Sake Spotlight: A Closer Look at Kojimaya Untitled & Daishinshu Equilibrium

KOJIMAYA UNTITLED: An OG Revolutionizes the Future of Sake 

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From one of the oldest breweries in Japan, continuously brewing sake since the 1500s, comes a project that challenges how we define quality when it comes to sake. The commercialization of premium sake came after a depressed period in Japan, when trade wars restricted the availability of rice to the point where breweries were forced to add massive amounts of distilled alcohol to sake just to stretch their yields enough to stay afloat. When rice supply was once again abundant after WWII, it created an opportunity for the genesis of premium sake. Since this emergence was so intrinsically tied to the availability of rice, the classification of sake was thus determined by the polishing rate of the rice.

Now, decades later, this seemingly rushed decision is plaguing this current, innovative and boundary-pushing generation of sake brewers. There are so many choices made during production that make a sake unique or even spectacular, that have nothing to do with rice polishing – yet brewers are still stuck in a labeling system where the consumer is often solely interested in knowing the polishing ratio – something that is arguably impossible to taste in the glass. 

The sake industry needed a pioneer to challenge such ideas about rice polishing being so directly tied to the quality of sake, and Kenichiro Kojima, 24th generation president of Kojima Sohonten, rose to the challenge. Kojimaya UNTITLED, a project intended to challenge the relevance of rice polishing, became his mission statement. 

This sake is genshu, but only 13% alcohol. The fermentation is arrested at this 13%, leaving just enough residual sugar to give the sake a rich, generous mouthfeel as well as the ability to handle delicately nuanced wood treatment. Like a double helix, the sake that fortifies the UNTITLED sake has already been fortified itself and subsequently aged in cedar barrels. The fact that only a portion of the resulting sake is aged in cedar creates an incredibly subtle expression of wood on the palate, and aromas quite rare in sake like maple, vanilla, sarsaparilla, and black cherry. There is also an intentional level of CO2 left in the bottle that is just enough to keep this sake remarkably light on its feet.

DAISHINSHU EQUILIBRIUM: How you do anything is how you do EVERYTHING

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Sometimes I visit a brewery and daydream that it could be so much fun to work there. The staff meals! The camaraderie drinking sake late into the night during koji nakashigoto! The karaoke culture! But the majority of the time I leave thinking, “Man, this looks rough.” The extreme cold outside the extreme hot humidity of the koji room, the distance between the rice steamer and the koji room/shubo room to transport that heavy hot rice, the inability of koji and moromi temperature curves to follow a traditional 9-5 work schedule, the months away from home… I still remain that to this date, I haven’t visited a brewery that looks like HARDER work than Daishinshu. These guys are at the top of their game, in perpetual fear of phoning it in – so they allow absolutely zero shortcuts. Even the horeiki, simplified by John-sensei as the “breaker-upper-cooler-downer,” is absent at this brewery; that scorching hot rice is spread out by hand on bamboo mats.

and it doesn’t stop there. Even though it’s wildly cold in Nagano and their well water is plenty cold, Daishinshu spends a considerable amount to chill down the water an additional 5 degrees Celsius to ensure that extra level of precision when it comes to soaking the rice. The “gentei kyusui” method of super small batch, meticulously timed rice soaking for limited, controlled absorption of water is also applied to EVERY sake produced at Daishinshu, not just the fancy brews. 

Matsumoto City is a special place to make sake. They are situated between Toyama and Niigata, both coastal-facing regions with tons of humidity in the air, while the mountain ranges of those prefectures that protect Nagano keep that air very dry and arid. The lack of humidity significantly lowers the risk of mold and mildew and allows Daishinshu to eschew the use of pesticides in their estate-grown Kinmonnishiki, which is 100% organic certified. They also sprinkle their rice nuka post-polishing (also done in-house, naturally) on the surface of the water of their rice paddies, which they say improves the overall quality of the rice. They also sprinkle dried sake kasu in the rice paddy to fertilize the plants. 

The brewery also points out that despite the perception of sweetness on their sakes, that the sakes are fairly low in glucose. The sweetness comes from the soft elasticity of the water, the sweetness of the rice, and perceived sweetness from the alcohol. Indeed, this sake greets you with a heady, intoxicating perfume of crushed pineapple and rose petal while leaving you with a powdery minerality that sweeps the palate clean but tends to be impossible to erase from memory.