What kind of sake brand is Hiroki? 飛露喜

04/21/202201/31/2023

Difficult to understand !? A thorough explanation of the charm of Fukushima Aizu’s premier sake “Hiroki"

Hiroki, a phantom sake that everyone knows now.
It is one of the representative brands of the Japanese sake that boom in the 2000s, and it is a sake with a premiere that sometimes cannot be purchased at a fixed price.

Hiroki, who can be said to be a master of the sake world, is experiencing a difficult time that cannot be imagined from the current success.
If you know the story about Hiroki, you will love him more.

This time, we will introduce the secret stories and recommended brands up to the birth of Hiroki.

Contents

What kind of liquor is Hiroki?

Hiroki Sake Brewery, which makes Hiroki, is like this!

Aizu Sakashitamachi “Hiroki Sake Brewery" revival drama

What kind of liquor is Hiroki?

As  mentioned earlier, We want to introduce a detailed overview of the Hiroki Sake Brewery.

Hiroki Sake Brewery is located in Aizubange Town, Fukushima Prefecture.
It is a town along the Echigo Highway that connects Aizuwakamatsu in Fukushima and Niigata, which once prospered as a post town.

In this town, which has been known famous rice-producing area for a long time, three breweries including Hiroki Sake Brewery are currently brewing sake.

Hiroki Sake Brewery is famous as the brewer of “Hiroki", but it is also locally known as the brewer of “Izumikawa".
Izumikawa is a sake that is shipped with priority to the local area, so you can almost buy it at a local Hiroki store.
This is characterized by its taste that you will never get tired of drinking.

Hiroki Sake Brewery is a long-established brewery that has been around since the middle of the Edo period, and the current owner is from the 9th generation.
Today, it has become a popular sake brewery with fans not only locally but all over the country.
However, at one point, the road to this point was not flat, such as thinking about closing the business.

From here, we will introduce the story behind the revival of Hiroki Sake Brewery and the birth of Hiroki Sake.

Hiroki Sake Brewery, which makes Hiroki, is like this!

As mentioned earlier, we would like to introduce Hiroki Sake Brewery in detail.

Hiroki Sake Brewery is located in Aizubange Town, Fukushima Prefecture.
It is a town along the Echigo Highway that connects Aizuwakamatsu in Fukushima and Niigata, which once prospered as a post town.

Hiroki Sake Brewery is famous as the brewer of “Hiroki", but it is also locally known as the brewer of “Izumikawa".
Izumikawa is a sake that is shipped with priority to the local area, so you can almost buy it at a local Hiroki store.
This is characterized by a taste that you will never get tired of drinking.

Hiroki Sake Brewery is a long-established brewery that has been around since the middle of the Edo period, and the current owner is from the 9th generation.
Today, it has become a popular sake brewery with fans not only locally but all over the country.
However, at one point, the road to this point was not flat, such as thinking about closing the business.

From here, we will introduce the story behind the revival of Hiroki Sake Brewery and the birth of Hiroki Sake.

In this town, which has been a famous rice producing area for a long time, three breweries including Hiroki Sake Brewery are currently brewing sake.

Aizu Sakashitamachi “Hiroki Sake Brewery" revival drama

Hiroki has become a liquor that everyone knows, but it was born in 1999, which is relatively recent.
Until then, Hiroki Sake Brewery, which makes Hiroki Sake, was in an adversity far from success. How did sake brewing overcome this adversity and create Hiroki?

● Background of the times

“Hiroki Sake Brewery" is a long-established store in Aizubange Town, Fukushima Prefecture, which has been around since the middle of the Edo period.
Until the 1990s, before the birth of Hiroki, sake made by major companies was more common than “local sake". It was also an era when the entire sake industry was at stake due to the aging of Mr. Mori.

● The beginning of adversity

Meanwhile, the person who worked for Hiroki Sake Brewery for about 20 years retired on the grounds that he was old.
Therefore, the current owner, Kenji, who initially worked as a salaryman, entered the world of sake to support his father’s predecessor.

However, about a year later, his father died suddenly.
For Kenji, he thought about folding the brewery while he didn’t know how to make sake or the distribution route.

● The arrival of a turning point

The turning point was NHK’s coverage. Kenji at the time said, “There is no Mori, my father died the previous year. I want to light the house already. “

However, after the program was broadcast, the owner of a local sake specialty store in Tokyo called me, “If you really want to make delicious sake, I will support you."
It was said that the sake delivered at the beginning did not hang on chopsticks or sticks, but Kenji’s serious sake brewing began from there.

Believing in the words of the liquor store owner, “If you make good sake, you will definitely sell it," I began to aim for “a sake like white wine that I like."

A year later, when he tried the sake before heat treatment, he said that he was able to make something that he thought was “good".

When sent several bottles of this to a sake specialty store, initially thought that they should sell 30 bottles, but in the end, the order increased to 3,000 bottles.

This is the beginning of “Izumikawa Special Junmai Unfiltered Raw Sake", later Hiroki (renamed in 1999).

In the past, there was no idea of ​​shipping “before burning" sake, but this is an action unique to Kenji, who doesn’t have much knowledge in sake brewing and is not bound by the common sense of the industry.

Nowadays, we often see “unfiltered raw sake", but it is said that “Hiroki" was the reason why it became popular.

● Leap of flying delight
Hiroki gained explosive popularity in an instant, but Kenji does not make it transient, and does not rely solely on delicate liquor such as unfiltered raw liquor, so various studies have been done as part of an effort.

They have introduced refrigeration equipment to prevent the deterioration of raw sake, and efforts have been made to bring out the unique taste of “Hiroki" even with heat-treated sake.

From washing rice to brewing and squeezing, they continuously modifying and improving the conventional equipment and sticking to the distribution method.
Instead of receiving orders and shipping as in the past, by deciding the shipping amount and allocation from the planning stage, it is now possible to deliver to consumers without spoiling the taste of sake.

In this way, Hiroki continues to maintain its outstanding position as a nationwide popular sake.

● Label of Hiroki
The label of Hiroki is handwritten by the 9th generation mother.
Currently it is a print, but at the beginning of the release, there was no room to turn the label into a print, so it seems that he wrote each one by hand.

Maybe it’s because my mother’s affection is packed in the label of Hiroki, which has a warm atmosphere.

Aizu Sakashitamachi “Hiroki Sake Brewery" revival drama