T Brand + FX — Shogun Sponsored Content

FX set the bar high for T Brand, assigning us to create a campaign for its blockbuster new series, Shōgun, based on the 1975 novel by James Clavell. The show was ‘FX’s Game of Thrones bid.’

In a sprawling editorial hub, our team produced five “stories of the samurai class.” Each piece tied a staple of Japanese culture to the Sengoku samurai period, revealing how the age of the shogunate impacted what we experience today. I spoke with a world-renowned sake expert to inform a piece about the famous rice wine.

Reflections of Japan in Its National Drink

The legacy of sake stretches over two millenniums and bears the fingerprints of ancient monastics, government bureaucrats, samurai and serfs alike. Rice, water, yeast and the fundamental fungus, koji, are combined to yield sugar, then alcohol. Press, filter, pasteurize and age, and it is ready to drink. The brewing process harks back to Japan itself. Outsiders may think they understand sake’s refined exterior, but underneath lies myriad phases of transformation leading to the present.

During the Sengoku period, samurai raised glasses in moments of glory and diplomacy. They also tested resolve during drinking contests with rivals. In FX’s “Shōgun,” set in 1600, sake tugs on the hair-trigger tempers of many characters, producing both conflict and comic relief in an episode in which a drinking match ensues.

“It was basically the same as sake now — a rice wine — but much lower alcohol content, so they drank a lot,” says Frederik Cryns, a professor of Japanese history at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto.

OUTSIDERS MAY THINK THEY UNDERSTAND SAKE’S REFINED EXTERIOR, BUT UNDERNEATH LIES MYRIAD PHASES OF TRANSFORMATION LEADING TO THE PRESENT.

Long before the time of the shogun, however, sake was a ceremonial mainstay, brewed in Shinto and Buddhist temples. The monks also used it as a source of income. “Up until this period, the Buddhist temples were cultural and economic powerhouses — centers of education and sake production,” says the sake expert Nancy Matsumoto, a co-author of the James Beard Award-winning “Exploring the World of Japanese Craft Sake: Rice, Water, Earth.”

The feudal lords feared the influence of the monks and began to erode their leadership during the Sengoku period. Soon monks improved ancient sake methods to please these intimidating samurai leaders and maintain their livelihoods. “It was a time of power shifting,” Ms. Matsumoto says. “Lords became the big patrons of sake, which became more secularized.”

One innovation was rice polishing, which created a clear and more stable sake compared to the previous doburoku, a chewier, unfiltered version made from unpolished brown rice. Wartime turbulence had interrupted the collection of the sake tax, which at one point made up a third of national tax revenues. The premium sake led to an increase in demand, helping the central government in Kyoto.

The kagami biraki, or “mirror opening” ceremony, originated when the fourth shogun, Tokugawa Ietsuna, broke a sake cask on the eve of war in the 1600s. After the successful battle, it became an auspicious tradition. Many special occasions in Japan, including corporate mergers and weddings, are initiated by the ceremony, during which a wooden hammer is used to break open the lid of a colorful sake barrel. Visitors to the country can still see these barrels prominently displayed at Shinto shrines and on parade floats at the Kyoto Gion Festival, in July.

Though the Sengoku period rattled the foundations of Japan, the tumult also forced innovation and birthed rich traditions. Sake’s 2,000-year evolution and enduring symbolism in Japanese culture comes to life with kagami biraki in particular. As Ms. Matsumoto points out, “It’s a universal way to say, ‘We’re starting something new, we’re making a transition.’”