Azakura Junmai Chouma Karakuchi (720 ml)

Azakura Shuzo, the sole surviving brewery in Yokote City since absorbing rival Yokote Meijo in 1971, has practiced kanjikomi cold fermentation — brewing launched at winter's onset and sustained through Akita's most punishing months — a method historically credited as the technical blueprint for modern ginjo fermentation across Japan. The brewery sits in the Yokote Basin, enclosed by the Ōu Mountain Range and Dewa Mountains; its well draws snowmelt from those peaks, yielding characteristically soft water that encourages a clean, extended fermentation and suppresses harsh mineral edges in the finished sake. This Chouma Karakuchi (超辛口, "super dry") expression is built on Akita Sake Komachi, an Akita-original sakamai developed by the Akita Agricultural Experiment Station, polished to 70% seimaibuai and fermented with Akita Yukiguni UT-2 yeast — a strain selected specifically for reserved aroma and balanced acidity rather than high-ester fruitiness. Where most dry junmai lean lean and austere, Azakura's house emphasis on solid umami structure gives this karakuchi a paradoxical density: the dryness reads on the finish, but the mid-palate carries the mellow, full-bodied weight of the kanjikomi method. The result is a sake that drinks without fatigue — the brewery's stated goal of a "never-tiring aftertaste" — and rewards both warm and chilled service.