Narumi Brewery is a sake brewery in Kuroishi’s Nakamachi Komise Street that has been in business since 1806.

The brewery produces sake from Aomori rice and yeast, including the representative brands “Kikunoi” and “Inamuraya,” as well as mellow subterranean water derived from the melting snow in the southern Hakkouda region.

Visitors can taste the sake and drink the brewing water at Narumi Brewery. The limited-edition sake available here would make a good souvenir of Kuroishi.

In a recreated space that resembles a place where a watchman would sit, there is a vast five-dot abacus (usually four-dot), which was called a “wholesale abacus,” and a display of a toza-cho (a book of accounts), which makes visitors feel as if they have stepped back in time to the Edo period.

Visitors can also ask the store staff to show them the “Narumi Garden,” a nationally registered cultural property, from the tatami room in the back of the store. The garden was created in 1887 by Obata Teiju and Ikeda Teigetsu, the successors of the Oishi Bugaku school, which was popular from the late Edo period through the modern Meiji and Taisho periods. The Oishi Bugaku school is characterized by the fact that most gardens are designed to be viewed from the tatami room. The garden’s axis is set toward the back of the garden from the tatami room of the main building. The most important feature is a massive stone in the garden’s center called “raihei seki” (stone of worship). Stepping stones are placed in the space from the Kutsunugiishi, which is at the edge of the garden, to the Raiseiseiseki, the garden’s center. On either side of the Raiseki is a space for the Tsukubai and Nishinseki. Other representative gardens of the Oishi Bugaku style in Aomori Prefecture include the Hirosaki Castle Botanical Garden and Zuirakuen Garden in Hirosaki City, Seibien Garden in Hirakawa City, and the Miyakoshi family’s detached garden in Nakadomari Town.

Viewed from the porch, the garden’s quiet beauty varies with the season. Please stop by when you visit Komise-dori.