Happy New Year!
I look forward to your continued support this year as well. Please don’t hesitate to offer both your candid criticism and, when the mood strikes, your words of encouragement.
Looking back, last year was filled with many milestones. In January, we announced that we changed the company name from Asahi Shuzo Co., Ltd. to Dassai Inc. In February, we held a fair at "The Stage" on the first floor of Isetan Shinjuku (one of the largest department stores in Japan), where we recorded extraordinary sales of over $1 million—an unprecedented figure for alcoholic beverages, surpassing even champagne.
During the summer, we struggled with soaring rice prices in Japan. We agreed to pay the farmers who grow our Yamada Nishiki rice 60% more for the following year, although we did not intend to raise our product price.
Then, on October 26, an H3 rocket carrying an ultra-mini sake brewing plant was launched toward the International Space Station, successfully reaching it at last—marking a major step toward brewing sake on the moon. This is classic Dassai, perhaps—we encountered a series of unexpected troubles. At one point, I even braced myself for having to issue a statement saying, “After spending 220 million yen ($1.4 million), we have invented a method that doesn’t work.” Fortunately, the fermentation process was completed safely, and the equipment, along with the sake, is currently frozen inside the space station.
Construction of our third sake brewery next to our existing Dassai sake brewery in Japan has also begun in earnest. While we are still in the process of excavating the mountainside, our anticipation continues to grow as we look ahead to its completion in 2028.
On a personal note, the publication in November of Hachi Korobi Yaoki: Dassai (“Fall Eight Times, Rise Eight: Dassai”) was deeply meaningful to me. (Just moments ago, I received news that it has won the Grand Prize in the Regional Category of the Gakudō of the Year awards.) To top it off, in November I also—happily?—became a “late-stage senior citizen”! That said, I remain as busy as ever with daily tasks right in front of me, and this old man has little awareness of his age.
Still, when I look back at 2025, I’m amazed that events which might happen once in a decade at an ordinary sake brewery seemed to happen one after another—or rather, that we made them happen.
This January, the space-brewed Dassai is scheduled to return to Earth. And I believe we’ll be able to share news of some truly extraordinary developments as well. I can’t reveal the details just yet, but please look forward to them.
Thank you again for your continued companionship and support this year.
I sincerely wish that 2026 will be a year of brilliant progress for each and every one of you.
