Sake is the liquid soul of Japan. It’s as much a part of the country’s civilization and culture as its folk customs or indigenous religion, Shintô. In fact, we’ve written before in these pages on multiple occasions about its close ties to Shintô, as well as certain Buddhist temples. Some cultural commentators have colorfully argued…
“Boom, boom, boom, boom!” he intoned as he gestured with animated hands to indicate bombs exploding. The old Japanese gentleman was recounting a childhood experience of seeing the firebombing of Fukuoka–one of many cities in Japan devastated by such raids during WWII. An even older gentleman, thin and frail in those last couple of years…
A friend who runs a bottle shop recently put a record player by his front window. Storefront windows are valuable spaces for any retailer. Especially in areas where they depend on foot traffic, storefront displays can attract customers. Think about what you see in the storefronts of most alcohol bottle shops. It’s usually new arrivals,…
Cheese and sake. For most people, it’s not as natural to say (or eat) as ‘wine and cheese’, but SakéOne aims to change that in a unique way. The Oregon-based sake brewery–one of the biggest and best of America’s two dozen or so sake breweries–announced this spring that it partnered with Jasper Hill Farm in…
Welcome to the 20th issue of Sake Today! With this issue we wrap up our fifth full year of publishing the best English-language sake-related content currently available. If you think sake has grown in popularity and accessibility these past few years, just wait to see what the near future holds. With sake getting more and…
Hitachino Nest is the world-renowned craft beer brand produced by Kiuchi Shuzo, a multi-generational brewery in Ibaraki that continues to brew premium sake–the beverage that it actually started with–along with other fine products like umeshu (plum wine) and, more recently, whisky. It’s restaurant in San Francisco, Hitachino Beer & Wagyu (featured in issue 15 of…
Travel in Japan, Food & Sake Culture. You may have noticed, but that’s what we changed our subtitle to as of the last issue. Prior to that, and since our first issue, we had been using “Celebrating the World of Sake Culture”. But what does that mean? We had an evolving picture of that world,…
The billowing sea of white stretching for miles proclaims a lush vitality in disjunction with the seemingly dusty landscape of the surrounding countryside. Eastward beyond this expanse of blooming almond trees rise the Sutter Buttes, a series of eroded volcanic lava domes jutting in isolation from the plains of the Sacramento Valley. And farther still,…
One of Japan’s best off-the-beaten-track travel destinations is Shimane, located on Japan’s quiet, rural West Coast. The prefecture also has amazing sake, as we reported in issue #17. Even earlier, in issue #2, we wrote in detail about its beautiful capital city, Matsue. This Sunday, the sake brewers guild of Shimane is hosting a special…
As sake asserts itself in markets around the world, there are more and more tasting contests that tally up evaluation scores and award medals. This spring, I participated as a judge in three within the span of a month. Each had hundreds and hundreds of entries. There were even more in which I did…