Sipping Locally Produced Sake at Nagano Event

The Yomiuri Shimbun

12:37 JST, October 23, 2024

SUWA, Nagano — An event in which sake-sipping participants stroll along a closed-off stretch of highway recently took place in Suwa, Nagano Prefecture.

The Oct. 5 event was held along a 500-meter portion of National Highway Route 20, which is home to a handful of sake makers known as Suwa Gokura (the Suwa five breweries). The route was blocked off and the road was transformed into a pedestrian zone.

More than 25 kinds of sake from the Maihime, Reijin, Honkin, Yokobue and Masumi breweries in the “Kamisuwa Kaido Machiaruki Nomiaruki” filled Japanese masu wooden cups, made of hinoki cypress, as participants sipped their way through the event.

This was the 40th time the event has been held since it was started in 1998. And this time out, 3,000 advance tickets — at a cost of ¥4,000 including tax — were snapped up to make the event a sellout.

“This was the first time for me to take part in the event, and I enjoyed it,” a 48-year-old company employee from Yokohama said. “I was able to get a good sense of the differences in dry sake. Some of them were refreshing and others rich.”