Hachinohe Shuzo · 八戸酒造

Hachinohe City, Aomori Prefecture · Est. 1740

Aomori sits at the northernmost tip of Honshu, where the winters are long, the air is cold, and the water that filters down through the mountains arrives at the brewery impossibly clear. It was to this land — then called Mutsu — that the first-generation Komai Shozaburo traveled from Shiga Prefecture in 1740, searching for the right place to make sake. He found it. Eight generations later, the Komai family is still here, and Hachinohe Shuzo has become one of the most decorated sake breweries in Japan, ranked among the top three breweries worldwide by the Sake Culture Research Center.

Their brand, Mutsu Hassen, takes its name from the legend of the Eight Drunken Immortals — wandering figures of Chinese mythology adopted into Tohoku folklore, who found joy wherever they went. The sake lives up to the name: bright, fragrant, and clean, with a freshness that feels almost effortless.

That freshness is not accidental. Hachinohe Shuzo uses white koji — a mold more commonly associated with shochu than sake — to prepare their yeast starter. Where standard yellow koji produces a gentler acidity, white koji generates citric acid, giving the starter a sharper, cleaner bite that carries through to the finished sake as a lively, refreshing quality. Combined with a high-temperature saccharification technique that compresses the starter preparation from two weeks into just two days, the result is a yeast base of unusual purity and vitality. Paired with Aomori's own naturally foaming local yeast and the cold, mineral spring water of the Kanisawa area, the sake that emerges is aromatic and precise — the kind that opens up beautifully in a wine glass, which is exactly where Hachinohe Shuzo recommends drinking it. Their Mutsu Hassen has won multiple prizes at Japan's prestigious "Delicious Japanese Sake in a Wine Glass" Awards, and it is easy to understand why: poured into a wide-bowled glass, it rewards the nose before it even reaches the lips.