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Meet the Brewery

Furusawa Brewing Com​​pany

Furusawa Brewing Company has spent nearly two centuries brewing sake in Yamagata, milling their own rice in-house with a precision they helped pioneer in 1930. That standard shows up in everything they make, and it’s easy to taste after just one bottle.

Kotaro Furusawa, president

Yamagata prefecture

Sawamasamune “Junmai Daiginjo” Biden Bishu

Sawamasamune - Junmai Daiginjo - Biden Bishu

$42.00

A Standard, Not a Style: How One Invention Still Shapes Every Bottle Furusawa Brewing Company Makes

Long before the Sawamasamune sake brand existed, the Furusawa family had spent 11 generations trading rice along Yamagata’s Mogami River — expertise that shaped the brewery Shiroji Furusawa founded in Sagae in 1836. That know-how paid off in 1930, when third-generation brewer Tokuji Furusawa co-developed a vertical rice-polishing machine, precise enough to help pioneer daiginjo-style brewing. Furusawa still mills every grain of rice in-house today, and that same discipline runs through everything the brewery makes, whether it’s a delicate junmai daiginjo built for the table or a rare sake aged for decades before its first pour.

A delicious surprise from Yamagata

Our sourcing team first discovered Furusawa’s Sawamasamune brand through a fortunate introduction. Although Yamagata is one of Japan’s most respected sake regions, we must admit that we had not yet discovered their sake. The first bottles we tasted happened to include junmai daiginjo and aged sake, two styles from entirely different worlds of flavor. Yet in the hands of Furusawa Brewing Company, each was crafted to an exceptionally high level, revealing the remarkable breadth and depth of the brewery’s expertise. Executive Director Keitaro Furusawa, our main contact at the brewery, has met several of our team members at sake events. His warm smile and bright personality make us want to explore more of their sake. 

President Kotaro Furusawa with koji rice.

Built to complement, not to impress

Furusawa’s junmai daiginjo all share the same design brief: sake that complements a meal rather than announcing itself, brewed by veteran craftsmen working alongside a younger generation. Restraint like that is easy to talk about and hard to execute consistently. Every bottle of theirs we’ve tried holds up from the first sniff to the last sip, with nothing lost in between — the kind of follow-through that only comes from caring as much about the rice, still milled in-house, as about the finished sake. It says a lot about how seriously this brewery takes its own standards.

A sake designed to outlast a generation

Their “koshu” (aged sake) makes a different kind of statement. It is brewed undiluted using the traditional kimoto method, then left to age for two decades — far longer than most koshu is aged — with its release date fixed years before anyone could know whether the wait would pay off. That’s not a decision you make on a whim; it only works if your brewing standards hold steady for 20 straight years. When we finally tried it, it didn’t taste like something that had simply gotten older; it tasted like something that had kept getting better, which takes real conviction to pull off.

Rich and smooth, powerful yet elegant, this earthy, whiskey-like sake transcends temperatures, pleasurable on the rocks, straight, gently warmed or even as a sparkling highball. And you don’t have to just take our word about its quality; this 20-year-old sake was awarded gold in the 2022 Warm Sake Contest.

Geographical indication Yamagata sake

It isn’t just the brewery that sets high expectations for itself; Yamagata prefecture, where the brewery is located, must certify every bottle’s quality. Yamagata takes sake craftsmanship seriously, which is why it is one of the most well-respected and preeminent sake brewing regions. Breweries such as Furusawa, who use locals-only ingredients such as Dewasansan rice, must have their products reviewed and approved by a board to assure that it meets the prefecture’s quality standards. So you can be sure that every bottle of Sawamasamune you order from Palate Project is going to be delicious!

Inside Furusawa Brewing Company’s sake museum, where they brewed sake from 1917 to 1983. Back left: old wooden brewing vats. Front right: old wooden “fune” (manual sake press).

Why this matters

We chose to import Furusawa Brewing Company because the sake did the convincing on its own, no backstory required. Junmai daiginjo whose flavors live up to their aromas, and koshu that gets more interesting with age — all come from the same exacting expectations for excellence. And while the taste of their sake speaks for itself, we love knowing that this brewery occupies a special place in sake history.

If you ever have a chance to travel to Yamagata, pay them a visit at their sake museum, which houses historical sake-making equipment including the first vertical rice-polishing machine they developed in 1930. You can also taste made-from-scratch soba noodles on premises, because Furusawa fully embraces all the delights their home prefecture has to offer.

Meet the brewer

Kotaro Furusawa, president

Kotaro Furusawa is the fifth generation to lead the brewery his family founded in 1836. He inherited more than a business; his grandfather, third-generation brewer Tokuji Furusawa, passed down both the rice-polishing innovations that modernized the brewery and a family motto: Run the brewery like a craftsman, not a merchant. Furusawa still keeps roughly 80% of the brewery’s sake close to home in Yamagata, a choice he credits to steady, measured judgment rather than ambition for growth.

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