Inemankai

Mukai Shuzo, founded in 1754 in the historic fishing village of Ine Bay in northern Kyoto, occupies a stretch of coastline where boats once docked directly at the brewery walls. Kuniko Mukai, one of Japan's first female master brewers, developed Inemankai in 2000 after a professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture revealed that ancient red rice had once grown in the surrounding fields. Made with a rare ancient purple-red grain called Murasaki Masari blended with Kyoto's local Iwai rice, the resulting sake pours a deep crimson. Rich and viscous, it offers cherry and vanilla aromas, and a layered palate of pomegranate, raisin, cocoa, and umami unlike anything in the conventional sake canon.