Taste Japan’s Gift of the Gods in Sake’s Birthplace

Last December, when the traditional knowledge and techniques of making Japanese sake with kōji mold were added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, the organization noted that sake is “viewed as a sacred gift from deities.” It wasn’t just a turn of phrase. In Japan the origin of sake is deeply rooted in mythology and relationships with kami, Japanese gods. Perhaps nowhere in Japan is this reverence felt more deeply than in Izumo in Shimane Prefecture, where ancient tales name it as the birthplace of doburuku (raw, unfiltered) sake.

Japan’s oldest historical record, the 8th-century Kojiki, recounts a story that suggests the presence of an advanced brewing technique in ancient Izumo. The story says that the region was being terrorized by Yamata-no-orochi, a dragon with eight heads and eight tails, until the storm god Susanoo-no-Mikoto — brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu, the highest deity in Japanese mythology — slayed the dragon by getting it drunk on eight buckets of sake (or, “thick wine of eight-fold brewings”). Also a cornerstone of Izumo’s cultural and brewing heritage is the Kamiari Festival held at Izumo Taisha, believed to be Japan’s oldest shrine. Each year, all of the Japanese gods convene in Izumo during the 10th month of the old lunar calendar, which is known as Kan-na-dzuki (“the month without gods”) everywhere in Japan, except for Izumo where it’s called Kami-ari-dzuki (“the month with gods”). Local brewers offer sake to the gods during their stay, but some enjoy drinking it so much that they linger in town well beyond the festival. Try a sip of Izumo sake, made with mineral-rich water from the Chugoku mountains and rice cultivated in the region’s mild climate, and you’ll understand why.

The Shinkansen bullet train doesn’t reach Izumo, which lies on the west coast of Honshu, so it requires just a little more time and effort to get here. But UNESCO’s designation offers a timely reason to go off the beaten path to explore sake culture beyond Japan’s tourist spots. While the more-trafficked Hyogo and Nara prefectures both claim to be the birthplace of modern sake making, it’s in Shimane that you can connect to its ancient roots. Here’s where: