"Tenkanishiki" (天下錦), brewed by Fukumochi Shuzojo in Mie Prefecture, has built its following on a quality that is simply hard to tire of. The direction the brewery sets itself is "light, delicious, refreshing." As those three words suggest, the sake does not try to win you over with aroma; it is designed around a soft mouthfeel, the way the rice umami is drawn out, and where the acidity is placed, so that the glass empties of its own accord.

The current owner, Seijiro Hane, graduated from Kyoto University and spent more than a decade in Tokyo working as an engineer. He joined the brewery in 2015 with no brewing experience whatsoever. The turning point came at his grandfather's funeral, when his uncle — his grandfather's younger brother, who was running the kura at the time and had no successor — asked him whether he would consider making sake.

He visited the brewery afterwards, saw a man in his eighties still leading the work by hand, and felt two things at once: that it would be a waste to let this kura disappear, and that this might be fate. He decided to join.

Starting from nothing, and armed with a rigorously logical approach to design, Hane refined the sake until it was taking top honours at the Mie Prefecture Sake Brewers' Association competition and at the Annual Japan Sake Awards, the most prestigious competition in the country. SAKE Street first came across his sake around 2021 and fell for it on the spot.

Then, in 2024, just as the brewing had found its stride, an accident inside the kura left Hane with burns and a head injury — a traumatic acute epidural haematoma — requiring hospitalisation and surgery. The operation was a success and he was discharged a month later, but restricted movement in his arm forced him to stop brewing.

A year on, in 2025, with the support of neighbouring breweries, he recovered to the point of being able to brew again. Production had always been small; the return has been smaller still. The road back is itself part of what gives this sake its backbone.