The Secret Language of Sake Labels: Zaku “Ho no Tomo”
I’ve written before about the secret language of sake labels, and how much it can reveal about the history of a brewery and the passion of its owner and master brewer. Here’s another installment, on the sake known as Zaku “Ho no Tomo.”
I fell in love with this sake first, then wanted to know what the name meant. It’s a beautiful, well-made sake from the small Shimizu Seizaburo Shoten brewery in Mie Prefecture. My first sip of this bottle from the brewery’s “Zaku” line came at a dinner at Toronto Consul-General Takako Ito’s home in 2019, where my co-writer, Michael Tremblay was leading a tasting of various sakes served with the multi-course dinner.
The Zaku was served with a buttery wagyu main course, and stood out for the way its fruity scent, light body and smooth texture revealed an inner core of umami as well as lactic and rice notes. It made for a good match with the dish.
I knew that the character ho (穂) from “Ho no Tomo” meant “ear” or “grain.” Readers of the label will know that it refers to sake rice. Tomo (智)means “wisdom,” or “higher knowledge.” And “no” is the particle “of.” So “Ho no Tomo” could be understood as “the wisdom of rice.” But there’s a second meaning as well. “Tomo” is the first character in master brewer Tomohiro Uchiyama’s first name. When I reached out to the brewery, general manager Masae Shimizu, who is also the wife of president Shinichiro Shimizu, responded to my questions.
“The president thinks of the names of the sake,” she explained, and then after consideration within the company the final decision is made.” When he decided on using a kanji character from the master brewer’s name in every sake of the Zaku line, the president said to the brewer, “It’s my wish that you make this sake as if it were your own child.” In other words, “Please pour all the love and care into brewing this sake as you would in raising your own child.”
The metaphor of sake as a the child of the brewer is one I’ve heard before. During my interviews with a group of women toji (master brewers) from Nagano Prefecture, several of them--Mami Wakabayashi of Wakabayashi Brewery and Midori Okazaki of Okazaki Brewery-- mentioned how sake brewing feels natural to them because it is like giving birth to and nurturing their own children. Okazaki even at one time brewed three sakes (two made with sprouted brown rice and one plum sake) that she named after her three children. Many of us have felt an almost parental love for our non-human creations, and the fact that sake brewing involves living microorganisms that give spontaneous rise to new life makes that connection even more powerful.
By placing a kanji character from the toji’s name into the sake’s name, Shimizu slipped a bit of the master brewer’s own DNA into Ho no Tomo and the entire Zaku line. Instead of the act of creation giving rise to parental nurturing instincts, Uchiyama was handed an incentive from his boss: “please create a sake that reflects who you are, as your own child would.”
But there is a third possible reading of “Ho no Tomo.” Based only on the sound of the phrase but not its characters, one might think it meant “friend of the rice plant,” which is itself a charming and meaningful name. I hope these examples give you a sense of the the beauty of kanji characters, and what makes wordplay in Japan an especially complex kind of passion. Incorporating the character “ho,” the head or ear of the rice plant, into the sake’s name, Masae Shimizu adds, “expresses the taste and purity of this junmaishu,” (meaning that it is a “pure” sake that has not been diluted with the added alcohol present in honjozo sakes).
“Ho no Tomo” is made with local Mie rice whenever possible (sometimes shortages require supplementing from outside the prefecture), which is polished to a 60 percent ratio, meaning 40 percent of the bran is removed. Shimizu goes on to explain that many breweries brew in huge tanks of many thousands of tons, saving small tank brewing for competition-grade sakes only. At Shimizu Shoten, meanwhile, every sake made is small batch. This leads brewers to be more attentive during the brewing process, and to make a much higher quality sake, she believes. Unlike many breweries, Shimizu Shoten also brews year around, which helps increase total production.
The name “Zaku,” is taken from the Chinese reading of the character for “to make,” or “to create.” This, Shimizu says, expresses the idea that sake is a creation of not just the toji, but also of the time and place at which is it consumed, and the attitudes and feelings of the person who consumes the sake. “Whether you’re happily making a toast, or you’ve had your heart broken and are drinking alone, or you’re dining at a fancy restaurant or drinking at an izakaya--each of those situations is going to affect how the sake tastes,” she says. “So even though it’s the brewer who makes the sake, it’s the person who in the end drinks the sake, and every person whose hands it passes through along the way, who are going to determine its final taste.” This makes a single sake an ever-changing experience, and one in which the drinker is just as much “maker” as the toji. But perhaps this is going too far; let’s give the toji and his or her team the lion’s share of the credit here.
Sidenote: It did not hurt sales that “Zaku” is also the name of a line of manned robots in the anime Mobile Suit Gundam, but president Shimzu says this was a totally unplanned and unforeseen connection.
Other sakes in the “Zaku” line include Kanade no Tomo and Miyabi no Tomo, which could respectively be translated, “the wisdom of dance (or playing an instrument), and “the wisdom of refinement.”
The most expensive product of the Zaku line is called “Zaku Crown,” or the “toji’s special,” Shimizu explains, because it was selected by master brewer Uchiyama as the best of all of his premium daiginjos. Very few bottles of Zaku Crown are brewed and it is also the most expensive sake the brewery makes, retailing for 30,000 yen (a little more than $280 USD) per bottle. To illustrate the exalted nature of this sake, Shimizu says, “We put a crown over the ordinary, ‘Zaku’ [kanji].”
The crown is actually a bamboo crown, or take kanmuri (竹冠), which in itself is a clever bit of wordplay. “Take” means bamboo, and “kanmuri” means “crown.” Together, they refer to the kanji “radical,” or the top component of a multi-part kanji character, that resembles a bamboo crown. Look closely at the label of Zaku Crown sake, and you’ll see the kanji character “zaku” wearing a miniature “竹” or bamboo crown. 作＋竹＝筰. (This, by the way, is a made up character, the makers having more fun with the language.) On its own, the character for “crown,” 冠, refers to the traditional cap worn by Shinto clergy and courtiers--an allusion, perhaps, to nearby Ise Shrine, the vast and ancient shrine complex dedicated to the worship of two of Japan’s most ancient gods. Zaku Crown is another example of how hard (or at least time- and word-consuming) it is to convey something that many Japanese would get in one glance.
If you’re wondering what makes Zaku Crown sake so special, it’s made with Toku A Yamada Nishiki, the highest grade available from Hyogo Prefecture, polished to 40 percent, hand brewed and then drip-pressed through cloth bags into tobin, or 18-liter bottles. Several tobin are made yearly and after tasting them all, toji Uchiyama bottles only the best of it for sale as Zaku Crown. Packaging matters, too, so the bottle’s label is made by employing a Heian era tradition of Suzuka ink dying on Ise Shrine washi paper, the town’s own traditional craft
And finally, if you can stand it, here’s one last label story to tell you from Shimizu, which is also a tale of how the brewery has helped the local business community beat the Covid-19 crisis. The latest addition to the Zaku line-up is a sake called “Flint.” When the pandemic swept over Mie Prefecture, a sake shop near Ise Shrine suffered a huge loss in business and found itself in dire straits. The shop asked Shimizu Brewery if there were perhaps a new product it could develop that in some way related to their town of Suzuka and the grand Ise Shrine.
The Shimizus unearthed the story of the first-century prince Yamato Takeru, the hero of myth, legend and historical fact, whose famous “grass-cutting sword” and bag of flint (to help him light fires) got him out of some deadly scrapes. Yamato is buried in Suzuka City and the shrine that commemorates him, Shimizu says, has since ancient times been the site where pilgrims pray for recovery from illness. In the same way that Yamato’s sword and flint helped him, the Shimizus hoped that this sake, Zaku Flint, would come to the aid of both the sake store and their town.
It seems they succeeded in their mission: Sales of the Flint Yamada Nishiki junmai ginjo, reports Shimizu, have been enough to cover the store’s pandemic losses.
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