Freshly Made!
The Allure of New Sake

The Kumamoto Prefecture Sake Institute, established to improve sake brewing techniques in Kumamoto Prefecture, was originally located on the premises of Zuiyo. As a brewery that bears part of the roots of Kumamoto's sake culture, Zuiyo will continue to be innovative while maintaining the honest brewing process, and using Kumamoto yeast as its basic brewing method.
 
The work begins with a 'festival in the fall to pray' for the sake brewing to go well. "We have two brewing seasons, autumn and winter, and there is a lot of time-consuming, traditional manual labor involved," says Vice President Yoshimura, "We are no longer in the age of mass production and mass consumption of sake - we are at a major turning point in the sake industry."
"We want to make sake that is 'chosen' by consumers. We also want to challenge ourselves to make easy-to-drink sake for light drinkers and sparkling sake for events. For the past 15 years, we've been focusing on sake rice cultivation. In addition to 'Yamada-Nishiki,' varieties such as 'Hana Nishiki,' or 'Tamanae,' and 'Gin-no-sato' which is a native to Kyushu, are grown in various parts of Kumamoto Prefecture through a trial-and-error process. Nowadays, sake can be made even with small amounts of rice. We would like to evolve our sake brewing while respecting the fundamentals of ginjo production," said Vice President Yoshimura with a confident look on his face.