The Great Yamaguchi Sakagura Project Revisited

It has been a while since I updated my project to catalog, drink, and visit every sakagura in the prefecture. I found that one of the most complicated parts was actually finding out which sake breweries are still running, and which ones are merely dormant. It has also been complicated as some breweries have closed, and others opened, in the interim.

I have finally pinned it down.

As of December 2020, there are currently 23 sake breweries making sake in Yamaguchi. I have drunk sake from all of them, and visited 11. There is one dormant sake brewery—Yamashiroya—that takes an active role in the brewing of its label at another sake brewery, so it deserves special mention, and many more that get another brewery, usually Yamagata Honten, to make sake that they then sell under their own label.

The currently running sakagura, with their Japanese names, location, and main label, are:

Abu no Tsuru Shuzo	阿武の鶴酒造	Abucho	Abu no Tsuru
Asahi Shuzo	旭酒造	Iwakuni	Dassai
Choshu Shuzo	長州酒造	Shimonoseki	Tenbi
Hatsumomiji Shuzo	はつもみぢ酒造	Shunan	Harada
Horie Sakaba	堀江酒場	Iwakuni	Kinsuzume
Iwasaki Shuzo	岩崎酒造	Hagi	Fukumusume
Kanemitsu Shuzo	金光酒造	Yamaguchi	Santouka
Kinfundo Shuzo	金分銅酒造	Kudamatsu	Kinfundo
Murashige Shuzo	村重酒造	Iwakuni	Murashige
Nagayama Honke Shuzo	永山本家酒造	Ube	Taka
Nagayama Shuzo	永山酒造	Sanyo-Onoda	Yamazaru
Nakashimaya Shuzojo	中島屋酒造場	Shunan	Kanenaka
Nakamura Shuzo	中村酒造	Hagi	Takarabune
Ohmine Shuzo	大嶺酒造	Mine	Ohmine
Okazaki Shuzo	岡崎酒造	Hagi	Chomonkyo
Sakai Shuzo	酒井酒造	Iwakuni	Gokyo
Shimonoseki Shuzo	下関酒造	Shimonoseki	Sekimusume
Shintani Shuzo	新谷酒造	Yamaguchi	Wakamusume
Sumikawa Shuzo	澄川酒造	Hagi	Toyobijin
Takeuchi Shuzojo	竹内酒造場	Hofu	Nishikisekai
Yachiyo Shuzo	八千代酒造	Hagi	Yachiyo
Yamagata Honten	山縣本店	Shunan	Bouchonotsuru
Yaoshin Shuzo	八百新酒造	Iwakuni	Gangi

Now, as to what I’m going to do next… Well, keep an eye on the blog. There are big things coming soon!