Founded in 1886 by former samurai Shoji Nagai in Kawaba Village, Gunma Prefecture, Nagai Sake Inc. draws its brewing water from the snowmelt of Mount Hotaka, filtered through the volcanic soils of Oze. The Mizubasho brand, launched in 1992 and named after the white wildflower that blooms in pure mountain water, became the vessel for the brewery's most ambitious project: Mizubasho Pure, Japan's first sparkling sake made with in-bottle secondary fermentation, developed over a decade of trial and error and released in 2008.
