加藤吉平商店Kato Kichibee Shoten

Atsuhide Kato would rather you drank his sake from a wine glass. He says the wide bowl lifts the aroma toward the nose in a way the small ochoko never could, and he is the eleventh generation to run a brewery that has been making sake in Sabae since 1860, so the opinion carries some weight. His family did not start in sake at all. The first Kato ran a money-changing business in Fukui before an ancestor turned to brewing and began passing down the name Kichibee, one heir to the next, like an inheritance you could write on a ledger.

For a long time the flagship was called Koshinoi, and only the best lots wore a second name: Born, written with the single character 梵, the Sanskrit syllable for the pure and the unsullied. In 1963 Kato Kichibee Shoten did something unusual for the era. It folded everything under the Born name and committed to ginjo-grade brewing across the whole line, polishing every rice to 60% or finer at a time when most of the country was drinking the cheap stuff.

A further rule, locked in around 2003, shapes everything else: no distilled alcohol, ever. Born is junmai, top to bottom, which meant turning your back on the additive economics that kept most breweries solvent. The rice is contracted, not bought on the open market, mostly Yamada Nishiki from the special-A districts of Hyogo and Gohyakumangoku grown closer to home in Fukui. Water comes up from a deep well drawing on the Hakusan snowmelt.

Then the sake waits in the cold. Born holds its bottles at sub-zero temperatures, some of them near minus ten degrees, for anywhere from one to five years before release. The top expression, a junmai daiginjo milled to 20%, sits in that ice for five. The idea is that low, slow aging rounds the sake without cooking off its freshness, a patience most breweries cannot afford to extend.

That patience built a reputation that travels. The brewery's sake, then released under the name Koshinoi, was selected to serve at ceremonies for the Showa Emperor's enthronement in 1928, and Kato has poured Born at official functions on the prime minister's overseas trips. A bottle of Born Yume wa Masayume, the name means something close to "dreams come true," was reportedly presented to former US President Barack Obama, though the account rests on secondary sources. The sake now reaches diplomatic posts in scores of countries, though I would not stake an exact count on any single figure floating around online.

What stays with me is the stubbornness of the all-junmai line. Committing to that policy around 2003, the family has kept it for more than two decades.

Key facts

• Kato Kichibee Shoten founded 1860 in Sabae, Fukui Prefecture; the family began in money-changing before turning to brewing and passing down the name Kichibee across generations
• Run by the eleventh-generation head, Atsuhide Kato (given-name reading varies across English sources)
• Flagship Born (梵), written with the Sanskrit-derived character meaning "pure / unsullied"; in 1963 the brewery unified its entire range under the Born name and committed to ginjo-grade brewing
• All-junmai policy (adopted around 2003): no distilled alcohol added; every sake polished to 60% or finer, the top junmai daiginjo to 20%
• Contracted rice, principally Yamada Nishiki from Hyogo's special-A areas and Gohyakumangoku from Fukui; well water drawn from the Hakusan snowmelt
• Long sub-zero aging, some lots near minus ten degrees, held one to five years before release; the 20%-milled junmai daiginjo is aged five years
• Brewery's sake, then sold under the name Koshinoi, was selected to serve at the Showa Emperor's enthronement ceremonies in 1928; Born has been poured at official functions on the prime minister's overseas trips; Born Yume wa Masayume was reportedly presented to former President Barack Obama (per secondary accounts); the sake now reaches diplomatic posts in many countries