The “Beau-Zone” Layer – Koshi no Kanbai “Tokusen”
From Niigata Prefecture.
Ginjo.
SMV: +7 Acidity: 1.2
For me as a fledgling sake retailer outside of Japan over 20 years ago there was no greater honor than selling the Koshi no Kanbai brand of sake. It was legendary and almost “untouchable” in Japan, and if a regular customer wanted a single bottle they had to write a post card to the brewery and request it be sent to their local liquor store. Two bottles? Forget it! It was so uber popular and so highly allocated that you simply could not get a bottle. Why? They really get credit for making competition-style sake for the masses. They were the first brewery to make a product that was typically limited to the national competition open to the public. How cool was that? The result? The public could hardly obtain a bottle.
And here I was a world away in San Francisco with lots of Koshi no Kanbai. (Well not a lot of certain categories, but I had a good deal of the Tokusen.) When Japanese tourists visited the store, and many did back in the day, their jaws dropped to the floor and I could hear the words “Oh Koshi no Kanbai” fall from their agape mouths. And you guessed it! They bought what I had to bring back to Japan! No Kidding. A very good portion of KNK left Japan by container ship and returned by air.
Over the years we have been in and out of KNK in our inventory. It is one of the breweries that must always be present at True Sake. Currently we feature two offerings including this Tokusen that used to be in the National Competition light green 500ml bottles with a yellow label but are now brown and purple. We cracked open a bottle for a team tasting the other day and I was brilliantly reminded about the balance of KNK sake, and of course that amazing “phantom finish” which is legendary! Enjoy this legend. We did!