I want to start by saying I was in the area for business and was looking for things to do, and for that, this place was great. This is very different from selecting a travel destination based on local attractions, which I'm not sure this place rises to the level of.
I got to the Sake Brewing Museum at opening, and started in the gift shop/tasting area. The free flowing water was interesting, almost creamy. There was a token machine next to the sake tasting where you could exchange coins for tokens used to redeem tastings. As I only had three 100 coins, this afforded me four tastings (100 - 1 token, 200 - 3 tokens; at higher prices, the exchange rate became progressively favorable). I'm not a conneusoir at all, but the three sakes and one gin (surprise!) I sampled were great!
Shout out to the ridiculously inexpensive (
🌟Jeff's Guide🌟
✅ Tasting of 12 types of sake at a very affordable price. ¥1000 yen for 18 tokens (15ml x 18 times = 270ml). Variety of aroma and spiciness of sake are available l. You could easily found the one you are fond of🍶
✅ You can enjoy free flowing drinkable water in the shop in between your each tasting of sake. Free cups are available next to the counter (larger than the paper cup for sake next to the sake machine).
✅ You can also bring your own container to collect the drinkable water (claimed to be flowed from the melt ice on the mountain) but each group of participants is limited to take at most 20L daily, though it seems to be a bit unrelated to the tourists🤷🏻♂️
✅ Museum available just next to the souvenir shop. Once I opened the door, a strong sake smell flushed into my 👃. Although most exhibited items are having introductions in Japanese, there is a multilingual video to introduce the history of the Otokoyama Company history and the procedures in making the sake. Spending around 15mins for the museum is enough.🍶
✅ Many amusement facilities for kids at the entrance and inside the souvenir shop so that parents can spend some time to make themselves enjoyable.🛝🧑🧑🧒🧒👦
✅ The soft serve (non-alcoholic) and the sake ice cream (alcoholic) are also worth their prices with very unique aroma that I could not explain in words🍦🍨
When my wife and I researched places of interest around Furano, we came across Asahikawa, a city located about 56 km (1 hour 5 mins drive by car) north of Furano. Otokoyama Sake Brewing Museum & Park in Asahikawa was a special interest as we enjoy sake.
From our hotel in Furano, the drive to Otokoyama Sake was scenic and enjoyable.
The museum showcases the history of Otokoyama and chronicling its historical brewing artifacts, brewing processes, collection of regional and international sake awards, etc. An audio-visual TV presentation is available in different languages, including English, and we found this very interesting. From the museum, visitors can view through glass panels into the sake production plant. Entry to the museum is free-of-charge.
In a separate building is the sake retail shop where sake tasting and soft-serve ice cream can also be enjoyed. As I was driving, I did not participate in the sake tasting. My wife did and she enjoyed the sake samples. There is a wide selection of sakes for sale at different price points. We purchased Otokoyama's top award-winning Naturally Pure Junmai Daiginjo, Yukimizuki Junmai Daiginjo, and Fukko Sake.
We observed an interesting activity by locals who brought large plastic containers to fill up with mineral water which was dispensed free-of-charge from taps. The mineral-rich water is drawn from underground wells for sake production, and the water sources are the very reasons for Otokoyama's location. Of course, we emptied our small drinking bottles and refilled them with the mineral water!
A great story, well executed.
The combination of the museum and windows onto the live production sections of the brewery is a great mix. My favourite item in the museum was the display showing the 22 woodblock process to create the image of ‘Selected six famous sake …’ which has the company brand on a sake cask in the background.
The production story includes the clarity of the local water (from the surrounding mountains’ aquifers). They need to keep the water flowing to stop the pipes freezing and bursting so the locals (and visitors) are encouraged to bring water containers and fill them up. I saw a few struggling under the weight of their containers heading back to their cars. The shop and cafe is now in a new building next door and has free tasting of three from the range (very sweet up to very dry.
The award-winning one cost 200 yen. I was the driver so could not try but took the reputation at face value and bought a 750ml bottle of their top brand (77,000 yen). Tried later back at our hotel - worth it!
Museum and the shop located in different buildings. Museum is free and self guided. You can exchange coins to sample different sake. There’s also spring water available for free if you want (many locals fill up bottles there). Toilet available and plenty of parking spaces.
