Restored Brewery
”Fujioka Shuzo” was founded in Higashiyama-ku Kyoto in 1902. Throughout Meiji, Taisho and onto Showa eras its scale has expanded, and at its maximum brewed about than 1.5 million liters annually. It was unfortunately closed later in the Heisei era upon the sudden death of the third generation owner. The current ”Fujioka Shuzo” is run by the 5th, Masaaki Fujioka who studied at various ”sake” breweries in hope to ”create good ”sake” one more time with my own hands” and reopened the brewery after a 7 years of being out of business.
Ingenious Ideas for the brewery
The first year, only 28 koku (7,784 liters) of sake was made, a mere 1/300th of what once was made at its prime. Thus he persisted in 100% handmade pure rice sake and named it the ”Souku (Blue Sky)” brand, featuring a refreshing taste like the blue sky as the first brand of the comeback. The brewery was also of an unique design, with a furnace and a bar counter where you can relax while observing the tasks going on in the preparation of the sake right in front of you. Picking up the tradition where it was cut off. Mr Fujioka persisted on restructuring the company because he could not forget the taste of the one last sip of sake before the brewery was shut down. You could feel his passion for sake and passion for its creation.
