Hyakunen Kijoshu: A Sake Being Brewed on a Hundred-Year Relay

This is the most patient thing on our sake list, and it is not close.

What Kijoshu Is

Ordinary sake is brewed with rice, koji, yeast and water.

Kijoshu replaces some of that water with finished sake. The result is that fermentation happens in an environment already containing alcohol, which stresses the yeast and slows it down. Less of the rice sugar gets converted, so more of it survives into the final product.

The result is thick, sweet and concentrated, closer to a dessert wine than to the sake most people know. The technique is ancient, described in Japanese records more than a thousand years old, and it was revived in the twentieth century.

The Hundred-Year Plan

Niida Honke, in Fukushima, was founded in 1711. In 2011 they reached their 300th anniversary, and they marked it by starting something that will not finish in anyone's lifetime.

Each year, they brew a kijoshu. The following year, they brew the next one using the previous year's kijoshu in place of water. Then again. And again.

The intention is to continue this for one hundred consecutive years. In 2111, at the brewery's 400th anniversary, the accumulated result will be a sake that carries a thread of every one of those hundred years inside it.

Every bottle released along the way is a snapshot of a relay in progress. The 2024 release contains a trace of 2023, which contains a trace of 2022, back to the beginning.

Nobody working at the brewery today will taste the finished version. That is the point.

How It Is Made

The rest of the process is as uncompromising as the concept.

The rice is naturally farmed, milled only to 85%, which is very little polishing by premium sake standards. Where a daiginjo strips away half the grain or more to chase clean aromatics, this keeps almost all of it, and with it the protein and fat that carry savory depth.

It is brewed kimoto, the labor-intensive traditional method where lactic acid develops naturally rather than being added.

No yeast is pitched. Fermentation runs on the brewery's own resident house yeast, the population living in the building itself.

And it uses Niida Honke's own kumidashi yondan technique, a fourth addition to the mash particular to this brewery.

What It Tastes Like

Velvety and richly sweet. Dried apricot, caramel and honey, with a long luxurious finish.

The 85% polishing and the kimoto method keep it from being merely sugary. There is acidity and savory weight underneath, which is what stops it collapsing into syrup.

How to Drink It

Small pours, in a small glass, lightly chilled or at room temperature.

This is an aperitif or a digestif, not a sake to drink through a meal. Treat it the way you would treat a good Sauternes or an aged PX sherry.

Pair It With

Fatty toro, rich or creamy desserts, blue cheese. Anything with enough intensity to meet it.

Try It at Juraku

Hyakunen Kijoshu is on the sake list at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side. Each year's release is limited, so check the current menu or ask us what is open.