Jurakudai is brewed by Sasakishuzo, founded in 1893 as the only sake brewery remaining in the Rakuchu district of central Kyoto, established on the historic grounds of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Jurakudai mansion, which itself was sited there, according to tradition, because of the quality of the local water and Hideyoshi's reverence for tea ceremony. The brewery uses underground water drawn from the same aquifer attributed to legendary tea master Sen no Rikyu, and produces sake using Kyoto-grown rice with adherence to traditional Rakuchu methods. Writer and Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata praised the sake with the words, The flavor of this sake is the taste of Kyoto.
