it's it's it's a distinct sort of district in Hyogo prefecture yeah and I'm just want to pick up quickly I'm so glad you said Hyogo prefecture because if I had a thousand yen for every time someone had told me Itami was in Osaka I'd be a very wealthy man and we might not need to bother doing this podcast anymore Itami is home to what is now called Osaka Kuko So this is not Kansai Kuko This is what I used to think was called Itami Airport But it seems to be called Osaka Airport But it's in Itami, which is definitely in Hyogo Prefecture So in terms of the geography, yes If people are tuned in thinking we're going to start talking about rolling rice paddies and soft water, hard water and what have you, then it's unfortunately we're going to disappoint them again.

8:29Itami's geography in the past was very good for sake brewing, but you just hit on it again right there. Rivers are once again one of the main reasons for this. So from Itami, if you go directly south, you just reach the outskirts of Nada. You reach the furthest east part of it, Imazu. And you can follow down the Muko River. So this was one of the big rivers that would have been very good for transportation. but there is another river that goes off further east which takes you down into the bay of Osaka so already we're starting to get similarities with with nada and the fact that one of the reasons why they became this big brewing region was not to do with an abundance of rice or anything like that or rice fields but actually just simply where it was situated so yeah that is a very important thing to get off early is that itami is pretty well suited for the the needs of the time right and so i think probably that's a good time to talk about when you say the needs of the time what time are we talking about so so how do we how do we trace the rise of itami so in the past it was more like a collection of villages and the the key name here is konoike so konoike is now a part of itami but in the past it was a completely different region and that is where the history of the itami region starts now the date that you're going to get if you do any kind of research on this is 1599 so what is that a year before the battle of sekigahara right yeah so four four years before the official sort of tokugawa shogunate edo period really is this figured to start yes there seems to be a lot of conflicting stories this was obviously a very tumultuous period there's this the warring states period officially still the warring states period so everyone is at war with each other and there's a there's a samurai family that i didn't go far enough back to see what they're thinking but i believe he was a very famous samurai and to get his son out of harm's way he sent him to this region, which was another castle town, and basically took him out of the samurai life and into the merchant life.

11:16Now, that was a transition that actually you could do. Obviously, there was some movement between classes, and the son of this warlord got into sake brewing, And the official story is that in 1599, they took this very unusual step of sending Saki to Edo. Now, apparently no one had really done this before. So, like you just said, they are four years before the Edo period officially begins. But obviously, it would have still been quite an up and coming market. it wouldn't have been the massive metropolis that it became in later years but it would have been worth your while to try and send your wares up there and this ex-samurai family decided to do that and they initially did this on pack horse which is obviously that's quite an extraordinary step to take when you're moving sake by pack horse.

12:27So that was how this connection started with what is now called the Kansai region, but would have been called Kamigata back then. This is the regions in and around Kyoto. That's the beginning of brewers in the Kamigata region starting to send sake to Edo and recognising the significance of the market. But this is in Konoike, not technically Itami at the time So this would have been just one village in what became the area, right? I think maybe it might help the history of Osamamas this would have been in Setsu province Yes back in when they reorganized all of these various different little kane, Setsu no Kuni and that area covered I guess you would say western Osaka and eastern Hyogo.

13:29So this now I'm curious. So he sent his son out to sort of join the merchant industry. I guess that would mean that this area already had some relatively active merchant businesses going on, which of course means that you know we've got that infrastructure the transportation infrastructure like i said before you know we have the rivers it does sort of flow down into the bay of osaka right so you know i think this this is just another example that we've talked about this several times that you know moving sake is every bit as important to the production of sake as a as a good as access to say rice and clean water yeah absolutely that a lot of these regions were not they didn't become what they are for the reasons that are portrayed nowadays when we talk about water sources and things like that so in the case of itami that that's the impetus that's the beginning of it all but by the time we get into the um the mid 17th century the the konoe family now these are imperial regents from kyoto and these are a big deal these are these are one of the main branches of the fujiwara so they are given control of itami or konoike we're just going to call it Itami now because when it all gets merged together and stuff that I have to admit I didn't go quite that far and it's going to be very very boring to take it that far but all you need to know is they were two separate regions but we're just going to call them Itami from now on so once that region comes under the Konoe family's control then they're then able to access the Kyoto market, for example.

15:30Now, one of the absolute key points to this is that during this time, these brewers in Itami are basically given the brewing techniques of Soboshu. So for my money, this is the connection, surely, that you've got these imperial regents, the Konoe family, with these strong links to Kyoto. And of course, Kyoto is, I mean, it's a temple town, isn't it? Obviously, these are all connected. But at this time, the Edo period, it's getting harder and harder for Buddhist institutions who used to be the most prolific sake brewers in Japan. these were the ones that had the highest level of technique these were the ones that had the most desirable sake we're talking of course we've talked before about bodai moto and things but these Buddhist institutions are suddenly no longer able to brew because the Tokugawa shogunate forbade them to do so but obviously you've heard of nara morohaku morohaku is what is considered by some to be the birth of modern day seishu, this is when brewers start polishing not just the rice, the kakemai, the rice that's just added, steamed rice that's added, about 80 % of the entire rice, but also the koji as well.

17:09So morohaku means double white, whereas you could have katahaku, which is one is polished and the other isn't, Or then there's namizake, which is, it basically means they're completely brown rice. And that's different still from doboroku. Doboroku is not the same as namizake. This is the thing that differentiates them is the one that's made by brown rice is really made in the same way as soboshu. So you're talking things like dankake, methods of pasteurization, pressing, these kind of things. These are things that wouldn't have applied to doboroku. Now, these techniques are passed on specifically to Itami brewers.

17:59And Itami's biggest claim, I guess, is that they were the first people, not Nada and not Nishinomiya, but Itami were the first people to commercialize Soboshu, the techniques of Soboshu. And that is what initially made them so famous. They took these very small scale techniques or comparatively small scale techniques of Buddhist monks and turned it into a profession. And of course, there's a few monikers that Itami Saki gets, but the biggest one is Itami Morohaku. That was what made them famous in Edo. No, I have to sort of think about that a little bit because we have, like, if you go back to our discussions of Soboshu in the past, you know, they had brand names.

18:57They were a commercial product. So I'm assuming then that their real argument is in volume, like scale, that they were the ones who turned Soboshu into a larger scale product. because even then, I'm curious, do you have an idea of how big did they take Soboshu beyond what was already being made in Kyoto? If you think about it this way, Soboshu was a side hustle for Buddhist monks. This was something that they did to make a bit of money. whereas the itami these were professional brewers so they would start brewing and that is all they did so this is this is sake breweries that were founded with just the purpose of making sake now that is a big difference because bear in mind this wouldn't have been winter brewing yet either The winter brewing thing, Kanzukuri, that comes in a bit later, actually.

20:15That's still in Itami's heyday, but it really isn't until Nada, which is the middle of the 18th century, where Kanzukuri becomes really famous. So these brewers in Itami would have been brewing all the way throughout the year. And that's all they did. There's no connotations of religion attached to it. These are businesses that, with the sole purpose of making sake, they're hiring brewers to come in, and they are then actively marketing them across the country. Okay. So this is how it started then, right? So this is, they started out from the Soboshu techniques. They turned sake brewing into a profession, into a commodity product, I suppose.

21:06Maybe you could say brewing all year, sending it to major areas. You mentioned sending it to Edo. They were probably selling it in Kyoto and Osaka as well, because obviously they're right there. They have the connections. So how big did it grow? It sort of gets established right around the beginning of the Edo period. We see the mid-17th century, 1660s, 1670s, they really get cooking in terms of production and sales. What does the peak of that look like? The peak of that looks like the Genroku period, when Itami sake trumped everything for popularity. So the Genroku period is, I guess, the closing decades of the 17th century and then just into the early 18th century.

22:13And this is known as a golden time in the sake industry. Obviously, Edo has become this massive market for brewers. They're all wanting to drink the sake from Kamigata. If you look at the popular art from this time, there were three big brands, Otokoyama, Kenbishi, and Nanatsu Ume. Now, if you haven't listened to our Nada episode and you maybe don't know, you're thinking Kenbishi's in Nada. Kenbishi, all of them are Itami brands. Kenbishi didn't move from Itami until what the early 20th century maybe even mid 20th century 19 I think it was like 1928 or something so Kenbishi what was an Itami brand Otokoyama very famous name a lot of people will probably know that from Hokkaido but the one there's a A few companies obviously carry the Otokoyama brand, sometimes as a second brand, admittedly.

23:22But the main one up in Hokkaido, they inherited that from Itami. And then Nanatsu Ume is probably the least well-known, but this was a hugely popular brand during the Edo period. That is also now in Nada. It has been back and forth to a few breweries, but finally a brewery in Nada bought the rights to this. and it is a very small brewery in NADA called Hama Fukutsuru. They do that as a kind of third label. But during the Edo period, these were all from Itami and they all appear in ukiyo-e. They had a saying for them. I think it was, Sake wa Kenbishi Otokoyama Nanatsu Ume. So literally, sake is these three brands.

24:14Okay. And so we have these three brands that were obviously extremely popular, particularly in the cultural center of Edo. Was it a generally sort of major brewing area? Were there lots of breweries? Was it, you know, I'm curious, like, is it kind of like those few really found success? Those three brands really found success in everyone else's. And there wasn't really much else going on. Or was it, was there just, was there a lot going on? No, of course, this is a big brewing region. Bear in mind, these regions, they're feeding Edo. There's a million people in Edo. And they've also got, it's not like there wouldn't be sake being consumed in their own regions.

25:07I mean, they're on Osaka's doorstep. We already know they've got access to Kyoto. And if we ever get a chance, we'll have to do Kyoto as a kind of third part to this, I guess. We've already had Nada and it will do Itami. But the other part of this love triangle, if you can call it that, is Kyoto. Kyoto is going through an absolutely terrible time with their sake industry. I mean, just the complete capitulation. the people in power in Kyoto are doing everything they can to try and keep it in house but people are to the point of banning other regions but people are doing everything they can to drink outside of Kyoto they're they're drinking shiga sake and of course they're drinking itami sake as well because that was the that had the highest reputation in Japan so yeah there's a A lot of breweries, you get estimates from as high as 80 to 40, depending on the time.

26:11And of course, it would have fluctuated. We need to be careful when we're talking about periods like the Edo period. Like it's this thing, it's over 250 years. So it's a long time and there's a lot of fluctuations in there. But for sure, yeah, you're talking in that ballpark of breweries. in what is, if you look it on a map, it's quite a small area of land. And you've also, you're kind of penned in with other regions as well, because bear in mind, a place that is in Osaka, Ikeda, this is also a very big brewing region at the time. And then you've got Nishinomiya, which is, as I said, further south, southwest which is becoming a very big brewing region as well which would eventually become part of nada which is obviously as we know spoiler alerts nada is the the winner of all this because they are they become the the undisputed brewing capital of of japan as the and they've remained that way even today okay so a lot was going on uh now so you we we talked about how they they inherited many of the the things that um they were doing at the at the soul boshu right so we talked about motorhaka and stuff but you know one of the things that that popped up that that surprised me when i was researching this is some of the other developments that happened out of all of this activity um hashira jochu yes started in itami i i could have sworn that came earlier but i i was wrong about that right now for for those who don't know we we did i think our out of 10 episode talked a lot about hashira jochu but basically what it is is uh i think it was in the what was it in the domo shizuki that they talked about how adding distilled alcohol during the sort of late stages of the fermentation helped balance out flavors and also helped improve shelf stability of sake.

28:26And so they would have been distilling sake or fermented rice into a higher percentage of alcohol and adding it in later. so you know Hashira Jochu was a big step it was a big thing it became basically a standard practice for sake brewing yeah so I'll warn you now this is going to open up a can of worms but we can we can kind of get into the next part of this but there are two major things to come from Itami as a brewing region you've just said the first one which is Hashira Jochu or Hashira shochu, both are fine. This is made from kasutori shochu. So this is distilled sake leaves, effectively.

29:16And they would then, they would then distill that and, and they would use that to, for a number of reasons, but it's, it's aruten, it's, it's added alcohol. Now, the domo shuzuki, we've talked about this many, many times on the podcast. It's by far the most significant existing document from the Edo period, the entire 250 years. It is a thoroughly well-written book about sake brewing from the time. there's a lot they don't know about it because it was written anonymously which would have been the way to do that back then it probably wouldn't have been the right thing to be giving away all these secrets but someone wrote this book this very detailed book on sake brewing that mentions hashira jōchu and they they kind of think it's about i think it's 1687 but they're honestly not sure but they're almost certain it was written by someone a brewer or a kuramoto more likely from konoike.

30:23And so that's really how they know that this technique is an itami technique. So yes, aruten, the history of aruten, very likely starts in itami. But the other, I guess you could talk about the two pillars of itami is the mokuhaihou. So this is wood ash filtration. Of course, they don't use wood ash anymore when they're doing filtration not um not pressing they use charcoal which obviously they're they're quite closely related but they are different but the original method of doing this is they were used wood ash instead and this would this would be a fining agent for the sake that would help make it clear and i promised you that would be there would be a can of worms this opens up the can of worms of is itami the birthplace of modern seishu because that is their claim just that that that is the the entire principle of their claim is that they were the first to do wood ash filtration and therefore they made seishu seishu means clear sake so therefore it's the birth of modern seishu and i think there is a a plaque somewhere in konoike which that is specifically in konoike and it says is is very close to the same it might even be exactly the same wording as the one in nara at shorakiji so that is the million dollar question who has the right to say they're the birthplace of modern seishu they both have they both have a plaque they both use that tagline to promote their respective industries we're not going to go over shorakuji and bodai moto and all the rest of it again because we've got two episodes that you can go back and listen to which covers those topics but really it's a discussion of what you believe to be the defining features of seishu is it the use of a moto is it the use of stage mashing all these kind of techniques which emerge from nara or is it a sake that is no longer cloudy because it's had Wudash added to it which makes it clear which happens to be what the Meiji government I believe would later use as the legal term for sake which became Nihonshu which is now Seishu that's basically it and these two regions still kind of ignore the fact that they're both saying the same thing and it's in all their promotion if you look at the breweries that are still operating in itami in fact i'll give you an interesting thing so this is on the website of a brewery we just mentioned konishi shuzo they're the makers of shirayuki which is a very famous brand and they say on their website in english by the way so in the days when the only type of sake was muddy sake in brackets doboroku itami was the place where clear sake was first made now that suggests by using doboroku now this could have just been a translation error or someone translating that didn't really understand the nuances of sake but if that's what the men specifically doboroku what that claim is saying is that even with dankake even with polishing both the the white rice for adding to the mash and the koji even by using a very advanced form of moto and kiyoke these kind of things these very important things for our understanding of modern sake specifically particularly from a brewer's perspective none of those things matter because it was still doboroku and the point where we get filtration that's the important part for our definition of seishu so I'm not sure I buy into that but that's the most extreme example of this kind of claim that I've found but it is up on their website but like I said it could have been it's in English so it could have been just a bad translation or something but you get the gist of it That's their whole thing rests on filtration.

35:48So now, when we talk about the wood fining, I mean, that's a fining thing that would come after filtration, right? That would come after, say, what we call pressing now, right? Bringing out the liquid and then you fine the remaining solids out of that mixture.

36:15So, I don't know. I have to say I was in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture last weekend, and I saw another sign actually at Izumo Taisha calling Izumo or Shimane the birthplace of Nihonshu. So, you know, I think there's probably so many levels of argument that we could have about that particular fact. it would never ever end but it does it strikes me as a rather delicate difference between filtering and fining as to which one was actually the originator but I think we can obviously agree that Itami did some very good stuff so now that's what sort of brings out that's what Itami brought to the sake brewing, right?

37:13It made sake brewing into a professional industry and then it added some techniques of clarification, Hashida Jouchu, very fundamental basic things. But then, like all good things, the heyday had to come to an end. You know, we've mentioned it already that the rise of Nada is the fall of Itami. um so you know mentioning before of course they've already established transport routes they've already established the idea of of you know shipping sake but then i don't know i i feel like growth became a significant driving force like as as demand grew and as sort of the the the pressures on production grew in Itami, I think this probably is one of the things that helped push production away from what, Andy, you already said was a really small area.

38:20But I don't know, I could be wrong about that. When we talk about the fall of Itami, what is it that sort of sparks that? Well, again, obviously we don't have the benefit of being able to see the actual reasons in real time. But for me, it seems quite obvious. And again, it's nothing really to do with brewing technique or anything. Initially, it's just the fact that modernization happened. With someone like Itami and Ikeda, because obviously Ikeda suffered the same fate. There's only, what, one brewery left in Ikeda. Ikeda used to have double figures as well And they were one of these big brewing regions But they suffered the exact same fate And it's because the game moved on The demand for sake from these regions was so high as well And everyone, obviously any business You are affected by logistics So the fact that Itami are just that little bit inland makes a really big difference to what would have been the state-of-the-art method of transportation, which goes from things like pack horse and then you start to get into shipping.

39:41But Itami brewers are having to first load their sake and get them into these rivers and then take them downstream to, what, a bigger port, where they would have then got moved to one of the larger ports, which would be Osaka or there's another port I believe called Hyogo which is obviously the name of the prefecture but it is actually a port as well and so they would have had to do all this just to get their sake on the way to Edo whereas Nada is on the water so places like Nishinomiya are port towns. They can just literally open up their brewery doors, wheel a few barrels down to the water. And in fact, for some of the breweries, they were on the water and off it went to one of these big ports and off to Edo.

40:39So it's just a simple logistical problem that being that little bit further inland gave them a massive disadvantage and obviously expense as well there's there's going to be a considerable expense you've got another what possibly two sets of hands that the sake has to pass through getting it getting it shipped down there before they can even get it on its journey and that is for me for for my money that is where nada begins to to start this ascendancy but the the same thing could have happened to nada when transportation moved on again and you've got roads and things like that but i think we talked about this in the nada episode they happened to be where the train lines were when train lines came in and they happened to be next to the big freeways that were built and everything so it it it didn't level the playing field it actually just it was a continuation of their fortune it's as simple as that and like we said you've got you go from what an estimated 80 breweries at one point down to down to two maybe three ikeda didn't quite have quite as many as is itami it still had really famous brands as well manganji i think was the the big one from Ikeda, but they only have one brewery, Goshun.

42:10And yeah, I think maybe we don't talk about Goshun because it's, it's got a bit of a reputation as being a bit quirky in the way that they do business, but let's just say it's not widely distributed anymore. But it was a very, very popular brand at one point as well. So yeah, again, it's, it's nothing exciting, transportation, but there you go. these are these are the facts so yeah so gotta move the gotta move the product and it's just easier to do that so now we have a lot of breweries moved from itami to nada i'm just going to assume that uh not all of them did so you know now we have two maybe three left uh you know and and i think the other sort of history that comes is just the history of the industry as a whole, right?

43:06All of the restrictions of wartime leading to rice rationing, changes in the market, making it difficult to do business. And probably the ones that didn't move to Mata were the smaller breweries, the most vulnerable ones to all of those sort of outside factors. so I'm just going to assume that we had a lot of breweries close right yeah and from the reasons you just gave there the second world war was the big one of course again if you're by that point Itami is obviously not the big famous brewing region it was and as we know during the second world war a lot of breweries were repurposed for the wartime effort so i mean that that happened everywhere but if you've got all of this industry creating tax revenue and the famous breweries in nada you'd imagine that when they're deciding which breweries to close they're going to be a bit more inclined to close breweries in places like Ikeda and Itami rather than the crown jewel of the sake industry which was Nada and that's why probably a lot more breweries survived that cull in Nada although of course breweries were closed, breweries were told to join together but you still get the likes of Kiku masamuni sakura masamuni which were probably considered untouchable because of the their their popularity and their fame yeah yeah i mean i don't know it seems like a sad story but also just it is it is what it is right it and and the industry we have today is the industry that we have and this is how it got to be where it is um but itami has left its mark on the industry not only in terms of its its past influence and and its importance as a as a place of you know development but uh there is an itami gi right and i i suppose i have to be honest it strikes me as a little odd perhaps is the word for it because like we said there are two maybe three breweries who could sell sake with this gi and it's not necessarily the most famous or most compelling name to have on a on a sake bottle because you know i think most people don't have that association with you know quality or or importance or desirability with itami though obviously you know i'm not saying that the people in itami don't make good sake because you know shirayuki is extremely popular and good and uh i'm sure the others are as well it's just a gi for two breweries maybe three I have to wonder about that I was kind of hoping you weren't going to bring this up Jim but we're going to have to get into this aren't we you can cut it if you want let's deal with it I did look into this as well I actually poured through the listing for this as well it's available online it's quite a long description By now, anyone that follows GIs are probably going to know what to expect.

46:57There's no real big surprises with these things. The one for Itami is really nothing. There's no big surprises in it. I don't think that's going to be a shocker. Domestic rice using local water, I think, is one of the stipulations. and this is the point I have a bit of a problem with because I think they might have missed a trick is it has to be Tokutei me Shoshu so I find that really I think they've missed an opportunity there and I'll tell you why but before that I did find one and it says in article 2 under production method and I hope I've not picked up on this wrong is an activated carbon must be used as a filter medium.

47:50So does that mean that it has to be charcoal filtered? I wonder. But anyway, if that is the case, then that is obviously some kind of attempt to instill these two pillars that I mentioned, which is Hashira Jochu and Woodash, Wood ash, well originally they're not going to put wood ash in it anymore But charcoal, what became charcoal filtration And if they have then actually good on them But I think they should have went the whole hog on that And made it no stipulation for Tokutei Me Shoshu And then you would have had Futsu Shu that could have been included in that as well I mean I guess they can still do it with Aruten But we don't really know How much added Shochu was being used Back then They say that's where the Tokutei Meisho rules Came from That it's about 8-10 % But we don't really know that I don't think But I just think it would have been Nice if they hadn't mentioned Tokutei Meishoshu Because let's be honest When we say Tokutei Meishoshu People think about Ginjo and stuff like that there's really no connection to to any of these things the closest in tokete meishoshu is honjozo and if they've got honjozo then why not just do futushu as well and they could have had lots of interesting um added alcohol types as well so that's my take on it but other than that it's i mean it's it's really nothing to write home about if you google it all of the promotional things all of the celebratory youtube videos and stuff there's a few been made quite understandably i mean there is a lot of effort has to get put into these things and they've got to submit applications and what have you so it is something for them to i guess to pat themselves on their back about and but if you notice one thing and it's it's common in a lot of these actually these promotional videos for gi's is they really don't talk much about what the gi actually is they don't talk about what the boxes must that must be ticked i looked for the kyoto one is is a recent one as well and i looked i read a massive article about the kyoto gi and it never mentioned the definition once so yeah I think that probably tells you a lot about tells you all you need to know yeah but you're right it has a GI but it also has a Japan heritage designation that was awarded in 2020 so that is something that they do within Japan these are things that are based on them being historically significant so in 2020 not just itami but itami morohaku and nada no kipon were awarded the the japan heritage and that's quite a big deal as well and you'll see an equal amount of promotion if you ever go to itami and nada on the japan heritage as you will maybe even arguably more than the the gi because i think if i'm being honest not that i'm trying to speak for the japanese people but i think they're probably gonna see more value in the japan heritage than uh gi yeah i think it it's it probably is more attention grabbing in japan i i agree like you know japan is is is proud of its heritage and the japanese people are conscious of it gi is you you have to kind of have a an explanation of what gi might actually mean before people start to think oh okay that's that's pretty good so yeah so yeah that's that is itami its place in history uh it's unfortunate fall but it is still i think a name to think about and know particularly if you're thinking about you know the place of Western Japan and not up in particular in the history of sake.

52:16So that is it. Now it's time for our recommendations. And I must admit to a bit of trepidation here because the, let me just say the only Itami sake I have ever had is Shirayuki. But I'm, I'm, I'm very curious to, to, to hear andy's recommendation because he's he's there he's close and he knows it far better than i do well i'm also quite worried about this because i think we for just for our listeners benefit we don't discuss before we get to this stage of the podcast what each one is going to pick we genuinely don't and i don't i have a feeling it's gonna be the same uh but i'll i'll go ahead but before that i i actually i was going to do something quirky and say kenbishi but i'm not i'm not going to i'm not going to do that uh that's a bit cheeky um but i'll in lieu of that i'll just give a little easter egg about kenbishi if you look at most of their labels but definitely the kuramatsu and the the what what they call the futushu ken kenbishi it's the red label one that none of them are actually really properly futsushu but there is a tiny little mark on the label and it says tanjo now we couldn't have got through the whole podcast without mentioning that tanjo is one of probably the least well-known ones but one of the many monikers that Itami sake got so Itami Morohaku sort of over superseded that but originally how it was how it was promoted was under the Tanjo label and so the Tan is the kanji from Itami and then Jo is from Kamosu to Brew so it literally means Brewed in Itami and this was a way to quickly identify what would have been the best sake in Japan to consumers but Kenbishi still honour their Itami roots by continuing to put it on the label and on the other side of the Kuramatsu label there is another couple of kanji and it actually refers to a water source in Itami as well so the Next time you get a bottle of Kenbishi, hopefully you're all drinking that quite a lot anyway, then you can look out for these two little Easter eggs on the label.

54:51But my actual pick, unsurprisingly, I am also a fan of Konishi Shizu. I think they're a fantastic brewery. And we should also mention they are one of the oldest in Japan. Kenbishi is, what, 1505? They weren't far behind them. They were 1550. So that is an old brewery. I think they say that they're the oldest that's only been in the same family, is their claim. Oh, okay. So I might have got that wrong. But anyway, Konishi Shuzo. But I'm going to go for a very aptly named one, which is Edo no Genroku. And that's my worst fears. just uh so that's obviously jim's one as well this could be right it's it's the only one i've had so yes well let's do it together so why why do you like it jim i'll tell you why i like it well because it has what i think is uh the kind of depth like so it claims to be made by to this sort of uh reconstructed edo period recipe right yeah and and uh it and it it doesn't taste like anything you could really get these days just super rich uh full of complex flavors it is quite sweet um you know the i can be she has it has i think you can you can feel that similarity to kenbishi in particularly some of the higher aged stuff that Kenbishi has.

56:34But it is just unique. It's unlike anything else. And it is quite something to experience, in my opinion. What do you think of it? Yeah, the first time I tried it, I couldn't believe it. For any of our listeners that haven't tried this, get yourself to Japan and find a bottle of this stuff. It is wild. the the reconstruction just from to give a brewer's insight as to how they've done this or how i think they've done this is by not using much water in the brewing process so modern brewing now uses about 120 to 130 percent of the as a percentage of the white rice ginjo can go a lot higher than that sometimes up to 140 but back then when it's literally called the edono genroku so this is the heyday of not just the itami but also a golden era of sake drinking and they say that this recipe comes from that period of time and they would have used a very low water content that's how they did brewing it is something we can't get into now but it also involves trying to prevent spoilage but one effect of that is you get this quite cloying is going to make it sound bad but it is a very viscous sweet kind of treacly type of sake and this edo no genroku i mean it's dark brown it's very dark color yeah yeah i guess koji is going to be the other thing it probably had and brewers used to use a lot more koji back then as well and that gives it more sweetness as well but for sure using less water means the fermentation doesn't extend like it does in modern brewing and it means there's more residual sugar but yeah this is this is a sake where you've never tried one and you're not hearing things like fruit or any of these delicate flavors that you get in contemporary we're talking caramel and mushrooms and figs and dark chocolates and yeah yeah it's very complex and as i've always said and i will continue to say a really good sake for me is one that you can drink at a number of different temperatures a sake that is only good at a very specific temperature that's no fun in my book and Edo no Genroku can be enjoyed at a very wide spectrum you can drink it on the rocks or you can just as easily warm it up and it's going to offer something something interesting at all those temperatures yeah I agree so a first for us it felt almost a little inevitable but yes we have one recommendation and it honestly it really is, it's an experience that you really can't get elsewhere, sometimes a little kenbishi can come close sometimes tamagawa comes a little bit close, just in intensity you know, there are some products from tamagawa that also use old fashioned recipes but yeah, it's not your ginjo for sure so that brings us i think to the end of another sake deep dive uh just so everyone sort of remembers uh we announced this before but our may episode is going to be for patreon patrons only right and uh you know we have not yet decided what we're going to be talking about but we're going to try to make it a little bit special so uh yeah patrons the place to find that and we do want to uh thank our patreon patrons you do keep this this this whole trainer rolling uh it's for those of you who are not yet patrons uh www.patreon.com slash sake deep dive all one word uh patrons to get in the data invited to our sake summer matsuri where you can come and see andy and i talk nerdy things about sake right so andy is there anything else you want to add about Itami before we say Goodbye No I think that's it I think we've done it The justice that it needs If anyone's in Japan go and visit It's not far Really if you've got the Capacity to get to Nada Then you can quite easily get to Itami as well Not quite as much there But it is still a nice It's an old castle town So there are lots of historical elements There and of course you can you can visit Konishi Shuzo which is a nice place to visit, they have a nice shop and restaurant and all the rest of it, all the things you would expect of a big brewery, so yeah it should be on any serious sake drinkers itineraries anyway, but I guess a lot of people give it a miss and stay on the train and go to nada there's still time to fix that Right, so that has been Another episode of Sake Deep Dive Thank you for listening I've been your host, Jim Ryan If you want to learn more about what's going on with me You can find me at my website www.jimryan.com That's J-I-M-R-I-O-N And Andy, where can people find you?

1:02:19You can get me at my website www.originsake.com Or you can take one of my tours which is originsakitours.com and I'm going to be actively doing those during the summer so if anyone wants to take a tour of Nada then get in touch highly recommended I have taken Indy's tour I enjoyed it thoroughly so I hope everybody stays happy and healthy and enjoys the spring for those of you in the northern hemisphere Keep your tokuris full and drink responsibly. Kanpai. Kanpai.