Ice Queen Sake

Ice Queen Sake (氷の女王酒) is a small-scale sake maker located at the base of the Ice Queen mountains near Shingō on Yamatai.

A sake maker has operated in the same location since before Great Plague of YE 08, but exactly when it was founded is a mystery. Immediately following the plague, Kinoshita Fusako took ownership of the established facilities and resumed operations. After several years of brewing, she released her first sake under the “Ice Queen” label. This marked a turning point at which the operation began producing a profit, and she was able to hire employees to help her make the sake.

“From the purest waters of the Ice Queen mountain springs we create the finest sake.”

Ice Queen Sake is headquartered in the master sake maker's residence next to the sake making facilities at the base of the Ice Queen Mountains on Yamatai.

Ice Queen Sake's facilities are located at the base of the Ice Queen Mountains on Yamatai and include:

• A two-storey building where they make sake. Inside this building there are the following items crucial to the task of sake making:
  • a primitive, hand-built waterwheel-powered rice polishing machine,
  • a modern, but wood-burning rice steamer,
  • a cedar-lined room in which koji is propagated,
  • a stone press for squeezing the sake through cloth bags, and
  • a back door positioned directly across from a large entrance to a series of caves used as a simple form of temperature control for the fermentation and aging stages.
• A single-storey house for the master sake maker containing two bedrooms and very basic amenities. The one exception to the simplicity of this building is the living room that the front door opens into, which is lavishly furnished and used to entertain business guests who make the trek all the way out to the mountains. The living room has traditional paper walls to let sunlight pass through, but also intricately painted wood panels depicting nature scenes in the traditional Yamatai art style, using primarily gold leaf on black lacquer.
• A single-storey barracks-style sleeping house for the employees with a section devoted to cooking and eating communal meals together. Unless she is entertaining business guests, Kinoshita Fusako usually cooks and eats (and drinks) with her employees at the end of every day.

Due to its distance from the nearest populated area, the Ice Queen Sake facilities are built to be self-sufficient, including a small hydroelectric generator powered by the stream from which they also draw the water they use for sake. They have a single, white company car with 氷の女王酒 (ice queen sake) amateurishly stenciled on the door panels in black paint. A transport truck delivers food and ships away finished products weekly. The road leading out of the facilities is paved with locally-sourced stone slabs and its infrequent use results in grass growing between the stones.

The remote location is visited semi-regularly as part of a mountain tour package. For a surprisingly low fee, tourists are given a guided tour of the premises and even get the chance to see the action inside the crowded production building. This tour is usually guided by the most junior employee, whose only job is to keep the tourists out of the way of the production process. At the end of the tour, Kinoshita-san herself entertains the tourists with a small sample session in the living room of the master sake maker's residence, along with an assortment of fresh and pickled vegetables.

The company is a sole proprietorship owned and operated by Kinoshita Fusako, who has exclusive control over the business. Aside from Fusako, the rest of the company structure is entirely flat, with all employees reporting directly to Fusako and everyone being involved in the production of sake.

Ice Queen Sake sells a junmai yamataishu sake year-round with a simple label that reads “Ice Queen Sake.”

The price of this standard junmai yamataishu varies by the serving vessel:

• A 375 milliliter bottle sells for 30 KS
• A 500 milliliter bottle sells for 40 KS
• A 1.5 liter bottle sells for 110 KS
• A 36 liter cask sells for 2250 KS

With restaurants in mind, the following prices are available when buying in bulk:

• 8 units of 375 milliliter bottles in a case for 200 KS
• 6 units of 500 milliliter bottles in a case for 200 KS
• 4 units of 1.5 liter bottles in a case for 375 KS
• A palette stacked with 8 units of 36 liter casks for 17,000 KS

Additionally, Ice Queen Sake sells the following seasonal sake (see the wiki page on sake for details of how they are produced):

• Winter and Spring
  • Kizake
    • “Fresh” yamataishu. Wildly flavorful but has a short shelf-life.
• Rainy Season
  • Umeshu
    • Sweet plum liqueur.
• Summer
  • Ginjo junmai
    • Yamataishu made from extra-polished rice, giving it a more refined and refreshing taste.
• Autumn
  • Akiagari
    • Yamataishu pasteurized before and after aging. Somewhat more of a refined flavor than Hiyaoroshi.
  • Hiyaoroshi (also called Nama Zume)
    • Yamataishu pasteurized only before aging. Somewhat more wild of a flavor than Akiagari, and continues to develop as it is aged in the bottle.

The price of the seasonal sake varies by the serving vessel:

• A 375 milliliter bottle sells for 40 KS
• A 500 milliliter bottle sells for 50 KS
• A 1.5 liter bottle sells for 120 KS
• A 36 liter cask sells for 2500 KS

With restaurants in mind, the following prices are available when buying in bulk:

• 8 units of 375 milliliter bottles in a case for 240 KS
• 6 units of 500 milliliter bottles in a case for 240 KS
• 4 units of 1.5 liter bottles in a case for 400 KS
• A palette stacked with 8 units of 36 liter casks for 18,000 KS

Ice Queen Sake also occasionally produces experimental beverages, which have traditionally been extremely limited releases and never produced again. These are almost always sold exclusively to restaurants for undisclosed amounts.

Past experimental beverages include:

• Sweet Potato Sake
  • This followed effectively the same process as with regular yamataishu, but used sweet potatoes instead of rice. It yielded a sake with a much smoother, creamier mouthfeel than standard yamataishu.

In YE 43, Ice Queen Sake was visited by Motoyoshi-Ieyasu Taro, Mikael Harris, and Koyama who all received a tour of the facilities. In the same year, Egwene Tai also visited to conduct business.

Hyralt created this article and the Ice Queen Sake logo on 2021/01/18 09:59.

Sakagura castle by Andrew using Midjourney Bot.

Photography copyright: Simon Pratt (hyralt), 2015. Used with permission.

Approval thread: https://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum/threads/ice-queen-sake.66849/