Wine · Akitsu / Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima
Fukucho
Seaside Hiroshima sake led by toji Miho Imada and revived Hattanso rice.
- Founded
- 1868
- Founded by
- Imada family
- Based in
- Akitsu / Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima
Making it since
1868
Their story
Fukucho is the sake of Imada Sake Brewing, a family brewery in Akitsu, a harbor town on the Seto Inland Sea in Higashihiroshima. The brewery has been making sake since 1868.
Miho Imada, the family's eldest daughter, worked in the arts in Tokyo before coming home in 1994. She is now president and toji, or master brewer, and in 2020 the BBC named her one of its 100 inspiring and influential women.
Starting in the early 2000s, the brewery brought back Hattanso, a local sake rice that had not been grown for more than a century. It took about a decade of trial and error before the rice made sake they were happy with.
How it's made
Fukucho is brewed with soft water using a ginjo method developed in Hiroshima, with highly polished rice and slow, cold fermentation. The brewery spent years choosing koji and yeast to suit Hattanso, whose low water absorption gives a dry, clean sake. Brewing runs from late September to May.
Quitting without having learned anything about hattanso was not an option.
Why we carry them
We think Fukucho is a great way to taste how much rice and water shape a sake. The Moon on the Water junmai ginjo is bright and easy to pair with seafood.
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