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Nishinomiya, the second town in Hyogo Prefecture when you come from Osaka, was originally the “temple town” of the Nishinomiya Ebisu Shrine (still existing, but in a modern concrete incarnation - affectionately called Ebessan, the main festival of this shrine dedicated to the god of luck and good fortune is on January 10). From the 17th c. on, Nishinomiya prospered as a sake producing center. The breweries stand at the coast, south of the Nishinomiya Shrine, next to Nishinomiya Harbor from which the sake barrels could conveniently be shipped to Edo and other cities.

[Sake barrels with the Hakushika mark - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

The largest brewery in Nishinomiya (and the third largest in Japan) is Hakushika (officially “Kuromatsu Hakushika”, as another unconnected small brewery also carries the name Hakushika), founded in 1662 by the Tatsuuma family. Hakushika sake is said to derive its quality from the water used for brewing. This area is famous for its water, called “Miyamizu” or “Shrine Water,” discovered in 1840 by Yamamura Tazaemon of the Sakura Masamune Brewery, and a mysterious mixture of pure water from Mt Rokko with small pinches of sea water and water from the Shukugawa River seeping in. It is hard water suitable for the dry sake that is brewed in the Nada area (Nada Gogo, the five sake brewing areas on the coast in Nishinomiya and Kobe). John Gauntner has an excellent and detailed story about miyamizu in one of his recent Sake Newsletters. It is drawn from a set of wells in Nishinomiya, now heavily guarded; from there it is pumped to Hakushika and other breweries. In the past, the water was transported by wooden carts, which was quite a haul as sake consists for 80% of water.

[Carts for hauling miyamizu - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

The Tatsuuma family has been active in sponsoring cultural and welfare facilities in its hometown, but over time they also collected art themselves, now on view in the Hakushika Memorial Museum of Sake (”Sake Museum” for short). Only a ten-minute walk from Hanshin Nishinomiya St, in fact there are two museums here: one a sake brewing museum with old tools, the other a small art museum. Both were set up in 1982, when the company existed 300 years, but the old Meiji-period, redbrick sake museum was destroyed in the earthquake of 1995, and the tools are now housed in a (new) wooden sake storehouse, on the other side of the road.

The brandname Hakushika (”White Deer”) goes back to an old Chinese legend. Once upon a time, the 8th c. Tang-dynasty Emperor Xuanzong came across a white deer in the grounds of his palace, an animal that proved to be possessed of sacred powers as a copper medal at the base of his antlers carried an engraving telling that he was already one-thousand years old. In fact, the Chinese word for deer, lu (in Japanese, roku), also means “a long number of years” so it was not so strange to have a living proof in this deer of “longevity of a thousand years.”

In the art collection of the Tatsuuma family, you will find many paintings of deer, as well as as of Jurojin, one of the Seven Deities of Good Fortune, and originally hailing from the Chinese Daoist pantheon. Interestingly, Jurojin fits Hakushika in a double way: depicted as an old man with a long white beard, he is often accompanied by a deer (symbol of longevity as we saw), and he is also thought to be a great lover of sake! In his one hand he carries a staff, in the other a scroll on which the lifespan of all living beings has been listed (see Mark Schumacher’s A to Z Photo Dictionary of Japanese Buddhist Statuary). There is also a room with a “cherry-blossom art” collection, brought together by Mr Sasabe.

[Vats outside the Sakagura-kan - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

The new Sakagura-kan shows the steps in brewing sake, with some English texts, as well as a large collection of tools. The facilities are rounded off by a shop and restaurant. The area is infested by “outlets” and now a typical bedtown, but Hakushika is definitely worth a visit. If you look for other things to do in Nishinomiya, get off at Hanshin Koroen Station, where on the mountain side stands the Tatsuuma Fine Art Museum, a collection brought together by Mr Tatsuuma Etsuzo, who belonged to a rival branch of the extended Tatsuuma family and founded the Hakutaka (”White Eagle”) Brewery - there are archeological objects, especially dotaku bells, and paintings by Tessai, the last literati painter.

[pre-war sake advertisements - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

Tel: 0798-33-0008
Hours: Enter between 10:00 and 16:30; closed Tuesdays, New Year period. Fee varies.
Access: 10 min S from east exit of Hanshin Nishinomiya St