OOKURA
Ookurahonke / NARA Pref.
Farmers and Agriculture
Sself-farming rice field / Hinohikari
Brewing / Brewer
Ookurahonke Co.,Ltd.
Design and Art
Yaguchi
CONCEPT
Sake wines telling history and climate where
the root of the modern brewing method was born.
It happened When our staff visited the brewery. Mr Okura replied to the staff's question,
"What kind of sake do you want to make?" "It's a one-of-a-kind sake. It's a sake that
makes you know that it's Okura as soon as you drink it." After that our staff asked him
how you can express your thought with sake wines. Thinking long and hard, Mr Ookura
began to tell about “Mizumoto.” Mizumoto is Shubo(Fermentation starter) invented in
the temple Syoryakuji in Nara prefecture 600 years ago. It is said that that was the prototype
of sokujo starter, the starter made by the modern method, and kimoto starter,
the starter made by the traditional way. Mr Ookura seemed to consider the meaning of
brewing sake. Ookura -Origin- is the sake born from his thoughts and, with that, he
returned to the origin of brewing.
Sake rice producer / Sself-farming rice field / HinohikariRice that you grow yourself will be loved. We treat it with care in the making of the rice.
Mr. Okura of the Okura Honke family has been growing his own “Hinohikari” rice on about 5 tan (about 5000 m2) of his own rice field since 2001. To be honest, the first year he did not grow the rice for sake, but because of bad weather, the rice sold well in a poor harvest year. Mr. Okura got a taste for it and produced another crop of Hinohikari the following year, but because of a good harvest, the price dropped dramatically. He decided to make sake using Hinohikari, and now, more than 15 years later, it has become the brewery's signature product.
Okura “Genryu” also uses 100% home-grown Hinohikari rice. The brewery's owner, Mr. Kikuchi, is very attached to the rice he grows himself and treats it with care in the brewing process. This thought is what gives birth to our delicious sake.
Brewery / Ookurahonke Co.,Ltd.
Sake is considered to be superb when it is “simple and neat”.
Okura Honke, the brewer of Okura-Genryu, is located in Kashiba City, Nara Prefecture. Nijo (Mt. Futakamiyama) at the foot of Mt. Nijo has been called “Ame no Futakami” (Heavenly Two-Thousand-Year-Old God) and has been considered sacred since ancient times. For more than 100 years, we have been pursuing the essence of sake here. The taste of the brewery can only be produced by Yamahai. The taste of the brewery's specialties, brewed with home-grown rice Hinohikari. The technique of mizumoto brewing handed down from our predecessors. We strive to improve our techniques to create unique and high quality sake while maintaining the techniques that have been nurtured since the brewery's founding.
- Sake is originally made with simplicity and purity in mind.
This belief and the spirit of the brewers live on in Nara's local sake breweries, Kinko and Okura.
Design / Yaguchi
The moment when groundwater gushes out of the ground and becomes the source of sake is superimposed on the beginning of sake.
Even the great big rivers reach their headwaters/small springs if you go back. But that is not the beginning. The rain that falls down soaks into the earth and is filtered over a long, long period of time, and at a certain moment, the water becomes clear and gushes out.
Isn't sake the same way?
Sake has been brewed without interruption since mythical times, and at some point, a sake different from the muddy sake of the past was born. Sake as clear as sparkling spring water.
I wonder what the first drinkers must have looked like...
I tried to express such imagination on the label.
The geometric pattern, which evokes the image of water gushing out from the dark underground, looks like layers of boxes, and I would be happy if you feel that each box represents the passion for sake brewing of our predecessors that has continued uninterruptedly.
