| OSAKA, Sep. 10 – A self-serve sake vending machine at an antenna shop for Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui Prefectures in Japan’s Hokuriku region, is attracting attention. The shop, Hokuriku+ (Hokuriku plus), is located in KITTE Osaka, a large-scale commercial complex that opened in July near the west exit of JR Osaka Station to attract the attention of consumers to the three prefectures in the northwestern part of the main island of Japan.
The self-serve sake dispensers make sake tasting a lot easier, costing only 300 yen per 40-milliliter cup. It is part of the campaign to increase the number of visitors to the area around the recently extended part of the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line (between Kanazawa Station in Ishikawa and Tsuruga Station in Fukui). The shop also intends to promote the sake vending machine to help rebuild sake breweries in the quake-hit Noto area. The machine was installed to invite more people to try sake brewed in the three famous sake-producing prefectures. You pay 300 yen to purchase a coin, insert it into the machine, and press a button to have 40 milliliters of sake dispensed into your cup. The sake station always has six bottles of local sake from each prefecture. It pours everything from big to small names, including nigiri-sake (a coarsely filtered, cloudy style sake) and fruity types. The selection will change from time to time to match the seasons. The shop has a bar counter made from Noto cedar, where you can enjoy local snacks such as heshiko (traditional pickled fish from Fukui Prefecture) while sipping your favorite sake. |
Local sake from Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui Prefectures are available for tasting in the Hokuriku+ pilot shop.