I visited Nakazawa Sake Brewery to See How Sake is Made, and Bought a Nice Sake which Smells Like a Pineapple!

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF50mm F1.4 USM (50mm, f/4, 1/250 sec, ISO-100)

It was quite comfortable to visit a peaceful rural area of Matsuda, which is located near Odawara City, or located in the southern west of Kanagawa Prefecture. I came to Matsuda with my Vietnamese friends in order to see how Sake (Japanese liquor made from rice) is made, and of course to taste Sake.

Nakazawa Sake Brewery is one of the closest sake breweries from the center of Tokyo. It only takes about 1 hour from Shinagawa Station, and you can enjoy Sake, Japanese traditional houses and a peaceful town. By the way, I feel very attached to this sake brewery because this is located in Kanagawa Prefecture where I was born.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF50mm F1.4 USM (50mm, f/4, 1/60 sec, ISO-2500)

Inside the brewery lie many pieces of equipment to create Sake.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF50mm F1.4 USM (50mm, f/4, 1/60 sec, ISO-2500)

This room looked very clean and unique.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF50mm F1.4 USM (50mm, f/4, 1/60 sec, ISO-8000)

It was surprisingly cold in this room.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF50mm F1.4 USM (50mm, f/4, 1/60 sec, ISO-3200)

This was set at the entrance to pray the gods for good Sake this year.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF50mm F1.4 USM (50mm, f/4, 1/100 sec, ISO-400)

Although the brewers do not speak English well, they have a special video explaining the whole story of sake in English. They say that there are more and more foreign visitors these days so they prepared it. By going around inside the brewery and watching this video, you will learn a lot about sake.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF50mm F1.4 USM (50mm, f/4, 1/100 sec, ISO-500)

At the end of the tour, we tasted some bottles of sake. We tasted 6 kinds of sake made in this brewery.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF50mm F1.4 USM (50mm, f/4, 1/100 sec, ISO-1250)

At last, I decided to buy an unprocessed version of  Daiginjo Matsumidori, a top-quality sake brewed from rice grains milled to 40%. I love it because it smelled like a pineapple.

Please visit this sake brewery to taste how delicious they are!