Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence)

What Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) Is

Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) (瑞穂酢（大西家住宅）, Mizuho-su Ōnishi-ke Jūtaku) is a vinegar brewer's house and brewery compound in Nakamachi, Kashihara City, Nara Prefecture, where eleven structures built between 1891 and the early Taisho era (1912 to 1918) were entered together on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 27 February 2023. The oldest is an inner storehouse of 1891. The compound lies in a village just north of Mount Miminashi, one of the three hills of Yamato, and presents its front to a street on the north side.

Mizuhosu, literally "Mizuho vinegar", is the brand of rice vinegar the Onishi household has made here; the name was registered as a trademark in 1923. Brewing still goes on inside the walls under the family firm, Mizuho Co., Ltd. Few places in Japan let you see a Taisho-era vinegar works that has never stopped working, with the owners' house standing in the same enclosure.

The eleven listings fall into two camps. The Main House, the Gatehouse and Middle Gate, the Inner Storehouse and North Earthen Wall, and the Former Miso Storehouse make up the domestic frontage. The North, Middle and South Storehouses, the Former Koji Room and Earthen Wall, the Rice Storehouse, the Former Bottling House and the Former Preparation House carried the stages of production.

Three and a Half Centuries of Rice Vinegar

According to the company history, vinegar making at Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) began in 1658, when a head of the family named Gennosuke started brewing rice vinegar at Nakasho in Tochi District, Yamato Province. Sources disagree on his place in the line: the company's own page calls him the eighth head, while a 2026 profile in a Nara regional magazine calls him the fourth. On 1 April 1894 the business received its licence to manufacture vinegar.

Recognition followed at the national trade fairs. Mizuhosu vinegar won a certificate of merit at the Fifth National Industrial Exhibition in 1903 and a first-class gold medal at a national specialty products exhibition in 1916. Most of the brewing buildings on the site date from the early Taisho years, roughly the same period as those awards.

Vinegar here starts as sake. The company explains that koji is first grown on good rice, and sake is then brewed in the classic three additions known as hatsuzoe, nakazoe and tomezoe. The finished sake goes into 30-koku tubs of Yoshino cedar, where it turns to vinegar over at least three months. Thirty koku is roughly 5,400 litres, and the regional magazine counted about 80 such tubs in the storehouses. The firm grows its own cedar for the staves: in 2002 it felled a 120-year-old tree to make a new tub, and in 2004 it made five more from 100-year-old trees.

The buildings at Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) line up almost like a flow chart of that process. Rice was washed in the Former Preparation House, koji was tended in the Former Koji Room, the fermented mash was pressed in the Middle and South Storehouses, vinegar matures in cedar tubs in the North Storehouse, and the Former Bottling House took on a later stage. Rice for all of it was kept in the Rice Storehouse.

How the Compound Is Laid Out

The public face of Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) is the north street. Walking along it from the west you pass the North Storehouse, the Inner Storehouse, the gatehouse and the Former Miso Storehouse; only the North Storehouse turns its gable end to the road. Behind the gatehouse stands the Main House, and a middle gate screens its formal garden while leading visitors to the shikidai entrance.

The production buildings gather on the west side. The Middle and South Storehouses run south from the North Storehouse, and the three share a single continuous interior. Beyond them the Former Koji Room sits on a base of hexagonal cut-stone masonry. South of the Main House is the Former Bottling House, to its southeast the Former Preparation House, and further south, on the stone footing of an old property line, lies the long Rice Storehouse, which began life as a nagayamon gate building.

• Main House (early Taisho era; register no. 29-0340)
• Inner Storehouse and North Earthen Wall (1891; register no. 29-0341)
• Former Miso Storehouse (early Taisho era; register no. 29-0342)
• North Storehouse (mid-Meiji era; register no. 29-0343)
• Middle Storehouse (late Meiji era; register no. 29-0344)
• South Storehouse (early Taisho era; register no. 29-0345)
• Former Koji Room and Earthen Wall (early Taisho era; register no. 29-0346)
• Rice Storehouse (early Taisho era; register no. 29-0347)
• Former Bottling House (early Taisho era; register no. 29-0348)
• Former Preparation House (early Taisho era; register no. 29-0349)
• Gatehouse and Middle Gate (early Taisho era; register no. 29-0350)

Two different criteria apply. The Main House and the North Storehouse were listed as models of form, and the other nine for their contribution to the historic landscape. The company history also records a new fermentation building added in 1985; it is not among the eleven listed structures.

Visiting and Getting There

Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) is a working brewery and the Onishi family's home. The interior is not open to the public, and the owner's website carried no information on tours when checked on 17 September 2026. A March 2026 magazine profile said the company was planning brewery visits and other experiences, so it is worth asking the company directly through its contact page before you go.

What you can see from the street is the north frontage: the gable of the North Storehouse, the white plaster of the Inner Storehouse, the latticed window of the gatehouse and the charred-cedar skirting of the Former Miso Storehouse, one after another. The storehouses deeper inside are largely hidden behind them. There is no published rule on photography, but please keep your camera away from the gateway and from anyone at work.

The company names Shin-Nokuchi Station on the Kintetsu Kashihara Line as the nearest station. Mizuhosu (Onishi Family Residence) lies about 1.5 km east of it in a straight line; allow around 20 minutes on foot. No visitor parking is advertised. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the address as 267-1 Nakamachi and other lots, while the company uses 267 Nakamachi.