Gekkeikan Ōkura Sake Museum

This guide to the Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum in Kyoto follows the Okura family's sake business from a fire that swept Fushimi's brewing quarter in 1868, one of many hardships across two centuries of shrinking trade, failed harvests and fires. It centers on Tsunekichi Okura, the eleventh-generation head who in 1905 renamed the family brand Gekkeikan and grew the business roughly a hundredfold within a generation. Look for the old wooden barrels and paddles still on display in the bottling hall.