Nara

Sake in Nara

Nara Prefecture lies inland in the Kinki region and does not face the sea. In the one year from July 2024 to June 2025, sake was made at 26 places in the prefecture. Shoryakuji, a temple in Nara City, is called “the birthplace of Japanese seishu (refined sake).” In the Muromachi period, Shoryakuji practiced “morohaku” brewing, which uses white, polished rice both for the koji and for the rice added to the moromi (the fermenting mash that becomes sake), as well as “bodaimoto” brewing, the prototype of the shubo (yeast starter, the base that starts fermentation).

Bodaimoto is still prepared at Shoryakuji every January, and 7 sake brewing companies in the prefecture take this shubo home to brew sake. That sake is sold at Fukujuin, one of the temple's buildings. At the “Bodaimoto Seishu Festival” held on the day of the preparation, sake tasting is offered for a fee. In 2027 it is scheduled for January 9 (as of October 2026). Omiwa Shrine in Sakurai City is a shrine whose deity has been revered as a god of sake brewing. Every year on November 14 it holds the “醸造安全祈願祭” (a festival of prayers for safe brewing, also called the Sake Festival), and on the day before, the 13th, the large sugidama (a ball of cedar leaves bound into a sphere), about 1.5 m in diameter, hanging at the worship hall and elsewhere is replaced with a new one.

As for rice, “なら酒1504” (Nara sake 1504), bred by the prefecture's Agricultural Research and Development Center, became the subject of a variety registration application in 2024 as the first rice variety bred by the prefecture. The Nara Prefecture Sake Brewers Association gave this rice the nickname “Nanatsuyu,” and sake brewed by 16 of its member breweries from this rice harvested in the prefecture went on sale on April 5, 2025. In the prefecture, “Tsuyuhakaze” is also used as a raw material for sake along with Nanatsuyu.

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