Sakagura Miyamoto’s First Sake — Miyakanbai
Miyakanbai is one of my wife’s favorite nihonshu—and a sake that I, too, have come to fall deeply in love with.
When you drink Miyakanbai, a sake born from the brewers’ sincere devotion to what they make, and from the bonds and love of a family,
you may find that the next time you step into a nihonshu bar, simply spotting the name Miyakanbai makes your heart flutter.
And the goal of this piece today is simple:
to make you want to drink Miyakanbai.
Kanbai Shuzo is the brewery behind Miyakanbai.
Founded in 1918, it is a brewery in Miyagi Prefecture with a history spanning 108 years as of 2026.
Today, the brewery is led by Mana Iwasaki, the fifth-generation kuramoto, and her husband, Kenya.
Interestingly, neither of them originally planned to inherit the family business and run a sake brewery.
Mana grew up as the youngest of four sisters, but since none of her older sisters wished to take over the brewery, the responsibility eventually fell to her.As for her husband, when he stepped into the world of sake brewing alongside his wife, it wasn’t with a heavy sense of duty, but rather with a simple mindset of, “Let’s just give it a try.”
When they took over the brewery in 2007, Kanbai Shuzo was producing around 100 different types of sake.
With such an overwhelming number of labels, it was inevitable that they couldn’t devote equal effort to selling each one.
As time passed, unsold inventory continued to pile up in the warehouse.
At the time, there was no clear management strategy.
So four years after officially joining the brewery, in 2011, Kenya and Mana worked together with the brewery staff to design and put into action concrete strategies focused on sales direction and quality improvement.
(From this point on begins the part that made me a true fan of Miyakanbai.)
The year they decided to truly begin was 2011.
And that same year, a disaster that would be etched into Japan’s history struck—
the Great East Japan Earthquake, an event every brewery in the Tohoku region would come to experience in one way or another.
Thankfully, there were no fatalities or injuries.
But the sake inside the tanks spilled out, and the 2,000 to 3,000 bottles stored in refrigerators were all knocked over and shattered.
The earthquake struck on March 11.
By the end of March, the city issued an official notice declaring the brewery a total loss.
It was an official confirmation that the brewery had collapsed to the point where it could no longer function.
At that moment, the decision of whether to stop brewing altogether or to search for a way forward rested in the hands of three people:
Kenya, Mana, and Mana’s father—the fourth-generation kuramoto.
Supported by messages saying, “We want to drink Miyakanbai again,” and by countless words of encouragement,
the three chose to stand up once more in front of a fallen century of history.
The successful motivational speaker and businessman Zig Ziglar once described hope like this:
Hope is the fundamental force behind change.
It gives belief to one’s actions, becomes the fuel that allows us to live in the present,
and offers a vision for a better future.
It is an essential element underlying personal success and the overcoming of adversity.
And it is rooted in the understanding that you can make your situation better.
In that moment, the three chose to act with hope.
All the sake in the brewery had been destroyed.
Yet because of that, they were finally able to let go of the long-troublesome inventory—
unsold bottles with countless different labels.
They could move forward without hesitation, investing in new facilities and equipment.
They shifted their strategy from producing over 100 different labels
to focusing solely on Junmai Ginjo and Junmai Daiginjo.
To reach a younger audience, they also put great effort into renewing their label designs.
As if in response to their hope, they rebuilt the brewery within the same year they suffered the historic earthquake of March 2011.
By November 2022, their sales had grown to more than five times what they were immediately after the disaster.
In 2024, they won first place in the Junmai category at the Tohoku New Sake Appraisal.
Today, Miyakanbai is recognized across Japan—and in Korea as well—as a truly delicious nihonshu among those who love sake.
And finally, it became the sake that both my wife and I fell deeply in love with.
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.
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Drinking nihonshu every day may not be particularly good for one’s health.
But when you enjoy good food with a sake that truly matches it,
when you serve it on beautiful plates and pour it into a beautiful glass, creating a meal that matters—
that meal may become a memory that stays with you for a long time.
And if you share it with someone dear to you, those memories will surely accumulate,
eventually making that person the one and only in your life.
I don’t know what kind of sake Miyakanbai will become for you.
But for me, Miyakanbai is a nihonshu that brings my wife to mind.
Going forward, I hope to introduce many more nihonshu,
so that everyone who reads this may find their own sake—
and their own story connected to it.
Thank you for reading.
