A visit to the rural sake brewery that makes Dassai! (Photo-essay)

Back when he was the Asahi Shuzo Company's vice president, I met Kazuhiro Sakurai when he visited Sake Bar Ginn while he was on a stopover in Hong Kong.  Over a shared bottle of Dassai Sparkling 50, we chatted about subjects ranging from the films of Studio Ghibli to how one can get Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki topped with oysters.  And at one point in the conversation, the man who's now the company president told me that if I ever did get to Hiroshima, I was welcome to visit his sake brewery, which is located in the neighboring prefecture of Yamaguchi; something I duly proceeded to do on my trip to Japan last month!

It took two trains (including a very local one with just one carriage and a driver who, at some stations, would do double duty collecting the fare from passengers getting off his train) to get from Hiroshima to Suo-Takamori, the nearest train station to the brewery that I hadn't previously realized is not only located in a really rural part of Yamaguchi prefecture but fairly high up in the mountains.  But it was so totally worth the effort to get there to see how the sake that -- as I told Sakurai-san -- I've drank thousands of liters of gets made. 

Adding to the experience was my getting extended incredible courtesy and serious VIP treatment: as in I got picked up from (and later dropped off at) the train station, given a personalized tour of the place, and met Sakurai-san again, this time over on his home turf.  Oh, and after I toured the brewery facilities, I also spent some time at the Dassai Brewery Side Store, where I got to not only sip glasses of the familiar Dassai 23 but also the even more amazing Dassai 23 Centrifuge and simply incomparable Dassai Beyond!

Inside the industrial-looking rice-polishing facility 

which was the first stop on the tour

 Unpolished Yamada Nishiki sake rice on the left and 

the same rice post polishing on the right

The Asashi Shuzo Company's main building

Before entering the working section of the main brewery,

one needs to put on protective clothing and spend time in an 

air shower room to reduce the risk of contamination of the facilities

The polished sake rice is (still) washed by hand

rather than machine at the Asahi Shuzo brewery

 I feel incredibly privileged to have been allowed into the area

where they make rice malt when people were in the process of 

sprinkling koji onto the steamed rice

I also thought it very cool to be allowed into the vast room

where hundreds of large vats filled with steamed rice, koji 

and water are mixed to make mash that's left to ferment

Filled bottles of sake about to have the famous 

Dassai label affixed onto them :)