Miho Imada has won international acclaim as a tôji, or master brewer of the traditional Japanese tipple

As a child, Miho Imada promised herself she would never perform “women’s work” to support her family’s sake brewery. She saw how her mother juggled looking after five children with cooking three meals a day for groups of visiting seasonal workers, and devoted what little time she had left to doing the accounts.

“I never saw my mother sleep, and she never seemed to catch a cold,” Imada said. “She was always working. I thought ‘there’s no way I’m going to do that.’”