Azuma Rikishi Honjozo in a can, brewed in 1987
Tim at UrbanSake.com is going to be running his special week-long cup sake promotion starting July 13. As a big cup sake fan, I am so looking forward to seeing what he is going to feature all week, and just from his sneak previews and pictures, it looks good!
To help celebrate one cup sake week, we opened a very special one in a can at Tokyofoodcast. We had Azuma Rikish Honjozo Nama brewed in 1987. After being aged for 22 years at a controlled temperature in the brewery’s special cave, it has deep, raisiny sweetness with warm golden color.
When I visited Shimazaki Shuzo in Tochigi last spring, they said “We thought to try something new and make 180 ml one cup can from our aged sake selections.” With the small size, it’s easy to enjoy just a little bit of the special sake, rather than a big shigobin with 720 ml.
Azuma Rikishi is known for aged sake and they carefully store all their bottles in the cave close to the brewery. The cave was built in 1945 and it was supposed to be a manufacturing site for mechanical parts during the war. Being completed right at the end of the war, the huge maze like tunnels never produced anything for the war, but now serving as a perfect cave where sake rests peacefully with natural built-in refrigeration.
Kanpai! to One Cup Sake and be sure to visit Urbansake’s One Cup Sake week starting tomorrow!
Shimazaki Shuzo’s Web site in Japanese: http://www.azumarikishi.co.jp/
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Kind of wondering about the “shiboritate”-ness here, seems odd… I mean, it’s not freshly pressed at this point, is it?! 22 year old nama… vveeerrrry interesting.
Any idea what the temperature of the cave is?
When I was there in March, 9 ℃. They said it goes anywhere between 6 to 15 Celsius. Isn’t it amazing that the sake mature so well without pasteurization? I am not sure about Shiboritate-ness either. It is completely opposite from that.
[...] satsuma age the owner made that day, our eyes were set on the series of beautiful pictures of Azuma Rikishi cave on the big screen. After seeing how the bottles are aging in the huge cave where sake and tiny bats [...]