To find that answer, let’s first turn our attention back to salt. The salt production in Takehara was indeed successful thanks to the extreme differences in the water levels between high and low tide, but there were also several natural factors that the town was blessed with, such as the fact that the region didn’t see much rain.
However, these conditions didn’t apply to the town of Takehara alone. Eventually, other areas in the Setouchi region would learn that salt making was a profitable business, and they would race to develop salt fields. As a result, salt production in the Setouchi region grew so large that they made up 80% of the salt-making businesses in Japan.
However, salt-production wasn’t the easy path to wealth that many thought would be. If makers ended up with too much product, that would result in an overall decrease in salt prices, which made it more difficult to see profits. In an attempt to find a solution to this problem, the various salt makers of the Setouchi region eventually came to an agreement that they would halt production during the winter.
Now that they weren’t making salt, the workers needed something to keep their hands busy during the winter. It was during this downtime in the winter that the Hama-dannas decided on their latest endeavor: sake brewing. In the summer, they would make salt, and in the winter, they would brew sake. This cycle that followed the seasons would bring a new level of prosperity to Takehara.
The Taketsuru family also took part in this, making salt as their main business while brewing sake in the winter. One day, the family found a crane’s nest in the bamboo thicket behind their home. It is said that the family thought it to be a sign of good fortune, so they changed their name to “bamboo cranes,” or “Taketsuru.” Since then, the Taketsuru family has continued to brew sake for nearly 300 years.
It may have been an inevitable result of fate that Taketsuru Masataka, the founder of Nikka Whisky and figure whose life became the basis for the Japanese television drama “Massan,” was born into the Taketsuru family.
