Nagurayama brewery was founded in 1918 by Zenroku Matsumoto, the first generation of the company, who worked as what is now called a "sake appraiser".

Since then, the brewery has been dedicated to the quality of its sake and has been working on innovative sake brewing in the vein of Nanbu Toji.

In 1973, when sweet sake was still in full swing nationwide and even the breweries in the Aizu region, Fukushima prefecture were not submitting their products to appraisal competitions, the brewery decided that they wanted to make ginjo sake, a pure rice sake that would be drunk by ordinary consumers, and started making ginjo and junmai sake.

One of the Japanese traditional philosophies advocated by Matsuo Basho is the phrase "never change". The essence of eternity lies in the ever-changing fashions in search of newness, and they at Nagurayama are constantly pursuing new flavors demanded by the times with flexible and rich ideas, based on the sincere traditional sake brewing that their predecessors have protected and passed down to next generations. 

Enjoy J Passport’s first sake from Fukushima prefecture, "Yokikana"