Bodaimoto Festival Tour

This tour was one of deep cultural significance, both to our guests as well as to Nara Prefecture. As this was the new year, 8 sake breweries from around Nara converged on Shoryaku-ji Temple to make offerings of their sake to the gods during the Bodaimoto Festival in order to bring about a successful year for themselves. Sake barrels branded with many different labels stacked all together presented a concrete image of unity between professionals who all had a deep love and respect for their craft. This festival is also important for the breweries as a collective, as they all receive their koji starter from the temple, and without their offering, they are not granted access to this most important of ingredients.

The festival was a joyful one, full of people happy to share their craft as well as those even happier to receive it. Priests blessed sake and conducted rituals in order to ensure a good brewing season for each brewery as the day progressed, and tasting of the sake was held throughout. The cold weather allowed a buildup of etherial steam to emenate from brewing vats and matts of koji, lending a sacred atmosphere to the otherwise laid-back event, and the various brewers in their dark blue coats looked as though they worked in the personal breweries of the gods.

The group would also enjoy activities outside of the festival, principally sake tasting and pairing sessions with a few different brands. These would then be complimented with an insightful brewery tour to help in understanding the process and story behind the liquid in our guests cups. The most insightful aspect of this would be the direct access to the master brewer and owner of the brewery, allowing our guests the best resources available to understand every detail they could possibly wish to know about sake and its making. The trip would end with satisfaction in the experiences everyone was able to participate in, and would leave everyone with a thirst for more sake in the future.