Rice, Water, Earth: Notes on Sake
These posts are the continuation of my thoughts and reporting on sake for the James Beard award-winning Exploring the World of Japanese Craft Sake, which I co-wrote with sake sommelier and Sake Samurai Michael Tremblay.
Sake and Supply Chains
Genki Ito is turning his attention to overcoming key barriers to growing the sake market: the power imbalance between large distributors and small breweries; the complexity of U.S. alcohol regulations; and the multi-layer supply chain that has resulted. These factors drive up prices for consumers, result in long lead times and suboptimal shipping and storage conditions. Sake that arrives in a compromised state, or that spends a year on an unrefrigerated shelf negatively colors consumers’ perception of sake as a category.
Kojima Sohonten: A Leading Yamagata Brewery Goes Carbon Neutral
Modern sake brewing requires large expenditures of electricity to keep fermenting mashes at constant low temperature, and increasingly, for end-to-end supply chain cold storage. How are sake breweries off-setting their energy use?
Chicago Field Trip: The Daimon Shuzo + Sushi-san Sister City Sake Collab
Not only are Chicago and Osaka sister cities, they share a hospitable, food- and drink-loving sociability. Now they have a sake in common, too, brewed by Daimon Shuzo.
My Kokoro Care Packages Sake and Snack Pairing Adventure
Some of you may know that I cannot consume large quantities of alcohol in one sitting (bad things have been known to happen). So it took me many months come up with the final 21 pairings. But I learned so much and had a lot of fun.
We Won a James Beard Book Award!
To be at the awards ceremony in Chicago on June 3 and hear our names called out as winners—it was out-of-body experience.
Uka Sake: Closing the Circle on a Trans-Pacific Rice-Growing Legacy
The Koda family made Kokuho Rose medium-grain rice, Sho-Chiku-Bai glutinous rice, and Blue Star mochiko rice flour staples in every Japanese American home, including mine.
The World’s First Ever Sake Advent Calendar
“I love being around sake people. Wine people always want to show off, and they have such strong opinions. I love the supportive nature of the sake community.”
Sake Entrepreneur Ryuji Ikoma’s Push to Elevate Sake’s Image and Price
Craft sake is a little like immigrant food in North America, pigeonholed into an affordable category that does not recognize its true worth.
“Cosy Koji”: Marika Groen and Melissa Mills on the Making of a Koji Community
“Koji has its own life, not so different from yours. They are born, grow up, learn to survive, and pass away in the blink of an eye.”
Sake and Sustainability: Sekiya and Kobe Shushinkan Breweries
Genki Ito: Building Tippsy, America’s Leading Online Sake Retailers
Tippsy has grown to a staff of more than 15, which operates out of a 5,000-square-foot warehouse space in Carson, south of Los Angeles.
Hachinohe Shuzo: The Winningest Sake Brewery of 2021
We wanted to include Hachinohe in our book because its sake is fantastic, and we like the Komai brothers’ use of all-local organic and natural rice, Aomori yeast, and their goal of restoration and preservation of the local Kanisawa ecosystem.
Kikuchi Brewery and the Kimura Method of Natural Rice Farming
Kimura’s method is “beyond organic,” using no chemical or organic fertilizers, no pesticides, and no compost. Instead plant life is nourished by harnessing beneficial soil microbes that work in concert with local insect, animal and bird life. Kimura believes that too often plants are overfed when everything they need to thrive exists in the natural environment.
Rule of Thirds puts Greenpoint, Brooklyn on the Sake Map
The name Rule of Thirds is both a nod to the space’s design-centric origins, and the “synergy and collaboration” that is at the core of the restaurant. “The most interesting things happen at the intersection of the grid lines.”
How Japanese Sake Breweries are Coping with the Covid-19 Pandemic
The double blow to craft breweries of losing domestic sales to big-city sake specialty bars and restaurants, along with the temporary collapse of the booming overseas market, has been devastating. Yet some markets, like the China export trade, are now bigger than before the pandemic.
World Sake Day 2021 Celebrations around the Globe
In New York, where there is such a concentration of sake expertise as well as great sakes available through retail, izakayas, bars and restaurants, the must-join event is The American Sake Association’s in-person celebration at the Brooklyn Kura Taproom.
Decibel: New York City's First, and Coolest, Sake Bar
When Decibel turned 21 in 2014, the staff decided it should celebrate its arrival at legal drinking age by throwing a party. During a week of celebratory events, they held open mic nights, during which guests told their favorite drinking stories before downing a shot of sake.
Keita Akaboshi: Pairing Sake with Japanese Convenience Store Sweets and Snacks
“There is no one correct pairing for a sake, each pairing is merely one proposal.”
—Keita Akaboshi, Tokyo sake sommelier
Arkansan Chris Isbell: America's Pioneering Premium Sake Rice Farmer, Part II
The early 1990s were the celebrity years for Isbell and his farm. He counted a total of 100 articles written about him and his Koshihikari rice in the Japanese press, which in turn brought Japanese tourists by the Greyhound bus load…. A film crew from Japanese broadcaster NHK embedded at the farm for a year to make a 90-minute documentary on him.
Islander Sake Brewery: Reviving a Hawai'ian Sake Brewing Tradition
“Just as for human beings, there is an optimal level of stress that one should put on the microbes involved in sake fermentation.”