黒龍酒造Kokuryu Shuzo

In 1975, when almost everyone in Japan still drank their sake warm, the seventh generation of Kokuryu Shuzo asked a question the industry was not asking: what happens if you mill the rice below 50%? Daiginjo, sake polished past the daiginjo threshold, existed only as a competition style, something made to impress judges and never to sell. The seventh-generation owner bottled it commercially anyway. Kokuryu Daiginjo Ryu went on national sale that year, the first daiginjo to reach the general market.

The brewery had stood in Matsuoka, Fukui (present-day Eiheiji-machi) since Nizaemon Ishidaya founded it in 1804. The Kuzuryu River runs nearby, fed by snowmelt off the Hakusan mountains. A 75-meter well beneath the brewery draws soft groundwater from that system, hardness around 23 mg/L, unusually pure. The name Kokuryu, Black Dragon, comes from an old name for the river itself.

Naoto Mizuno, the eighth generation, became president in 2005 after studying fermentation science at Tokyo University of Agriculture and spending years at Kyowa Hakko. His first significant move was distribution reform. He cut loose any retailer without proper refrigeration, even when that meant production briefly collapsing from around 1,000 koku to under 500. The brewery rebuilt to roughly 6,000 koku and now sends less than 5% overseas. Mizuno is reluctant to export sake he cannot track through the cold chain.

The premium range rewards the patience the brewery is built on. Ishidaya rests at low temperature for more than two years before release. Nizaemon is pressed by tobin-kakoi, the moromi hung in individual bags and drained by gravity alone, which gives a sake that reads rich without sitting heavy. Then there is Muni, a junmai daiginjo aged at minus 2 degrees for five years or more and sold by bid since 2018, mostly to sommeliers and chefs, the kind of buyers who need to know exactly what they are getting. The Japan Sake Awards have handed the brewery 26 gold prizes by last count.

Toji Hiroshi Hatayama draws on three separate master-brewer schools, Echigo, Nanbu, and Noto, to make what Mizuno calls sake you never tire of, the kind that gives way to whatever is on the plate.

Key facts

• Founded 1804 by Ishidaya Nizaemon in Matsuoka, Eiheiji-machi, Fukui Prefecture
• Name from the old name for the Kuzuryu River ("Kokuryu," Black Dragon)
• Water: Hakusan mountain snowmelt via a 75-meter well; hardness approximately 23 mg/L (soft)
• 1975: first commercially available daiginjo in Japan, Kokuryu Daiginjo Ryu
• 8th generation Naoto Mizuno became president 2005; production approximately 6,000 koku
• Premium lines: Ishidaya (2+ year low-temperature aged), Nizaemon (tobin-kakoi pressed), Muni (aged at -2°C, sold by bid since 2018)
• 26 Gold Prizes at the Japan Sake Awards
• Toji Hiroshi Hatayama synthesizes Echigo, Nanbu, and Noto brewing traditions