This sake combines Japanese and Navajo culture together

HOLBROOK, Ariz. (InvestigateTV) — Atsuo Sakurai and his wife, Heather, make award-winning sake at a shop just off Route 66 in Holbrook.

Sake is a traditional Japanese alcohol made from fermented rice. Its history spans thousands of years. Sakurai’s shop, Arizona Sake, makes the beverage in a 200-gallon vat.

Sakurai said people are often surprised to learn the sake comes from Holbrook, Arizona, on Route 66.

“Oh, yeah. Initially, nobody believed,” he said.

Sakurai is from Tokyo, about 6,000 miles from Holbrook. He worked in the sake industry there before moving to Arizona.

“Initially, I had a dream. Starting a business, establishing a business. Sake manufacturing somewhere in the world,” Sakurai said.

Heather Sakurai is from the Navajo Nation. The couple combine their cultures in the bottle. Sakurai said one of the sakes uses Navajo tea.

“Navajo tea, Navajo tea sake. This is Navajo tea itself, a plant,” he said.

At the shop, workers wash and heat rice in baskets and then put it in vats to ferment.

“When fermentation is done, we press the sake like mash,” Sakurai said.

The sake is squeezed out under pressure. Sakurai said it takes about three months to make one bottle from start to finish.

Sakurai’s sake has won competitions in Japan and around the globe. He makes traditional styles of sake. Some of his creations are sold only in Holbrook.

“The aroma is really beautiful. People describe it as pear or blueberry,” he said.

One taster said she could taste prickly pear in one of the sakes.

“Oh my God, I can really taste the prickly pear. This is about as Arizona as it gets,” the taster said.

Sakurai said the slow, hands-on process brings him peace in a world of AI and automation.

“That kind of business, industry, I want to save,” he said.

Technology threatens how some industries operate, much like the interstate did to some businesses along Route 66. Sakurai said he is confident the story he has written in Holbrook will endure.

Asked whether Arizona Sake will be around in 100 years, Sakurai said, “Hopefully.”