Top Grade Ingredients:

Only the finest ingredients will ever go into an original Haru artisan sake. When choosing our partner distilleries, we scrutinized the contents which go into their products. Of special significance are the water and the rice.

At Haru, we are completely transparent about where the water used in your sake is sourced. It is impossible to overstate the importance of a good water source: water accounts for 80% of the constituent parts of sake. Our breweries source their waters from springs at the Yatsugatake Mountain in Yamanashi Prefecture, and the Minami River in Fukui Prefecture. Three of Japan’s top water sources originate from the Yatsugatake Mountain, while the Minami River is responsible for some of the most pristine subterranean water in Japan.

Masterful Brewing:

Our partner breweries share our conviction that sake brewing is an art form. It is our strong belief that the utmost care should go into every step of the brewing process, rather than simply churning out large quantities of standardized products on an assembly line. It is the heart, and the human aspect, that the brewers infuse into sake that makes drinking a good sake so enjoyable. To compromise on this, is to deprive customers of one of the most enjoyable aspects of sake drinking: the connection between the brewer, and you.

Our artisan sake is produced through our partner breweries working tirelessly throughout the cold Japanese winters to produce sake of the highest specifications. Rather than simply relying on automated processes, our brewers take pride in providing a human touch in the creation of their masterpieces. They rely on traditional methods that are more time-consuming, strenuous, and are known to only a handful of master brewers, but ultimately produce a superior product.

In classifying sake, the top grade is known as junmai daiginjo. To be properly classified as a daiginjo, or super-premium sake, at least 50% of the rice grain has to be milled away, leaving only the center of the grain which contributes the most to producing superior aromas and taste. As for gaining the junmai prefix, the sake must be made from only rice, without the addition of distilled alcohol. It is estimated that only 2.6% of all sake produced falls into the ginjo category and above, with junmai daiginjo making up only a fraction of this number.

All our artisan products fall into the category of junmai daiginjo, being polished down to 29%, and not containing any distilled alcohol. We aim to provide you with unparalleled purity and quality.

Experience:

The sake industry is one which often thought of as mysterious and guarded. We hope that through our initiatives, we can help to shed more light on the industry, and how sake is created and perfected.

To this end, we will be embarking on an exciting project which has never been done in history. This initiative will be done with one of our partner breweries: the Obama Brewery. To allow you to be able to experience the creation of our artisan sake from start to finish, we will be placing cameras in the brewery. Upon purchasing a bottle, you will be provided with access to these cameras which you can view at any time during the production months.

In addition, as not all processes happen in the brewery, for special events such as the making of yukimuro-chozo, or snow-aged sake, we will upload footage of these for your viewing pleasure, as very often, these processes are rarely made accessible to the general public.