中井酒造
Nakai Sake Brewery

銘柄酒：八潮
創　業：明治10年
杜　氏：
住所：鳥取県倉吉市中河原555番地
ホームページ：http://www.yasio.net/

Brand：Yashio
Initiation：1877
Master Brewer：
Address：TottoriKurayoshi-shi555 Nakagawara

It has been over 120 years since Nakai Sake Brewery was first established.
Throughout the ages, the environment surrounding sake brewing, as well as the Japanese food culture have changed. From the beginning, we have aimed to create a high quality Japanese sake. In order to do so, we have hand picked the rice, the water, those main ingredients in making sake, and used our experienced skills. Sake rice that has been harvested in our own paddy field. The water we gather from 50m below ground level. The experienced and high level skills from Izumo brewmaster. The rich environment surrounding our brewery. It is not until recently that people started to have stronger needs to have a high level of expertise and safety in sake brewing. But actually, this was something that we have been working for from the very beginning.

At Nakai Sake Brewery Corporation, we own a non-chemically induced paddy field to harvest our own rice. This is so we can make a sake that is pure, in the sense that the ingredients are not altered, and also to have customers be able to drink our sake safely.
At the center of the rice grain, there is a portion called "Shinhaku" (can be directly translated as the pure heart). To make this portion large, it is necessary to have the environmental conditions in which the temperature difference between day and night is over 10 degrees celsius. The method to make this possible for us is to stop the water in our paddy field in the daytime, and pour in cold water in the night time. The rice coming out of this process is capable of taking in water, making it easier to maintain, and the amount of protein is limited. This leads to a sake with less aroma coming from the rice. However, just because we have the perfect environment for rice harvesting doesn't necessarily mean to take on the task of sake brewing easily. We open up workshops every year, and teach ourselves the best method to harvest sake rice. Because our sake storage facility is connected directly to the paddy field, we believe that we can make sake that brings out the full potential of the sake rice.

Making the perfect rice does not stop at the moment we harvest them. The drying, threshing, and polishing; these are the very processes that requires great attention to make a good cup of sake. The characteristics of the rice changes every year, due to different weather conditions. Our process of polishing the rice, of course, matches with these different conditions as well. To polish up the Yamada-Nishiki rice to 35%, it takes up to 55 to 60 hours, slowly moving our polisher, being careful not to crack the center of the rice. We believe that the rice is alive, and that by putting them into a bag right after we have polished them, it can easily suffocate them. So, to let the rice breath, instead of stocking them in air tight bags, we put them in cloth bags, and let them slowly ferment. Afterwards, this is handed over to the sake brewmaster, where he works his magic, and make the perfect sake.

(Exert from Nakai Sake Brewery Official Website)