Dassai Junmai Daiginjo 45 (300 ml)

When Hiroshi Sakurai launched the Dassai brand in 1990, he made a commitment no other major Japanese brewery had attempted: produce exclusively Junmai Daiginjo across every commercial expression — no futsushu, no honjozo, no fallback grades. The 45 is the foundation of that singular range.

The brewery sits deep in the mountain valley of Shuto-cho, Iwakuni City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, where the regional water — classified Seiryu (clear-stream) — is among Japan's softest. Purified further on-site, this low-mineral water drives a fermentation that stays clean and fruit-expressive, amplifying the delicate aromatics of 100% Yamada Nishiki rice polished to a 45% seimaibuai (55% of each grain milled away).

Rice is washed in 10 kg hand-batches in running water with a controlled ~15-minute soak; koji is applied entirely by hand. Fermentation runs in small individual tanks with two parallel brewing teams adjusting water-absorption rates and moromi temperatures independently — a data-driven artisan model that replaced the traditional seasonal toji system with permanent year-round staff. Pressing deploys a centrifuge — pioneered commercially by Dassai — separating sake from mash without pressure to preserve aromatic integrity. Bottling uses the patented Hayata method (Patent 2013-008455): filled cold below 5°C, hot-shower pasteurized, then rapid-cooled.

The 45 delivers the house signature — ripe pear, lychee, white melon — at the most approachable polish ratio in the range, making it the widest-production expression of a brewery that has never brewed anything below Daiginjo grade.