Tottori Prefecture, with its wealth of off-the-beaten-path adventures, rarely fails to delight travelers looking to experience rural Japan. As Japan’s least populous prefecture (~538,000 residents), it’s an unheralded escape from the sometimes overwhelming bustle of the country’s sprawling, densely populated cities. Large swaths of nature parks and preserves mixed with vast stretches of farmland occupy…
This warm prefecture that stretches across the southern coast of Shikoku might not seem like the ideal location to brew sake, yet Kochi’s 18 breweries churn out an impressive number of surprisingly light and dry varieties. With a distinctly different vibe from the more in-your-face profiles of most sake from western Japan, the dry and…
I was afforded the exquisite pleasure of participating in a two-day sake-centric tour of Tochigi Prefecture conducted by Sake Voyage over the summer. The trip centered around visits to four sake breweries coupled with a lesson in soba making and an exquisite French-Japanese fusion dinner with well-conceived sake pairing. The tour originated in the prefectural…
Many people in this world are familiar with Akita as a dog if not the prefecture from which this iconic breed originates. It’s also the breed of the famous “Hachikô” dog statue in Shibuya–if you’re not familiar with this story of devotion, do look it up. It was actually made into a popular film starring…
Sendai, Miyagi is a party town. Its ample bars and boisterous streets at least give that immediate impression to visitors with a thirst for adventure and good sake. Even its residents would agree that eating and drinking in communal, celebratory fashion is not an unpopular pastime. This is a common characteristic of “gateway” cities and…
The prefecture of Shimane stretches over 1,000km along the western coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. Its shoreline scenery runs the gamut from sandy, secluded beaches to rugged precipices with an occasional fishing port making an appearance. As one would expect, there is a wealth of seafood, and also not surprisingly, a plenitude…
Saga, a small, rural prefecture in a quiet corner of Japan, is not known for tourism riches. Outdoor adventurers may feel drawn to it because of its hiking and climbing opportunities, and hot spring enthusiasts will likely not be disappointed by Ureshino Onsen. For the sake ceramics enthusiast, however, there is ample reason to visit.…
One of the primary forces currently driving the positive state of affairs in the sake world is the emergence of young brewers. The transition from an era in which those who actually brewed sake were farmers who had no work in the winter months and therefore worked for sake breweries only during that time period…
Kumamoto’s pastoral charm can tug at you like the shiranui, or “unknown lights” that for centuries locals witnessed floating alluringly off the seacoast of the prefecture on rare nights. According to one medieval literary source, people gathered in the hills when conditions were right, gazing at the ephemeral flames dancing on the water in the…
People have long said that the warm climate of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four major islands, is not suitable for making sake, and it is therefore predominantly a shochu-producing region. Geographically, the island of Kyushu can be roughly split into north and south along the prefectural border of Miyazaki and Oita, with that line…