Amazake
甘酒
Naturally sweet rice-koji ferment with roots in the Nara chronicles — a non-alcoholic, no-sugar drink Edo peddlers sold as a summer energy tonic.
By Japanese Cookbook Kitchen · July 6, 2026
飲- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 0 min
- Serves
- 4
- Level
- Beginner
Amazake is one of the oldest drinks in the Japanese record. A sweet fermented rice drink called amanotamuzake turns up in the Nihon Shoki, the eighth-century chronicle compiled in the Nara era — which makes this, in some form, over a thousand years old. What the ancients drank may not have matched the modern cup exactly, so it is fairest to call the Nara chronicle its documented root rather than an unbroken recipe. In the snow country of Tōhoku, where rice and koji fermentation underpin so much of the larder — miso, sake, pickles — amazake belongs to the same craft: coaxing sweetness and nourishment out of rice through nothing but a mold and patient warmth.
The version worth making at home is the koji method, and it is quietly remarkable: no sugar, no alcohol, no yeast. You hold cooked rice, rice koji and warm water at around 55 to 60 degrees for several hours, and the enzymes in the koji convert the rice's own starch into sugar. That's the whole trick, and the whole risk — stray too hot and you kill the enzymes, too cool and nothing sweetens. Get it right and you have a thick, milky, genuinely sweet drink. The Edo love for it was seasonal in a way that surprises people: peddlers sold it cold in summer as an energy tonic, and haiku poets still file "amazake" under summer. Serve it hot in winter, iced with ginger in the heat, and you're drinking on both sides of a very old habit.
Koji works in a narrow window — hold it around 55–60°C for the whole eight hours. Too cool and it won't sweeten; over about 65°C and you kill the enzymes that do all the work.
板前の一言 · A word from the kitchen
Ingredients材料
Serves 4
- 200 gcooked short-grain rice — day-old rice is fine; warm it before mixing so you start near fermentation temperature
- 200 gdried rice koji (kome-koji) — the fermentation is impossible without it; buy dried koji at a Japanese grocer or online
- 400 mlwarm water — around 60°C; hotter than a comfortable bath but not scalding
- 1 pinchsalt, to finish — a tiny amount at the end sharpens the sweetness — it doesn't make it savory
- grated ginger, to serve (optional)
Method作り方
Step 1: Loosen the koji
Break the dried koji apart with your fingers so no lumps remain. Clumped koji ferments unevenly and leaves you with a grainy, weakly sweet result.
Step 2: Mix to the right warmth
Combine warm rice, koji and 60°C water in a pot or rice cooker. Check with a thermometer: you want the mixture sitting at 55–60°C. This temperature is the entire technique — it's where the koji enzymes convert rice starch to sugar.
Step 3: Hold warm for eight hours
Keep it in that window for six to eight hours — a rice cooker on "keep warm" with the lid cracked, a yogurt maker, or a low oven all work. Stir once or twice. It will taste distinctly, naturally sweet when it's ready, with no sugar added.
Step 4: Blend, season, serve
Blend smooth if you like it silky, or leave it rustic. Add a pinch of salt to sharpen the sweetness. Drink it warm in winter, or chilled over ice in summer with a little grated ginger — the Edo way.
道具 · The tools
Equipment
Rice cooker
炊飯器Consistent short-grain rice with zero attention — the one appliance nearly every page here leans on.
Shop on Amazon →Grater (oroshigane)
おろし金Fine, wet grating for ginger, daikon oroshi, and fresh wasabi — a Western microplane is close.
Shop on Amazon →
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Questions from the kitchen
Is this the alcoholic kind?
No. This is the koji method, which is entirely non-alcoholic — the sweetness comes from enzymes breaking rice starch into sugar, not from yeast making alcohol. There is a second, older style made from sake lees (sake-kasu) that does contain some alcohol; this recipe is not that one.
How far back does amazake go?
A sweet fermented rice drink appears in the Nihon Shoki, the eighth-century Nara-era chronicle, under the name amanotamuzake — so the lineage is genuinely ancient. Whether that early drink was identical to modern koji amazake is uncertain, so treat the Nara reference as its documented root rather than proof of an unbroken recipe.
Why is it called a summer drink if it's served hot at shrines?
Both are true. Today amazake is associated with cold-weather shrine visits and New Year, but in the Edo period it was famously a summer tonic — sold chilled by street peddlers as a cheap hit of energy in the heat, valued for its sugars and B vitamins. "Amazake" is even a summer season word in classical haiku.
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