Japan brewery aims to make world’s first space sake, sell it for US$640,000

A Japanese sake brewery will attempt to make the world’s first outer space sake, creating just one bottle and donating the 100 million yen (US$640,000) proceeds from its sale to domestic space development companies.

Asahi Shuzo Co. in Yamaguchi prefecture recently said it plans to ferment rice and other raw materials used in sake making on the International Space Station. It aims to send the ingredients into orbit in late 2025.

The idea is to create sake on the premise that there will be demand for alcohol if humans begin living on the Moon in the 2040s, according to Asahi Shuzo.

The brewery, known for its “Dassai” sake brand, was approached by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. in 2022 about making sake in space. It has been collaborating with Mitsubishi Heavy and the Aichi Centre for Industry and Science Technology since.

They have been working on manufacturing a brewing apparatus to send to the Kibo experiment module developed by Japan for the ISS.

The experiment will utilise the equipment on Kibo, recreating the gravity of the Moon’s surface, around one-sixth of that on Earth, with the brewery slated to monitor the fermentation process from Earth.