Wajo Waraku Series | Vol. 32: "Kenkōichi" - Drinking History at Ōnuma Sake Brewery

From Murata, a town steeped in the Edo period

Sake that lets you drink history: "Kenkoniichi"

This is Oonuma Sake Brewery in Miyagi Prefecture. The location is Murata Town, Shibata District, where the Tohoku Expressway branches off towards Yamagata Prefecture. The brand name is "Kenkoniichi." In the Edo period, we brewed under the name "Fujimune," but the first governor of Miyagi Prefecture, Masazumi Matsudaira, gave us the brand name "Kenkoniichi." I understand it comes from the I Ching.

Text by Wajo WarakuPhotos by JAMANDFIX (TOP)

Striving to use Miyagi-grown ingredients for brewing water, rice, and Toji

We began brewing sake in 2002 in the castle town of Date Masamune, the lord of the sixty-thousand-koku domain, and his seventh son, Munetaka. Just as your town has history, so does mine. In the mid-Edo period, the town prospered through the trade of safflower.

During the Edo period, safflower was a specialty of Yamagata Prefecture. It was transported by boat down the Mogami River from the Sagae region of Yamagata to Sakata, and then by Kitamaebune ships to Kyoto, where it reached its peak of prosperity as a red dye. Lord Masamune, being from Yamagata Prefecture and likely aware of safflower's value, had it cultivated in Murata Town as well, and traded it by transporting it over the Zao Mountains to Yamagata. Thanks to this trade, Kyoto's Hina dolls and hanging scrolls remain in Murata. The storehouses of the safflower merchants who once shaped an era still stand today, and the town is known as a town of storehouses. We invite you to visit.

We have been brewing sake here continuously for 300 years. Our sake may still have some way to go, but we hope you will enjoy the history that fills the gaps. We are a small brewery of six hundred koku, making everything by hand. Currently, we are striving to use Miyagi-grown ingredients for our brewing water, rice, and Toji, aiming for a pure sake from Miyagi (using Sasanishiki rice). We're not sure how to best interpret 300 years of history, but we are working hard to continue for another year, and the next.

We have someone at our company who resembles the Mariners' Ichiro. He's our managing director. They say there are three people in the world who look alike, and perhaps he's one of them? He will be the one to carry on the company's history.

(Mitsuru Oonuma, Representative of Oonuma Sake Brewery)

Oonuma Sake Brewery
56-1 Murata-machi, Shibata-gun, Miyagi Prefecture
Tel. 0224-83-2025

Win Kenkoniichi Junmai Daiginjo

We are giving away a bottle of Japanese sake (720ml) introduced in each installment of the series "Wajo Waraku SAKE Academy" to three lucky winners.
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