Kojima Sohonten

A Brewer to the Uesugi Lords Since 1597

Kojima Sohonten (小嶋総本店, also written Kojima Sōhonten) is a sake brewery in Honmachi 2-chome, Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, founded in 1597, whose shop and main house, five brewing storehouses and five other structures were entered on Japan's national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 6 March 2024. Twelve entries in all, they make up the working compound where the brewery still makes its Toko (東光) sake.

The company traces its start to Kojima Yazaemon, who opened a combined brewery and pawnshop here when Yonezawa was still held by the Gamo clan. Once the Uesugi made the town their castle seat at the start of the Edo period, the Kojima house became purveyor of sake to the domain. Company history holds that it was among the few brewers allowed to keep working in famine years, when bans on brewing kept rice for food.

In 1757 the head of the family was appointed a town elder and granted samurai-rank privileges, including a surname and the right to wear a sword. A record from 1791 puts the brewery's output at 490 koku, the largest of ten breweries in the neighbouring wards. The street outside, then called Higashimachi, lay on the route taken by the lord's procession to and from Edo.

The business became a joint-stock company in 1952. The word sohonten, roughly "head house," is said to acknowledge the many Yonezawa liquor dealers named Kojima who were relatives of this family. The brand name Toko, "eastern light," refers to the brewery's position east of Yonezawa Castle, where the sun rises. The head of the house has taken the name Yazaemon for generations, and the present brewer is the 24th.

Twelve Buildings, One Compound

The Council for Cultural Affairs recommended the listings on 24 November 2023, and the twelve entries carry consecutive registration numbers from 06-0210 to 06-0221: the Shop and Main House, the Storehouse, the Mikazuki Inari Shrine Main Hall, five numbered brewing storehouses, a workshop, a warehouse, a gate with its board fence, and a separate north board fence. Only the little shrine was registered as a model of form; the other eleven were registered for their contribution to the historic townscape.

The council's summary describes Kojima Sohonten as a brewery at the southeastern entrance to the old castle town. The main house stands at the northeast corner of the lot, facing the street. South of it, the five storehouses, the workshop and the warehouse used for brewing and shipping are laid out in three rows. West of the house are a document storehouse and the shrine to the household's guardian deity, while a gate and fence close the front garden on the east and another fence encloses the north garden.

The buildings span roughly a century. The oldest, No. 3 Storehouse, dates from the late Edo period. Nos. 1 and 4 and the Storehouse followed in the Meiji era, No. 2 in its final years. The main house, the gate and both fences went up in 1919, just after the Great Fire of Yonezawa, followed by the workshop and warehouse in the late Taisho years and No. 5 Storehouse in 1922. The shrine dates from 1929. Both it and the Storehouse were moved to their present positions in 1974.

Walk the row and the family resemblance is clear, along with the differences. Every storehouse is finished in white shikkui plaster, but Nos. 1 and 2 and the Storehouse add a skirt of red-tiled Namako-kabe. Inside, No. 3 and No. 1 carry their rafters on a traditional frame of paired beams propped at mid-span, while No. 4, No. 2, No. 5, the workshop and the warehouse use a Western king post truss. The council valued the group less for any single building than for the way they combine, with the gate and fences, into a piece of the old castle-town streetscape.

Reading the Compound From the Street

The buildings are seen from the public lanes that ring the lot. Start at the northeast corner, where the long frontage of the Shop and Main House faces the street beside the gate and fence that close its front garden. Around the corner to the north runs the board fence, 2.2 metres high, which dates from the same 1919 building campaign. Further west along the north lane, the Storehouse, the family's document store, turns its white wall and red-tiled skirt to the road.

Follow the eastern street south and the white storehouses line up one after another: No. 1 attached to the house, No. 2 across a narrow passage, and the warehouse at the southern end. Out on the road to the south, the windowed gable of No. 5 faces the traffic.

The workshop, Nos. 3 and 4 and the shrine sit inside the compound, and from the street only fragments of their roofs and walls show. Seeing them properly depends on the once-a-year open day described below.

Visiting and Getting There

The Honmachi site is a working brewery and the company's office, and neither the grounds nor the buildings are normally open. The brewery asks casual visitors who want a tour, a tasting or a bottle to go instead to its sake museum, Toko no Sakagura, a few minutes' walk away. The Honmachi office, open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., handles trade enquiries.

The brewing floor opens once a year during the 360° Yonezawa Open Factory, a city-wide event that throws open local workshops and factories. In 2026 the brewery ran free, 40-minute tours on 11 and 12 September, at 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., each limited to 10 people and booked in advance. Dates for later years appear in the company's news page.

Toko no Sakagura stands at 2-3-22 Omachi, on Yanagimachi Kamidori. Opened in 1984 in a storehouse that had brewed sake until the previous year, it is not one of the twelve registered buildings. Hours are 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; it closes from 31 December to 2 January and on Tuesdays from January through March. Admission is 350 yen for adults, 250 yen for junior high and high school students and 150 yen for elementary pupils, with 50 yen off each for groups of 20 or more. Audio guides come in Japanese, English and traditional Chinese.

Yonezawa Station, on the Yamagata Shinkansen, is about 6 minutes away by car. The city's circular bus also runs from the station: take the clockwise loop from Yonezawa Ekimae to Omachi Itchome, about 10 minutes, and the museum is a 1-minute walk from the stop. On foot from the station, allow about 25 minutes. Minami-Yonezawa Station on the Yonesaka Line is about 5 minutes by car. The museum has parking for 30 cars and 5 coaches, and Uesugi Shrine is roughly an 8-minute walk away.

Local reports in February 2024 said the company had begun floodlighting the shop and storehouses after dark, initially from sunset until 10:00 p.m. Check whether the lights are still on before planning an evening visit. Photographs are taken from the public road, without entering the grounds.