January 2025, 1 will mark 17 years since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake.
SAKE HUNDRED, a Japanese sake brand whose brand purpose is to "fill the hearts and add color to the lives" of people all over the world, sympathizes with Hyogo Prefecture and Kobe City's efforts to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the earthquake, and is sponsoring the "KOBE Luminarie" event as well as the "REC KOBE 100" project, which aims to record events related to the earthquake in voices for the next 1995 years.

The company will be implementing projects throughout the year to connect the past 30 years to the future. It will also begin accepting pre-orders for "Gengai," a 30-year-old vintage sake that overcame the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, on Friday, January 2025, 1.

The position of aged sake

▲ Clear Co., Ltd. CEO: Ryuji Ikoma

Ikoma explains the business, saying, "Our brand purpose is to 'satisfy the heart and add color to life,' and we create emotional value."

Tracing the history of aged sake, documents and books date back to the Kamakura period, about 800 years ago, stating that the taste of sake improves with age. Not only whiskey and wine, which are said to have vintage value, but sake also changes with age, and it was common knowledge that its value increases not through deterioration but through the evolution of its flavor. However, there was a time when a tax was imposed simply on producing sake, and the culture of aging fell into disuse.

Recently, an incorporated association called the Toki Sake Association has been established, and there are efforts to create standards for high added value using the time axis, but Ikoma says that a satisfactory price has not been reached and that "there is much more potential for aged sake."

"Although aged sake has inherent value and there is meaning to aging it, the value of aging has not yet fully penetrated the market, and I think this is an issue," says Ikoma.

The trajectory of "Gengai"

▲Sawanotsuru Co., Ltd. Director and Manufacturing Department Manager, Nishimuki Masao (right)

Gengai's brewing partner is Sawanotsuru Co., Ltd., which has a brewery in Kobe City.
Thirty years ago, on January 30, 1995, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake struck Sawanotsuru, causing such severe damage that all seven of its wooden storehouses collapsed.

Thirty years ago, Nishimuki was in his fifth year at the company when the disaster struck. When he saw the collapsed storehouse, tilted tanks, and broken water pipes, he said, "My simple thought was, would everything be okay?"

Miraculously, one of the remaining tanks contained a yeast starter that was in the middle of being brewed. Due to the lack of electricity and damage to the brewing equipment, it was left abandoned for about a month and unable to proceed to the next step. Although there was an option to discard it, the boss at the time wanted to preserve the sake that his colleagues had been developing, so it was pressed at the yeast starter stage and turned into sake, but it was too sour and the aroma and flavor were not well balanced, making it impossible to commercialize. This is the sake that would later become "Gengai."

Even in annual quality checks, the strong sourness remained unchanged, but after about 20 years, the sourness has gradually become more mellow. "The enzyme components produced by the koji mold are dissolved in the sake, but as the aging period gets longer, they sink to the bottom as sediment. The sourness has become mellower and the taste has become lighter," says Nishimuki.

Later, in May 2018, Sawanotsuru contacted his friend Ikoma and asked him to "see the taste" and blind taste-test 5 types of sake.
"I've had a lot of alcohol in my life, but this one had a flavor that was clearly outstanding," says Ikoma.

At the time, there were options such as discarding the sake, but Sawanotsuru decided not to give up and to let it age. Taking into account the miraculous tank that survived the earthquake disaster, and the feelings of the brewers, the sake pressed in the yeast starter state has been born after 30 years.

"Sawanotsuru taught me something: sake is not something that is made, but something that is nurtured. And we are following that policy exactly. At that time, Sawanotsuru made the decision to pass the baton to the future, saying, 'Let's let it mature and nurture it.' I have never come across anything with such a story behind it, so specially made, and yet so excellent in taste," says Ikoma.

The taste of miracles

▲"Gengai" was served as a pairing with sweets at the event.

As it is brought to you, the rich aroma spreads. You can sense the complexity of the scent of dried apricots, cinnamon, and bark. The beautiful amber color seems to embody the passage of time.
Over time, the acidity, which was once an enemy, becomes an ally, and the satisfaction of combining it with sweetness and umami is immeasurable.
It is a miraculous taste that embodies the "human will" that believed in the potential of sake, even after overcoming the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the harsh environment that followed.

Product name: GENGAI
Manufacturer: Sawanotsuru
Contents: 500ml
Price: 286,000 (tax included)
Advance reservation sales period: From Friday, January 2025, 1 to Monday, April 17, 4
Regular sales start date: Tuesday, April 2025, 4 *Available only to members
Scheduled shipping date: Shipment will commence on Tuesday, April 2025, 4
How to purchase: Sold on the brand site
https://jp.sake100.com/products/gengai

Due to the extremely special characteristics of "Gengai," it is impossible to reproduce the same product twice. Because it is such a rare product, each one is given a serial number and is delivered with a metallic guarantee card that indicates the number of years it has been aged and a quality guarantee.

Ikoma-san: "When we first launched Gengai, we were hesitant about whether it was appropriate for a young brand like us to handle products related to the disaster. However, we thought that it would be meaningful for those who were not directly involved to pass on the story to future generations, especially now that so much time has passed since the disaster. By delivering this sake to the hearts of many people, we could bring smiles to the faces of our customers. With this strong feeling and confidence in the appeal of Gengai, we decided to launch the product. The value of aged sake is that it teaches us the positive power of time. It gives us hope that an even brighter future awaits us in one year, ten years, or thirty years. Please enjoy this magical taste of aging to your heart's content while thinking about the future."

Connecting the past 30 years to the future

▲Yuriko Okuda, a student reporter from Kobe University

The talk event was titled "Learning about the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake with Student Journalists: A Perspective for Connecting to the Next Generation." Mr. Okuda is the representative of the Kobe University News Net Committee, a student journalism group officially recognized by Kobe University, and is proactively engaged in activities to "connect" students by conducting multiple interviews with the families of Kobe University students who died in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and holding a special exhibition on the Kobe University campus to convey the situation at the time of the earthquake.

Today's students are mostly from a generation that has no knowledge of that past.
Okuda said that she would like to play a role in connecting the victims and the younger generation who do not know about the disaster through interviews with the bereaved families. "I'm only 21 years old and did not experience the disaster, so I don't think I can fully understand the grief of those who were affected and those who lost loved ones, but I think 120 years is the time it takes for one generation to change. For example, among the bereaved families I interviewed, there were some who were torn between not wanting to remember the painful things from the past, but wanting to leave a record of the fact that there was an earthquake. As a student journalist from Kobe University, I would like to take action and do something that can connect the victims and those who do not know about the disaster, and connect the feelings of the generations," she said forcefully.

Thirty years have passed since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, for those who experienced it and those who did not.
The feelings shared by Okuda, who did not experience the earthquake, will surely be passed on to the next generation.

Ikoma talks about the idea of ​​connecting thoughts through "gengai."
"As SAKE HUNDRED, we can't convey the disaster itself, but we hope that more people will take on a part of it. We can convey part of the disaster to people through the sake that was born out of the disaster."

In addition to the deliciousness of the sake, SAKE HUNDRED is playing a role in connecting the victims of the earthquake through the story of how "Gengai" was born. After listening to the stories of Ikoma, Nishimuki, and Okuda, I took a sip of the mellow acidity of Gengai and felt the pulse of 30 years of memories and the beginning of a new era.

Text: Sake World Editorial Department