Juyondai was featured in dancyu magazine
June 25, 2025
Series: “The New Sake World Opened by Juyondai — The Work and Impact of 15th-Generation Tatsugoro Takagi”
Juyondai, crafted by 15th-generation Akinori Takagi (who took the name Tatsugorō in 2023), is famed for its refined taste. It is sold only through 53 authorized dealer nationwide. One of them—Izumiya in Kōriyama, Fukushima— is run by Hirotaka Satō, who has supported Takagi as a trusted partner since Juyondai’s 1994 debut. Following the previous article, we look at the friendship of these two men, born in the same year: a brewer and a dealer shop owner.
From a Lucky Meeting to an Irreplaceable “Lifetime Partner”
In 1994, the year Juyondai appeared, 25-year in-old Hirotaka Satō of Izumiya met the same-aged Takagi, and their business began. “We made only about 3,000 1.8-liter bottles that first year, and because the brand was unknown, selling them was tough. I’m full of thanks to Hirotaka and his father Ryūzō at Izumiya,” Takagi says.
“I was lucky that the first brewery I worked with was Takagi’s,” Satō recalls. “Most brewery owners are important local figures, so liquor shops find them hard to approach. Because my father once worked at a brewery, he saw the owner as a kind of lord—someone high above who granted us sake. Yet Takagi and I became friends the moment we met. It felt like cheering on the amazing sake made by a classmate I knew well.” Takagi started as brewery toji, Satō as a shop owner; they set off almost at the same time and walked forward side by side.
From the next winter on, Satō stayed over at Takagi Brewery every year. He helped with small tasks like washing rice, but his main job was joking around and keeping Takagi’s father—the former head brewer—company during his evening drinks. “I saw Takagi shut in the kura all day, totally focused on brewing, and I wanted to help him blow off steam. All I could do was stay close, but I hoped it would give him strength,” Satō says.
“Hirotaka was the best person to talk to,” Takagi says. “He’s cheerful and lively, yet thinks deeply and answers right away when I ask for advice. In the first year I was hospitalized from stress after brewing ended, but in the second year his visits made things much easier.” When brewing finished each spring, Takagi visited Izumiya and sometimes traveled with Satō’s parents. Since both men were single, they met often, spent time with each other’s families, and deepened their bond.
In the second year, 1995, they released Juyondai Honmaru, a honjōzō (now labeled special honjōzō). Because of its great cost performance it became a big hit. At that time, high-grade sake meant daiginjō priced over ¥3,000 for a 720 ml bottle, so selling Honmaru at under ¥2,000 for a 1.8 l bottle was called a price shock and inspired breweries nationwide to make fine yet affordable sake.
They named “Honmaru” together. The first year’s bottles had sold out fast, so Satō asked for “a sake we can sell all year.” That spring Takagi brought a honjōzō he wanted to price under ¥2,000 and asked, “What do you think?” “It had a faint ginjō aroma, high quality, and the Juyondai style. I thought, ‘This guy’s a genius!'” Satō says. He was amazed that even a casual line could taste so good.
They wanted a friendly name people could easily remember, so they brainstormed and chose “Honmaru,” which means the central keep of a castle and hints at honjōzō. Just as they planned, Honmaru became the staple that spread the Juyondai name far and wide.
In the third year they launched a series of junmai ginjō made with different rice varieties such as Yamada-nishiki, Omachi, Aiyama, and Hattan-nishiki. At that time it was rare for one brewery to use several kinds of rice, and the bright color-coded labels drew attention—another joint idea of the pair.
“I wanted people to enjoy the character of each rice the way wine lovers enjoy grape varieties, so I asked Hirotaka for ideas on how to sell it,” Takagi says. Understanding his aim, Satō suggested a “shipping calendar” that released a different sake each month—for example, the light Hattan-nishiki in hot August and the fuller Yamada-nishiki in October. “Hirotaka’s marketing skills are outstanding,” Takagi praises.
At Aoyama Gakuin University, Satō joined the Advertising Research Society. Since childhood he had felt shy about being “the liquor store’s son” and decided to devote himself to what he liked before taking over the shop. From grade school through college he was crazy about baseball, even winning the inter-college batting title. Realizing his life was nothing but baseball, he also threw himself into the ad club. The sense he polished there later bloomed in the liquor business, and as he moved up in school he began to dream of the ad industry.
Just then his father told him, “There’s a tasting with free food and sake.” Bourbon was popular, and Satō thought Budweiser was cool. “I had zero interest in sake, but I was broke, so the word ‘free’ drew me in. The sake was unbelievably good. I think daiginjō like Masumi ‘Yumedono’ and Shimeharitsuru ‘Kin-in’ were lined up. I got hooked on sake. Looking back, maybe Dad set me up,” he laughs. Ryūzō was quite the strategist—he knew how to steer his son.
During college, Satō lived in an apartment arranged by Mochizuki Shōten, a member of the “Miyakawa-kai” in which his father took part (explained in Part 5). For a part-time job, his father set him up at Suzuden, a liquor shop in Yotsuya introduced by their long-time partner brewery Dewazakura. The late owner, Motoaki Isono, was influential, serving as head of the National Kubota Association of liquor stores, and at the shop a member of the Dewazakura founding family, Mr. Nakano, was training.
“My dad was asking favors from a heavyweight in the industry, and all the doors were locked around me. If I refused, it would hurt my father’s standing, so I couldn’t say no,” Satō says. Though he took the job out of duty, the experiences and encounters at Suzuden pushed him headlong into the world of sake.
At Suzuden, staff could have one glass of any sake after work, so he drank a different one every day, learning the flavors. He wanted to ask Owner Isono, a master of local sake who seemed to glow, something meaningful but lacked knowledge. “I wanted to talk with the boss so badly that I read every book on sake, and whenever I saved enough, I went to izakayas with good sake and drank the cheaper bottles nonstop,” he recalls.
He graduated in March 1992 and joined Suzuden in April. After working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., he would buy a popular 1.8 l bottle, climb the Yotsuya embankment with a coworker, and drink it with bagged peanuts every night. When the coworker fell ill and quit, Satō kept emptying a bottle alone every night. “I tried to learn flavors not with my tongue but with my body. That experience is the base of who I am today.”Around that time, Takagi, while managing the sake section of a luxury supermarket in the Isetan group, often visited the admired Suzuden to learn, and thanks to friendly bar owners, tasted many sakes side by side. Although they had many links, they narrowly missed each other in Tokyo. Two years later they finally met through a coworker of Satō who was Takagi’s college classmate (this story appears in Part 5).
The two, who call each other “best friend and best business partner,” caused a chemical reaction through their fateful meeting, and together they made remarkable progress.
