TOYONOUME
Takagi shuzou / KOCHI Pref.
Farmers and Agriculture
Reihoku Gin no yume
Brewing / Brewer
Takagi shuzou
Design and Art
Toya Hata
CONCEPT
We wanted to create a sake with easily recognizable characteristics that young people would want to try.
We created this sake with the aim of creating a tropical yet easy-to-drink taste.
It has been seven years since we started Toyonoume's concept Worker's Selection. Up until now, we have been pursuing a combination of local sake rice “Gin-no-Yume” and Kochi yeast AC95, which is not part of the brewery's regular product lineup. We will be releasing a new product this year with a completely renewed content, concept, and label. The toji, Kazuho Takagi, is still young, in his early thirties, so we decided to create a sake with easily recognizable characteristics that young people would want to try, and we used the latest L.CEL yeast developed by the prefectural industrial technology center to create a tropical yet easy-to-drink flavor.
Sake rice producer / Reihoku Gin no yumeTo use local Kochi rice and to improve the Tosa sake brand.
An organization called Tosa Sake Promotion Platform has been set up to promote Tosa sake. The prefecture served as the point of contact for this organization, which held its inaugural meeting in May 2016. It is comprised of sake brewing associations, the Kochi Agricultural Technology Center, the Kochi Prefectural Industrial Technology Center, the prefecture's Local Production for Local Consumption and External Trade Division, the Central Association of Small Business Associations, Zen-Noh, and producing farmers. It is working on a multifaceted approach to branding Tosa sake, promoting exports, developing sake rice, and improving the sake rice production environment.
For Gin-no-Yume, we have been attempting to raise farmers' awareness of high quality production by holding a sake competition since last year. Currently, there is still variation in quality among production areas, and production volume is greatly affected by climate, so we have not yet achieved a stable supply, but there is no doubt that we are moving in the right direction. The use of locally grown rice from Kochi Prefecture will help to improve the Tosa sake brand. We look forward to the future.
Brewery / Takagi shuzou
From Akaoka Town, home of the famous “Dorome Festival,” a dynamic event known for its “big cup drinking and drying contest”.
Takagi shuzou , which makes Toyonoume G×A, was founded in 1884. It is located in Akaoka Town, a small town about 20 km east of Kochi City, in the center of the prefecture. Akaoka-cho is famous for its “Dorome Festival” held on the last Sunday of April. The main event of the festival, “Dorome Festival,” is a unique and dynamic festival in Tosa, where sake experts from all over the world gather to drink up to a full measure of Oranku sake (one measure for men and five measures for women) and compete for overall points for “time to drink up” and “drinking performance.
The origin of the brand name “Toyo no Ume” was originally a brand name of Terao Shuzo, a local brewery in the same area of Akaoka. In 1928, when Terao Shuzo was closed down, Sukeji Takagi II took over the “Toyonobai” brand. The “no” in “Toyonobai” is written in variant kana characters, an abbreviation of “noh.
Design / Toya Hata
