Furusawa Brewery No. 2

Furusawa Brewery No. 2 Storehouse: The Smaller of the Twin Fermentation Halls

Furusawa Brewery makes its shochu inside the only earthen-walled fermentation halls left in Miyazaki, and the smaller of the two stands along the northern edge of the yard. The No. 2 Storehouse, or Nigō-gura, went up in the late Meiji period, sometime between 1898 and 1912, and was repaired in the late Shōwa years and again in 2003. Its footprint is modest, just 39 square meters, yet it does the same work as its larger neighbor to the south.

Why It Is Protected

The two-story building carries a gabled roof that runs east to west, with a single doorway on the south face. Stout pillars rise every half-ken and lock together with penetrating tie-beams, called nuki, while large beams frame the upper floor and a king-post truss spans the roof. On November 2, 2018, the Agency for Cultural Affairs registered it as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property for its part in the town's historic landscape. Paired with the No. 1 Storehouse, it forms the core of the brewing complex.

What to Look For

Inside, the mash for the brewery's shochu ferments as it has for generations, in ceramic jars set on the floor rather than sunk into it. Because the thick clay walls even out the heat of the Nichinan coast, the jars hold a steady temperature through the year.

The flagship label brewed on this site, Yaezakura, comes in sweet-potato, barley, rice, and buckwheat versions. Each is distilled once at atmospheric pressure and then left to settle without machine filtration, so the character of that year's weather carries into the bottle.