Kokonoe Mirin Okura

A 300-Year-Old Mirin Storehouse

The Kokonoe Mirin Okura (九重味淋大蔵), the great storehouse of the Kokonoe Mirin brewery in Hamadera-cho, Hekinan City, Aichi Prefecture, is a sake brewing storehouse built in 1706 and moved and remodelled here in 1787, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on February 9, 2005, under registration number 23-0163.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records it as a two-storey dozo storehouse with a tiled roof and a building area of 384 square metres. According to the Hekinan Tourism Association, it is 8.3 metres to the eaves, 26.5 metres long and 12.45 metres deep, with a wing 8.8 metres by 8.5 metres at the southwest.

Why It Was Registered

The storehouse was registered as contributing to the historic landscape of the country. According to the Agency, it was built for brewing the sake that is the basis of mirin: a gabled building with a tiled roof, its main block running east to west with an L-shaped wing at the west end of the south side, and walls clad in black-painted clapboard. A large storehouse fronting the road to the north, it is, in the Agency's words, the symbolic building of the mirin works.

The Hekinan Tourism Association explains that Kokonoe Mirin was founded in 1772 by Ishikawa Hachiroemon Nobuatsu, who moved the great storehouse here from Narumi (now part of Nagoya) in 1787. It has been used to store and mature pure mirin, made from glutinous rice and rice koji, for six months to a year. More than 300 years after it was first built, it still shows its imposing form.

What to Look For

Notice the black-painted clapboard covering the whole exterior. Stretching 26.5 metres along the road on its north side, the great roof of the storehouse shapes the townscape of Hekinan, a centre of mirin making.

Inside, apart from a partition at the east end, both floors are single large spaces (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Kokonoe Mirin won an award at the Paris Exposition of 1900, and the storehouse has served the company throughout that history (Hekinan Tourism Association).

Visiting

The Kokonoe Mirin Okura is a working storehouse on the company's premises; its exterior can be seen from the road on the north side. No official information was found on visiting the interior. The address is 2-11 Hamadera-cho, Hekinan City. The Hekinan Tourism Association (0566-95-9894) features it as a highlight of Hekinan's industrial heritage.