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Until the Kamakura period

The origin of sake is unclear; however, the method of fermenting rice into alcohol spread to Japan from China around 500BCE. The earliest reference to the use of alcohol in Japan is recorded in the Book of Wei in the Records of the Three Kingdoms. This 3rd-century Chinese text speaks of Japanese drinking and dancing.

Alcoholic beverages (酒, sake) are mentioned several times in the Kojiki, Japan's first written history, which was compiled in 712. Bamforth (2005) places the probable origin of true sake (which is made from rice, water, and Koji (麹, Aspergillus oryzae)) in the Nara period (710–794). The fermented food fungi traditionally used for making alcoholic beverages in China and Korea for a long time were fungi belonging to Rhizopus and Mucor, whereas in Japan, except in the early days, the fermented food fungus used for sake brewing was Aspergillus oryzae. Some scholars believe the Japanese domesticated the mutated, detoxified Aspergillus flavus to give rise to Aspergillus oryzae.

In the Heian period (794–1185), sake was used for religious ceremonies, court festivals, and drinking games. Sake production was a government monopoly for a long time, but in the 10th century, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines began to brew sake, and they became the main centers of production for the next 500 years.