Eigashima Shuzo has been making sake in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture since the Edo period, formally established in 1888 by Hyokichi, who merged several local breweries and relocated their wooden storehouses onto his grounds — seven of which, built between 1889 and 1959, are still in use today. The location matters: western Akashi was historically known as Nada, where spring water and high-quality Harima Plain rice made sake brewing famous. The Kamitaka brand ("divine hawk") was registered in 1895 and remains the flagship. But Eigashima's other claim is bigger than most people realize — in 1919 it became the first company in Japan to obtain a whisky distilling license, and it has produced Akashi Whisky at its White Oak facility since 1984, alongside shochu, mirin, wine, and brandy. Toji Yuji Nakamura does double duty as both the whisky's distiller-blender and the sake's master brewer. The Kamitaka range reached North America only recently: the Hawk Label Ginjo, made from local hinohikari rice at 60% polish with Mt. Rokko snowmelt water, and the Octopus Label Mizumoto Junmai, brewed by the oldest recorded starter method in sake — one Nakamura brought to Hyogo himself, the first brewery in the prefecture to use it. Genuine history, in both bottles.

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