“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,…
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,…
Sendai, Miyagi is a party town. Its ample bars and boisterous streets at least give that immediate impression to visitors with a thirst for adventure and good sake. Even its residents would agree that eating and drinking in communal, celebratory fashion is not an unpopular pastime. This is a common characteristic of “gateway” cities and…
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,…
The American jazz musician Frank Zappa famously (and hilariously) said, “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” Japan actually has several beer giants that allow…
Kumamoto’s pastoral charm can tug at you like the shiranui, or “unknown lights” that for centuries locals witnessed floating alluringly off the seacoast of the prefecture on rare nights. According to one medieval literary source, people gathered in the hills when conditions were right, gazing at the ephemeral flames dancing on the water in the…
Imagine for a moment running a family-owned business founded in 1550. What would you feel? Excitement? Honor? Nervousness? Now consider that this business suddenly has to operate in a global market–the alcohol beverage industry–and that this space is fiercely competitive. What then? Pressure? “No, no pressure at all,” says Shintarô Konishi, 15th-generation president of Konishi…
Mount Haguro is a holy place of such atmospheric dimensions with its towering, 600-year-old cryptomeria that one might imagine–or just as easily believe–the spirits of the mountain are quietly watching all who pass through their wooded realm. There are plenty of believers on the 2466 stone steps leading to the top. Some are travelers who…