Koshi no Kanbai - Snow Country Sake

0:19Welcome to Sake Deep Dive, the sake podcast for the beyond beginner. I am your host Jim Ryan, writer, translator and kind of goofy cat guy down in Yamaguchi Prefecture Joined as always by my friend and co-host Andrew Russell How are you doing today Andy? I am good Jim, I'm very excited for this episode actually I've been wanting to do this one for a while So yeah, let's do it Let's do it You've been far to the north Gazing upon the Single plum blossom In the melting snow To bring us news Across the great divide What are we talking about? Well I wish that part was true Actually I did go to The place that you just mentioned But there was no snow or anything unfortunately But there was some nice crisp spring air But yes We are talking about Koshi no Kanbai or Ishimoto Shuzo to be more Accurate Let's be honest one of the most Famous sake brands Of all time probably Pretty much yeah I mean You know it's this fascinating Story of Of how sake branding Really shapes things Because I mean It is universal in Japan Like I don't know I don't think I've ever been to a a grocery store that doesn't have koshino kanbei on the shelf but i don't think anybody actually knows ishimoto shuzo i doubt if if you talk to the to the average punter on the street and uh and said if they if they'd ever had any ishimoto shuzo sake they they would say yes but um everybody who drinks sake has has at least tried uh koshino kanbei which is interesting because Niigata sake in general isn't quite as famous as it once was.

2:20There was a time when Niigata was the place that everybody talked about when it comes to sake. But other brands from Niigata that rival Koshino Kanbei would have to be Kikusui maybe. Yeah. In terms of presence, definitely. Presence, yeah. I mean, the Funaguchi. Yeah. Shibori Ichiban is like everywhere. It is everywhere. Literally everywhere. Hakai-san. Ah, Hakai-san, of course, another Nigata run. Okay, there you go. Kubota. Kubota. And maybe approaching it is Kamo Nishiki. I don't know. It's at Eon now. Sure. My local, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think it's quite reached those heights yet. but for sure it's that's also a popular brand and i've seen that in places you wouldn't have expected to see it before as well i'm sure i've seen it in supermarkets in kyoto as well yeah yeah right but but it was of course koshino kambai that that i think blazed that trail across japan and and the story for that one is is a pretty good one but yeah like you said you just You recently visited them just this last spring.

3:41I have not visited them. So I'm going to have to lean on your on-the-ground experience guiding us through the story of Koshino Kanbai. Yeah, well, I was very lucky to get to visit them. I don't think everyone does, so it was a real privilege. But there was a couple of reasons for wanting to do so. One, I've been fascinated with the brand for quite a long time I do drink Koshi no Kanbei quite often actually But the other reason was we did the Niigata episode And thank you to our listeners, it was very popular It was one of our most listened to episodes already And it's only been out for a few months But something just didn't sit right The fact that neither of us had actually been to Niigata Before we did the episode That's not like us to do that kind of thing We're normally We were a bit out off piste on that one Because we normally talk about western Japan Which is our stomping ground So I wanted to remedy that So I went very quickly actually After that episode aired I went with a friend of mine who's also Scottish and you know what could go wrong two scottish guys with a budget for sake going to niigata well the answer is nothing it was fantastic we had a great time and there was no problems whatsoever but i'm sure your livers may have something to say about that but uh yeah i mean to be fair just as a side note we could almost do another episode on the ponchu can but i don't want to get into that tonight but my god is that a fantastic sake experience yeah the reason i went was to visit Koshi no Kanbai and that really dominated the very short time we had there.

5:39We were with the staff for two days. We went drinking with them and the next day we visited the brewery. But I must say it was thanks to a certain translator, interpreter and sometimes Sakigai from Yamaguchi who gave us the connect. They do speak very highly of Egypt. So thank you for that. That was my into the brewery. As I said, I don't think, if any of our listeners are thinking, I'm just going to jump on the plane and go to Niigata, I wouldn't advise it. I don't think it's particularly easy to visit that brewery, sadly. But I was very, very fortunate to be able to do so. Right, yeah. So I have worked with the people at Ishimoto Shuzo for a few years, translating their websites and some of their articles for newsletters and stuff.

6:37Which, again, I got that job because a certain Gantner, Mr. Gantner of sake fame, passed it my way. But yeah, I have worked with Ishimono Shuzo for a while, and they very graciously have sent me cases of sake in addition to sort of the more normal pay. And yeah, there have been great people. But like I said, I have never been up there. And having translated their website, I can tell you that, no, they do not accept just people off the street for tours for a couple of reasons, primarily. I think it's a spacious the one that stood out to me is that they simply don't have any place to park for lots of visitors which if they were open to tours I'm assuming they would get lots and lots of visitors being as famous as they are so yeah it's not something that happens a lot Yeah I can attest to that the brewery is actually in quite a unique and fitting location when you speak to them they have a real reverence for the local people.

7:47I think that goes back to the founding of the company in 1907. I guess we lose our perception of these things. That sounds really young, but it's not really. It's well over 100 years ago. But in sake speak, that's a very short time. But the brewery was literally founded on the basis that they wanted the hard-working farmers to have something nice to drink. The land around them is actually not particularly arable, which is against the grain, I suppose, for what you think of Niigata. And farming is apparently very, very tough, or was very, very tough back then. And so they wanted to give the farmers something nice to drink, and that was the story of the founding.

8:37But the location of it is right smack in the middle of a very nice, quite picturesque village. And there's houses very close to the brewery all around it. So there's no room to expand or anything like that, as you said, to put in a car park, for example, that would be able to house buses and things like that. But they've actually made a lot of effort quite recently to make the brewery blend in more. So they've put up bamboo fencing and everything. It's beautiful, actually, the main office building. And that's all been done with a mind that they don't want the brewery to stick out too much because they are aware of the fact that they are in a residential area.

9:26So unfortunately No visits Probably anytime soon But their sake is definitely Accessible in Japan Yeah I'm curious, so Is it just the one production facility? Yes Wow So how would I describe it? It is very, very much A handmade product They are definitely maintaining That traditional aspect of their brewing It is not heavily automated That is not the impression I got from the brewery Obviously I know the equipment From having worked with it myself So I don't actually need explanations often When you can tell by the scale and everything How they're doing it Obviously there's a lot of sake being made But I was very surprised to find out That they are actually only winter brewing That's a very similar schedule actually to Kenbishi which is really surprising because they really must be going at it for that very short window but it's just something they've always done so they they feel that that's the best time to brew and they don't have these super modern facilities like air conditioning and stuff like that which was all very good to see yeah it's very impressive brewery visit and my respect for them only went up Once I'd actually seen it all for myself Yeah That's fascinating Does production I think Does it approach Kenbyshi's?

11:02I didn't ask Okay But I'd imagine it's more than Kenbyshi Oh really? I think so Maybe they're about the same But Kenbyshi's actually not that big a brewery anymore So That's a misconception that Kenbishi, I don't think they're ever going to lose that. But basically, with both companies, we're not talking your Hakatsuru level or the other one, Takara Shuzo. They're not in that scale or anywhere close to it. You'd almost say they're a big, medium-sized company, both of them. But I don't know. I know Kenbishi's, again, I'm not going to say, but I got the impression that they were probably not too different.

11:53Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. So now I think a lot of our listeners are probably aware of like how, I think maybe the general story of how Koshino Kambai became sort of this name. But, you know, you said that it was founded in 1907, right? That's 120-something years ago, 119 years ago, Taisho era. How did it get to where it is? How did it go from a relatively small place in the middle of, I think in Japan terms, it's kind of the middle of nowhere. Like it's really quite far from any of the real centers of the country, whether you're talking the Kanto area around Tokyo, whether you're talking the Kamigata area around Kyoto and Osaka.

12:49It's way out there. How did it get to be the powerhouse, Andy? I think it's a very interesting story, actually. Now, obviously, you speak to just about any brewery and they're going to say, we refuse to compromise on our production standards, blah, blah, blah. And that is the story you get from Ishimoto Shuzo as well, that they have always had a determination to brew the right way, the way they feel is the right way, and they don't want to compromise on the production standards. But if you actually look at the way their product lineup is set up now and how far back it goes, it checks out. They really do mean that.

13:39I think they have always been very, very true to the way they believe sake should be made. And it hasn't wavered through the years. for example there's only what fourth gen fourth generation which is not not that much you know you hear about 15th 16th 17th generation and stuff they're only about four generations and each of them has had their their own idea of what they should do in things and for example the second generation one was very fascinated with Hashira Jochu but they didn't want to just use any shochu there's quotes of this this man saying no the secret to hashira jochu surely must be to make good shochu and so if you look at the production facility now they also have and they have for a while they also have the ability to distill their own shochu and they actually produce their own shochu which was seemed to be very popular locally as well so it's it's things like that where the comparison I'll give you is something quite close to home I'm not saying it's similar to Gokyo but I got the same vibe as Gokyo from the guys at Ishimoto Shuzo I think I think they're very they're very serious about what they do they're very they're very diligent and they're they are very proud of what they're doing but they also they can have a bit of a laugh as well that reminded me of Gokyo a little bit that there's no pretentiousness there so they're very serious about their sake brewing but they aren't arrogant about it either and that was the similarities I found with Gokyo I'm sure you'll agree that that's a good description of how Gokyo go about it and you see that in their products as well like I said I won't give the game away But the one that I'm going to recommend I think is really interesting It'd be interesting to see where they go with it But there is a I think a lot of people From people I've spoke to There's an image that they're kind of like a ginjo brewer And They're really not There is a lot of ginjo in their product Line up but I think That's more a consequence of The Tokutemi Shoshu system Rather than their desire to make Ginjo I think it's a lot more complex than just a brewery that is trying to make ginjo sake.

16:20Yeah. I think probably a significant contribution to that, I guess, prejudgment or that conception of them comes from how their explosion into the Japanese market sort of sparked or led into or I think is connected mentally to the Ginjo boom, right? Like we had this, they're the Maboroshi no meigara, right? They're the phantom label that suddenly people in Tokyo started getting obsessed with. And it was made out in the countryside and the quality was really good. And suddenly people really, really wanted it. And that sort of jizake boom was a direct, I think, precursor to the ginjo boom. And, you know, Koshino Kanbei was making really high quality sake at really low prices that maybe I think a lot of basic sort of your standard consumers, they conflated the two ideas, which is, I think, understandable.

17:35Yeah, it's interesting. I totally agree with you. I do think the narrative on this is wrong. The Ginjo boom is the 1980s But the Jizaki boom So the story of the Jizaki boom goes back to the 60s So there's a woman who is the editor-in-chief of a magazine called Sake Which I wish that was still around But I think it finished a long time ago Her name is Sasaki Hisako and she was very famous in her day. She was a very respected critic of sake. She was a prolific writer. She's penned several books on sake, so she was very well respected. But she is credited with coining the phrase Maburoshi no sake, and she coined it for Koshino Kanbai.

18:35And that was literally the... That is, read any source, and they credit that point to 1963. She published an article in the Weekly Asahi, I think it was. We talked about this on the last podcast. And she mentioned this incredible sake from Niigata, Koshino Kanbai. And she described it as a Mabaroshi no sake. And the whole thing just exploded. But the sake that did that is not Ginjo. It wasn't Futsushu at the time Or Ginjo because None of those categories existed But in today's System It's still not Ginjo It's Futsushu because The sake that The whole thing began with Is Koshinokan by white label And it's actually one of the few Sake you'll find Where it literally says Futsushu on the label Not even in Japanese it's written in romaji so everyone can read it so there's to me it's one thing it's way before the ginjo boom and two it wasn't ginjo yeah ginjo ginjo happens a lot we're talking it's easy to get carried away you know oh they're roughly the same time they're 20 years apart yes at least so well how does how does the tangrei karakuchi boom kind of bridge those do you think because you know what happened then was you know in 1960s we're still sort of on the the the tail end of of the sanzoushu uh sort of normalization and and a lot of the sake was truly quite heavy and sugared and things and so you know i think one of the things that led to that excitement about Koshi no Kanbai, the Futsushu, the Niigata sake, was that difference in sort of flavor profile.

20:37And this is how I think Tangrei Karakuchi became associated with a higher quality of sake. But again, that timeline, how does that, does that, does the timeline work out there? Are we thinking in the 70s with the Tangrei Karakuchi? So I think I said this on the last podcast as well, the Jizaki boom lasted about 20 years. It's not some flash in the pan thing. It lasted a long time and it evolved in between that. But the honest truth with the Jizaki boom is yes, it was the direct result of customers tiring of Sanzo Shu. I never drank Sanzo Shu Or maybe I've had some Koshu that originally was Sanzo Shu That now tastes quite nice I've never known But from anyone that has tried it They tell you it was some pretty nasty stuff And it was very, very sweet The fact that they probably weren't fermenting properly And it was laden with additives and stuff It would have been very sweet And probably quite unpleasant to drink but like I said before your last question about what is the real ethos in Ishimoto Shuzo through the years it seems to have been brewing sake the right way and when it was discovered and put out into the public it must have been a stark contrast to Sanzo Shu you've got Sanzo Shu and then all of a sudden you've got this Tanrei Karakuchi this light and dry sake so that is really the beginnings of the Jizaki boom and like I said there's no solid connection whatsoever with Ginjo so yes the timeline does work out that this happened about 20 years it really gets momentum in the 70s and then by the 80s you've got Ginjo starting to come onto the market but as we know the Ginjo boom doesn't really go into overdrive until the 90s So that's the timeline I guess From it but It's very important to point out that people Are conflating the Jizaki Boom as some sort of Junmai revival Or what have you Nearly, as far as I can See from books that I have and sources The early part of the Jizaki Boom, nearly all of them Were added alcohol types They were aruten types As is Koshino Kanbai It is an Aruten sake.

23:14And a lot of the other sake around them, these were Aruten as well. I didn't get as far as when I interviewed them, that very important part of Tanri Karakuchi would be Aruten. But I am convinced of that. I just need someone to confirm that. Because it does seem that there is a framework of Tanri Karakuchi. And every time you get a brewery now that says, look, we've done like an OG Tanri Karakuchi, they're nearly always added alcohol. So it seems to be that they're added alcohol and that they're made from gohyaku mangoku. And they typically have quite a low polishing ratio. And that is exactly the case with Koshi no Kanbei White Label.

24:03it really isn't you know you think of some of the the requirements of futsushu they've gone well beyond that i mean it's a 58 percent semi buai yeah made from gohyaku mangoku which is that's kotekimai so this is very expensive sake rice polished to 58 percent and it's just got added alcohol and i think probably the i don't know but probably the level of alcohol exceeds 10 but i'd be stunned if it was very high i think it's probably it exceeds 10 but probably somewhere under 20 that's just my general hunch on this and that's the probably the only reason why it's a futu shoe speaking of the rice do you like did you ask or do you know was it togaimai no i don't think it was really i don't think it was but that that is a possibility a lot of futu shoes from these companies are togaimai it's a great way to utilize the futsushu classification because you can do everything the same but you can you can stick to your high standards but you can also make use of what really would go to waste is perfectly good rice that you know these are omachis and yamadanishikis and gohyaku mangokus and things but if they don't make that grading then they don't make it into the sake industry unless people start using them so I think that really to me is what the futushu category serves the industry now it's got that leeway above and beyond the quite stifling rules of the tokute me shoshu and you can get some absolute gems so yeah maybe I should have asked but they didn't say that so So I don't think it was on this occasion, but I know breweries that make sake like that.

25:58Absolutely, yeah. I know Gokyo has a Futsushu, sort of a sub-label that is made from Togaimai, Yamada Nishiki, that they grow in their own fields. So, yeah, it's definitely, I think, a way. Because, yeah, it's just a way to sort of bring down the costs. You know, Togaimai doesn't sell as high as the rated Sakaimai. so yeah yeah giving me you're giving me ideas jim that's that's one episode we could do or maybe it's the summer matsuri here you go folks you heard it here first keep an eye out for the togae maifutsu shu all right so okay you've been there you've you've been inside you've seen what they're doing um i know maybe you can't get in very deep so like Is there anything particular that stood out or what is it about their production?

26:53Like you said, they're focusing on making sake the right way. What is the right way, according to Koshini Kwanbai? Well, I think it's actually very much in line with a lot of the brewers in Niigata. I think they do have, and for more on that, go back to the Niigata episode, But they do seem to have quite a lot of uniformity to their standards in Niigata. I think they decided a long time ago, quite collectively, of the direction that they want to go. And this is a prefecture with a lot of support from government agencies and brewing institutes and things. And, of course, Tanri Karakuchi is now, they're not purely focused on Tanri Karakuchi.

27:46But at the time that Koshino Kanbai and things were, and Sechubai and Kubota and these big brands, Hakkaisan, at the time when these brands were becoming so famous, there was quite a lot of similarities in the way they were brewing. So the ones from Koshino Kanbei, they are not set on local rice, but they do use a high proportion of local rice. Obviously, in Niigata, it's all about Gohyaku Mangoku. And there's a lot of products that are either a blend of another sake rice and Gohyaku Mangoku, or they're only Gohyaku Mangoku. But the interesting thing is they only use Kōtekimai. For all of their products, it's all Kōtekimai.

28:38These are obviously Go-Hyaku-Mangoku. I'm going to have to stop saying that because it's really, it doesn't slip off the tongue, that name. They use a lot of Yamada Nishiki and they also use Koshi Tanri, which is the new superstar sake rice from Niigata. But the Yamada Nishiki is obviously from Hyogo Prefecture and they have no qualms about telling people. Apparently from the minute they were founded, they haven't used 100 % local rice. So one of the things that it maybe doesn't please the people that love this narrative of everything has to be as close to the brewery as possible. They're like, no, we want the best rice.

29:26And if that happens to be in the local area, then great. as it is with Gohyaku Mangoku and Koshi Tanri, but we also use and have used Yamada Nishiki for decades and the best Yamada Nishiki, according to them, comes, and a lot of other people, comes from Miki in Hyogo Prefecture. So I was actually at a... I don't know if any of the listeners have ever been, I don't know if you've been, Jim, but there's a fantastic service area, I guess it's not a service area, Michino Eki in Hyogo prefecture and it's almost like a shrine to Yamada Nishiki. You're right banging Yamada Nishiki heartland, Mikishi, and you've got all these nada brewers obviously, but I saw the Koshino Kanbai shelf and I thought of course this is where they're getting their rice as well.

30:18They love their Hyogo Yamada Nishiki, but I think that is at the key to their to their company profile is they they do put a lot of emphasis on quality rice and that seems to have been with them from the beginning the other thing of course is relatively high polishing ratios like I said to you before if you look at a lot of these Niigata brands we talked about this at one point maybe it wasn't on the Niigata episode but Hakai-san for example like their I think it's their Honjozo is 55 % I just mentioned there that Koshino Kanbai their Futsushu is 58 % but nearly all of their products are above 60 % Semaibuai I didn't see a single one that was below that so good rice but quite heavily polished rice but then other than that it seems to be very much varied to the product so they have an incredibly wide product portfolio and that was something that actually surprised me because when you talk about Koshino Kanbei being available everywhere it's really only two or three at most brands but if you actually go and visit Niigata there's loads of them but some of them don't make it out of Niigata.

31:53Some of them are only sold within a very tight area close to the brewery. Some of them are seasonal. Some of them are new. They have new products as well that haven't really had time to reach probably some of the older retailers that have been stocking them for decades. And these are the, actually, weirdly, these are the ones that are actually ending up in more recent supermarkets and things i guess maybe the the distribution routes are are different than things but they tend to be the more ginjo focused ones but probably the most interesting thing for me and i suspect you and we'll get into this is how big of an advocate they are for warming their sake they recommend warming almost all of their sake there's only one i found online that they were saying it's probably better you drink that chilled but apart from that everything their daiginjos their 30 semi buai top i think they call it a kinmuka it is they recommend drinking that warm and when I drank with these guys at the on the first night in the izakaya it literally wasn't even a choice they the the sake was had been put behind the counter and there was about four or five varieties and they were all daiginjos and they just said yes serve them please and they they came and they were warm and it was like it was perfectly normal why would you do anything else kind of thing and like I said it was spring it was actually quite a warm day it wasn't it wasn't cold put it that way but that is one thing they have no qualms about people drinking their sake warm which was I think an interesting thing because it really goes against the the current narrative that we've all heard it you shouldn't drink ginjos warm because it bludgeons the aromas and what have you but that's that's not the case and i think that is a thing in niigata because kubota say exactly the same thing so yeah there you go yeah i think that probably speaks to how you know it is even even at their their higher levels uh like i can't speak to the to the yeasts that they're using but they're they are i think more flavor forward than aroma forward like their ajigin uh so maybe they use uh something closer to nine for their genjos or whatever but um yeah it's definitely like there's there's some heft i think some weight to the flavor despite the tangre karakuchi uh reputation it's definitely sake that stands up to heating extremely well i think i i would have to agree with with their recommendations there and yeah i think i i have to admit that for me um koshino kambai still is is represented by by the white label like it's just the one that's everywhere but uh but as i mentioned at the at the start um i have basically gone through the whole range i i guess i haven't gone through the whole range but they did send me a very significant portion of it and some of the ones that let's see it's been a couple years but the ones that stood out a lagoon lagoon is one that that has uh i think caught some attention very very different kind of packaging for koshino kambai very i think it stands out as a bit of a different approach i don't know did you did you try lagoon when you were up there i didn't try it my my drinking buddy did and obviously we should probably explain why lagoon for those who can't read kanji so the the kanji for niigata is new lagoon so the name is a take on niigata that's where the the the lagoon comes from but like you said this is a different approach they've gone they're really trying to tap into the versatility of sake the fact that you can brew sake a certain way and it can be quite it can be quite fragile and temperamental but you can also make it that it's multi-purpose and I think that's the purpose of Lagoon and we didn't try it at the brewery I'm almost ashamed to admit this we tried that at the local hub at Niigata station and my friend had it in a highball and that was the recommended serving they literally had a an offer like try this it's the local sake Lagoon but have it in a highball and my friend said like i'm having some of that because we had been drinking a lot of sake we'd just come back from the brewery and they didn't they didn't let us try that we tried shochu and all kinds of things umeshu but not that so just as a little bit of change he had a highball and said it was delicious so so there you go but that's what they're going for they can play around with this a bit you can you can drink it on the rocks you can have it in a highball but you can still enjoy it as sake and they do say you can warm it and you can chill it so it's a bit more I guess robust, a bit more full bodied than the typical Tanrei Karakuchi offerings from Koshino Kanbei but yeah I'd agree that's a very interesting one from them.

37:34Yeah it was definitely it was one of the stands out and obviously you know they've got the full range they have a an almost surprising range of Daiginjo, right? They've got the Choutokusen, which is a 30%. It's the one in sort of the really dark bottle. And then they've got the one that you mentioned, Kinmuku. They've got a couple of versions of that. Really quite a wide range of sake, particularly at those higher levels of the Tokutei Meishoushu. Yeah, it is interesting. I just wonder, though, how much of it is just the fact that that is the category they fit in for Tokutei Meishoushu. Like you said, they've definitely...

38:26They're clearly not driven by trends. If they were, they would have lost a lot of the flavor and they would have had much higher aroma. That is not Koshino Kanbai for me. Like I said, the first night we went out with about four of the staff and they put on a very nice spread for us, I have to say. And we tried a lot of their sake, but a lot of them were their Daiginjos. But we were drinking them warm the whole evening and they were absolutely delicious. So that word that you used, Ajigin, is exactly what they are. They are not Hana Ginjo, aromatic forward. These are flavor forward Ginjos. They do have a nice aroma, but not so much that you're going to take the fun away from being able to warm them up.

39:19And that is quite incredible when you think 30 % polishing ratio. That is a sake that you'd think absolutely no way should I be warming it up. But that's their go-to temperature When you look at their website They do say you can try them chilled And all that kind of thing But they do advocate for warming them up I guess the ginjo one The staple ginjo one for me Is besen ginjo And that's probably one I guess that's the one a lot of people Are going to have heard of and drank as well That's up there with a white label In terms of popularity I guess Is that the purple label? No, that is also a yellow label And it looks You have to check the smaller label on the neck To know which one it is From the white label I mean We don't really need to describe it I'm sure our listeners have seen it But it's a beautiful label actually It's a beautiful shade There is a name for that colour of yellow I think it goes to I think it's an imperial colour They used to use it in the dress Of the imperial family But it's a beautiful almost golden Yellow colour It might be Yamabuki Iro Don't quote me on that though But the besen and the white label Are the same label But just above that you have the Ginjo besen part That differentiates it But that one interestingly Is the one that they say is the clearest representation of Tanrei Karakuchi in their lineup not the white label, the Besen Ginjo so if you want to taste authentic Tanrei Karakuchi, how it would have tasted during this gold rush for Tanrei Karakuchi, then that's Shersake.

41:19Fair enough, fair enough yeah, so they have obviously expanded far beyond the sake that made them a powerhouse in the industry. Although that sake is still there and it is still preserved on tables and shelves across Japan. Yeah, can I just point out the obvious though? We were saying things like ginjo, futsushu, we've mentioned a few dai ginjos. Mm-hmm. One word we've not been using very much is Junmai. Yeah. And there is definitely a theme to this. This is not a brewery that puts too much emphasis on Junmai. I think that's quite clear. They have Junmai. Obviously, they have Junmai. I don't think they actually have a Junmai.

42:20They do have Junmai Ginjos. Ginjos and Nai Ginjos. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure there's a Jumai in their lineup, actually. I don't think there is, no. Yeah, but like I said, clearly they're not driven by trains. They know what they think is right, but having spoke to the Toji, his favourite sake was one of the Aruten types, so was mine. A lot of their sake, from top to bottom of the Tokute Meishoshu, the ones that seem to be their popular ones, and the ones that we were seeing circulating around the bars in izakaya in niigata they have to say they were mostly the aruten sakes but there are obviously a new line of sake as well and they of course they do a junmai daiginjo several several kinds and their their newer lineup which is maybe the last products that we'll mention they are both junmai these are the ones have a very distinct label and maybe they sent those to you as well jim the um yes like the this hyo or like like the one that was cool sai yeah that's it what was the other one there was a amane amane yeah so these are these are interesting these were very nice i have to say but they are very contemporary these are more in line with what people are probably expecting when they come to the brand the the sai was actually the first new product they had released in 45 years it was released back maybe three four years ago so they have they have very distinct packaging one One is like a very vibrant green colour and the other is a very cool blue colour.

44:16And it's no surprise. One is a summer release, I think, and one is a, I think it's a spring, a winter release even. They are, sorry, they are the few that they say the default should be chilled, but you can also warm them. But they are really their exception to their normal rule of recommending sake warm. Hmm. Yeah, those modern trends don't really like the whole warming thing as much. But yes, it's an incredibly diverse range. They are doing lots and lots and lots of things. And I think that maybe makes it a little bit difficult to get a grasp. But I think the one thing that you can do is if you really want to understand Koshinokanbai, you always just got to go back to the white label.

45:12Yeah. I think I'm seeing what's happening here, Jim. I think it's time. I think it's time for the recommendations. I think it's time for the recommendations. Because we've gone through all of this and we keep talking about all of these different sakes. But when the rubber hits the road, which are the ones that we drink and which are the ones that we like? And my recommendation, I think, is probably clear. I don't think there's any room for doubt. But yeah, it's the white label. It's the futsushu. It's the one that started it all. The besen is the one that they call their clearest expression. But let me just be perfectly honest.

45:53The futsushu, the white label Is the only koshino Kambai that I would Order at a restaurant If it was on the label Or if it was on the menu So those are my cards on the table How about you Andy? Did I preempt you? Were you going to say the same thing? No you're not far away from it I love the white label I was honest at the brewery When they put out Because we drank a lot the night before and then when we got to the brewery, they had an even bigger lineup for us, which was fantastic. But we started off with the white label and then it seemed to be the price went up and up and up until we got right to the top Daiginjos and they were all fantastic.

46:36I have to say the shochu was fantastic as well. They do a wonderful shochu, but we're not going to recommend that. But I did say to the toji, I said, in all honesty, the one that I would want to drink now if we were to say let's have a few more drinks it would be the white label and I got a big smile so he certainly wasn't offended by that I think yeah it's the best representation of koshino kanbai it's a sake that you're just you could sit and drink away at it all night whereas you probably couldn't do that with most ginjos but anyway I don't know why I'm saying this This is your recommendation So yeah I totally agree with you The white label is fantastic But we did have an incident A few weeks ago where we both picked the same one And I knew you were going to pick The white label So I will do a different one And I'm being a bit smug this time Because it's not one that people Are going to be able to get very easily So I'm afraid to say I do normally try And get the ones that are accessible but this one it's not unobtainable but you're probably going to have to go to Niigata to get it so the one that I was desperate to try and they didn't put on this either of the spreads they put out for us one at the izakai and one at the brewery but I did get a bottle from the brewery before I left is their Tokujoshu Hashira Jochu so there's so much to unpack with this one the second generation Kuramoto Ishimoto Seigo is the one that that was determined to make sake with Hashira Jochu so once again we've talked about this a few times but for anyone that doesn't know Hashira Jochu is when you make shochu and you add it to sake it's the way that they used to perform added alcohol before they were able to to call upon brewers alcohol like they do nowadays so it goes back to the Edo period it's extremely traditional there's a record of it in the Domo Shuzoki and it likely originates in Itami but Ishimoto Seigo read this same source presumably it was the Domo Shuzoki because he describes the the effect of it and he was determined to to use this as well but in order to do so he said the secret must surely be shochu so this is shochu not just any shochu this is shochu made from sake kasu the lees so another word for it is a kasutori shochu and i had probably the most interesting conversation i've ever had in my life about kasu talking to the toji about this again i won't say what one but they don't just use any kasu they pick a very specific one and then they distill that and then they use that some of it goes off to make their shochu but some of it goes off to make their some of their added araten types and this is one of them but it's also kimoto kei and you're gonna have to go all the way back to the kimoto episode what three years ago or something and maybe even longer.

50:06Kimoto-kei is, it's slightly different from Kimoto, but it's in the same family. But their version of it is where they add lactic acid bacteria, rather than, so they skip a stage, but it's still natural lactic acid. Again, we've not got time to go into it tonight, but that's what it is. It's a daiginjo. it's a very high spec I think it's Gohyaku Mangoku only and it is local Gohyaku Mangoku from the local region so it is one of their premium sake but it is only released in spring and it is absolutely fantastic it's a Daiginjo that you can literally do anything with the Hashira Jochu gives it real depth and complexity but it's still somehow very delicate and eminently drinkable so yeah that's my recommendation and sorry because it's not one that you're going to be able to get very easily yeah i haven't had that one i thought i'd had i thought i'd had everything but no they didn't send me that one it's like yeah like you said it's a seasonable thing and it is uh that is a that is a pricey bottle yeah uh eight 8 ,800 a bottle No I think there must be Two of them then it wasn't that expensive That's way beyond my budget Jim Okay I think it was about 4 ,000 yen Okay fair enough There's a gold label one and there's a silver label one I got this silver label one Oh okay There you go But yeah no I have not had that I am extremely interested in it I like the whole story around it.

51:56I think it's really cool. They make their own shochu and then they make their sake using their own shochu. Awesome. So, yeah. I'm zealous. Get yourself to Kyoto within the next week and you might get lucky. But after that you've got no chance. Tricky, tricky, tricky. So, oh. Right, so yes. Those are our recommendations. one of them is much easier to get than the other but they're both worth the pursuit I think and that brings us I think to the end of another episode of Sake Deep Dive thank you so much for listening once again thank you to our Patreon patrons we do have our Patreon page up it is www.patreon.com slash Sake Deep Dive all one word We just released our first ever patron-only episode.

52:56So if you join up, that should be up on the page, I think. Not exactly sure how that works. I hope you can still access it. It's up. Yeah? Yeah. It's up. Fantastic. So. And, yeah, I have been your host, Jim Ryan. You can find me online on my website, www.jimryan.com. That's J-I-M-R-I-O-N.com. But I talk very little about sake on my website these days. I spend a lot more time talking about the miseries of being a translator in the age of AI and lots of weird horror books that I read. Andy, where can they find you? You can get me on one of my two websites, originsake.com or originsakeetours. And just a big thanks to everyone who's reached out for the tour.

53:47I'm not able to do as many as I used to, but I'm hoping to change that in the very near future. So if anyone is interested in taking one of my tours, please send me an email and I will do my level best to accommodate. And as someone who has taken one of Indy's tours, absolutely fantastic time in Kobe, Nada. getting access to places I never ever would have dreamed I could have gotten access to, learning all kinds of fantastic things, and of course, drinking some great sake. So, definitely, definitely reach out. And until then, stay cool. Summer is upon us. It's time for those Natsu sake. Keep your tokuri full.

54:35Drink responsibly. Kanpai. Kanpai. Thank you.