WHAT'S NEW

04/04/2001
    We celebrated the completion of this year's batch of sake with a celebration of thanks at Ohnishi Shrine. Soon, around April 20th, all the brewery workers will return to their respective hometowns.

04/01/2001
03/20/2001
    We held an open house at Umenishiki brewery. The Japan Sake Brewers Association began this type of event in 1979, in order to encourage people to visit breweries and earn more about sake. March 20th is a national holiday, and the weather was clear and warm. 6,801 people came to participate, 5,356 adults and 1,445 children.

    When we first began holding this event at Umenishiki, we were hoping merely
    for people to come see our brewery and try our sake. Since 1998, however,
    we have been trying to encourage communication between our visitors and our
    local area, and have begun to sell local goods and products as well.
    Vendors rent space inside a warehouse, and sell many different items.


    When the event is over, we all clean up together, a difficult and time-consuming job for the brewery workers.


02/12/2001
02/06/2001
    The annual event called "naka iwai" was held this year on February 6th at 5 p.m. In the middle of the production of UMENISHIKI Daiginjyo, our most refined type of sake that's brewed at the end of the season, we gather together to encourage one another to keep working hard all the way until the end.
    This is also the time of year when the largest number of people are present in the brewery, so this event is the most lavish, with no expenses spared on food.

    At the same time, we also took the opportunity to thank the workers who have been with us for a long time. This year, we have three brewery employees celebrating their ten year anniversary, and one who has been here for twenty years. All together, the company president and 60 brewery workers gathered to celebrate together.


1/11/2001

    Here at UMENISHIKI, every year on January 11th we express our thanks for this year's sales, and pray for a good new year. Until 1991, UMENISHIKI was not officially a company but rather simply a family-run operation, in the hands of the Yamakawa family. Even then, however, we held this kind of event, but since becoming a company, the entire staff has come to gather together to celebrate.

    This year, 2001, on Thursday, January 11th, at eight o'clock in the morning, the company president, master brewer, and 60 brewery workers gathered to pray together.

    A scroll, depicting a crane and a pine tree (both symbols of good luck) hangs on the wall, in front of which various business items account ledgers, computers, etc.) are placed. On the shelf under these are calculators, safes, and on the shelf below this, barrels of sake, various traditional sake cups and vessels, and an offering of food.
    The food presented is the same each year: herring roe (for fertility),cooked black beans (for encouragement of hard work), and soup with soft rice cakes (for a long business life and success).
    To start the ceremony, the company president, master brewer, and head of staff line up, and bow twice, clap twice, and bow once again, as ritual dictates.

    Next, starting with the president and master brewer, everyone is poured a small amount of the year's sake, and toasts together. It is always a very simple ceremony, but as the first event of the year, it is refined and in keeping with tradition.


Before December/2000