The water at Fushimi is neither hard nor soft. It carries a moderate amount of calcium and magnesium, which slows the fermentation down, and a slow fermentation gives a sake low in acid, smooth, and fine-grained rather than sharp.

The water at Nada, along the coast in Hyogo, is hard. The minerals feed the yeast, the fermentation runs fast, and the result is drier and more acidic. Nada has long been called the men's sake and Fushimi the women's, and what that distinction is actually describing is two different sets of dissolved minerals.

Brewing took hold here at the end of the sixteenth century, after Hideyoshi built a castle on the Momoyama hills and the place became a port, a post station and a castle town all at once. People arrived, and people wanted sake. By 1657 there were eighty-three brewing houses here. Of those eighty-three, two were still brewing by the end of the Edo period. The rest went under, one at a time, over two hundred years.

The spring in the grounds of the Gokonomiya shrine was the first entry on the environment ministry's register of notable waters. In October 2025 the name of the prefecture was registered as an origin for sake. Tottori and Fukuoka were registered on the same day, which suggests these things are decided in batches.