“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…
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…
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,…
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…
I often say that the sake brewing industry is idiosyncratic in a myriad ways. One primary example is that, unlike businesses in other Japanese industries, sake breweries have almost always been family businesses, handed down from father to son (and more recently, to daughters, too), from generation to generation. Many can trace their lineage back…
It’s inspiring to consider what the ancients knew. Their discoveries and canons of knowledge, developed without the benefit of modern digital technology, are astounding. True, their understanding of the world may not have been as ‘complete’ or as well-balanced as we believe ours is today, but sometimes particular advances they made were extraordinary. There are…
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…
Minneapolis. San Francisco. Austin. Denver. New York City. Boston. Seattle. Nashville. Portland (Oregon). Kittery. San Diego. What do all these places–and a few more in the US–have in common? They are all the home of a mini-sake brewery, run by local folks with a passion for sake. Add to that Canada (Toronto and Vancouver), New…
I love blind tasting. It truly excites me. Admittedly, I do not get that many opportunities in which a sake is placed before me and I am told absolutely nothing about it. When that does happen, though, it is a most enjoyable experience. Why? Because there are no wrong answers, and there is no assessment…
I have been buying sake from the same shop here in Kamakura for over twenty years now. Sure, I buy sake regularly at other places, too. I am always searching for enjoyable sake shopping options that offer selections other than those with which I am familiar. Still, there is this one shop in particular where…