Have you ever bought something because you liked the design of the bottle? Have you ever taken a favorite empty bottle and repurposed it for something else? When it comes to wine and liquor bottles, there's an endless variety of colors and shapes. But sake bottles, on the other hand, are conventional, with very few expressing the flavors and qualities of the sake inside. This is the story of Kokuryu's bottles.
In 2008, Kokuryu released new bottles in an original design. Here's what Naoto Mizuno, Kokuryu's eighth-generation owner, told the Fukui Shimbun newspaper that day. “Three years ago, we had the opportunity to serve our sake to the owner of the Hotel Ritz in Paris, France. His words stayed with me: ‘You should make bottles that look Japanese. Customers who drink your sake are, after all, enjoying Japan.'
“He meant that it's important that everything about a sake, including its taste, should give people a sense of Japan. That really made an impression on me. As one of the inheritors of the sake-making tradition, I realized I had to get back to basics. This year we've completely changed our 720-ml bottles to express the heart of Kokuryu. We want to make customers happy when they drink our sake. We want them to make our sake part of their lives. I hope they'll love our sake forever.”
These days, with sake culture spreading around the world, our new bottle design represents the quixotic phrase “tradition and novelty.” What's key here is whether or not the design is “ordinary,” in a positive sense. On the other hand, sake also adds flourish to special occasions. Both aspects are expressed in our new bottle, a perfect balance of tradition and novelty.
Kokuryu's labels carry the motifs of traditional local fabrics. Since the bottles don't have screw-on caps, the rim is smooth, giving them a graceful silhouette and ensuring an even pour. We think there have never been more beautiful bottles. They tell you at a glance that these sakes are from Kokuryu.
Embossed on the shoulder of every bottle is our corporate mark. It contains two forms. One is the Chinese character for ishi (石), as in Ishidaya (石田屋), the hereditary name of our company. You'll see it when you rotate the logo counterclockwise 45 degrees. The other is the symbolic sakabayashi, the round ball of cedar needles that breweries hang over their doors after the first sake of the year has been pressed. The image of the cedar ball has a small roof over it.
While Kokuryu's bottle design represents its philosophy, glass bottles are beautiful and fragile. This very fragility may be one of the reasons why you cherish your favorite bottle. One of our hopes is that people around the world will pick it up and feel kindly toward both the bottle and the premium sake it holds inside.
