Sake and all that suffuses it is slowly seeping into mainstream media. The fact that there were three movies–all documentaries–about sake released over the past year is evidence of this. One of those is “Kampai! For the Love of Sake” (Japanese title: 乾杯！世界が愛する日本酒). It basically traces the “way of sake” or the path to sake taken by three individuals: myself, Philip Harper (the toji at Kinoshita Shuzo) and Kuji Kosuke (president of Nanbu Bijin brewery). Both brewers have been featured in Sake Today: Harper in issue four, Kuji in issue eight.
The film switches back and forth across the three of us, showing how we came to walk the path of sake in our lives. It also touches on the natural disasters that befell the Tohoku region in 2011 and how that affected the sake industry in that area. It opened in Japan in mid-July and in select theatres in the US in August.
“The Birth of Sake” came out last year as well. Replete with beautiful imagery, this movie focuses on one brewery in Ishikawa Prefecture and highlights the excruciating attention to detail that goes into the sake brewing process. Finally, there was Ikkon no Keifu (一献の系譜), or “The Pedigree of Sake.” While this movie is only in Japanese, it tells the story of some of the most famous toji in the history of the industry, all members of the Noto toji guild.
Media of this scale often drags its subjects into the spotlight, sometimes kicking and screaming. While it is usually a good thing (the spotlight, not the kicking and screaming) there are often some growing pains on display, and also some old wounds that get re-opened. In other words, we can see some areas where sake marketing and the dissemination of information–as well as basic sake culture–could be improved.
One related episode I recently experienced irks me in particular. At an advanced screening of Kampai at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, a young gentleman approached me and introduced himself. As in, really young. As in, “are you really old enough to drink” kind of young. I suppressed the urge to card him and instead politely listened.
He explained that the movie really inspired him to learn more about sake, but that he was encountering resistance from those whom he reached out to for instruction. His questions about sake were met with a lack of willingness to help and, even worse, with condescension.
“When I ask older people questions about sake,” he began, “I get dismissed. They say stuff like ‘You have no business trying to learn about sake at your age. You are far too young. Stick with your silly chu-hai stuff until you are older.’ What should I say to folks like that? Do you have any advice for me?”
Obviously, he was talking to a sympathetic listener. My vitriolic response aimed at his detractors is hardly suitable for the pages of Sake Today. To tone it down a bit, I suggested that he seek sake knowledge elsewhere, that one can learn all that is needed from any one of a hundred sources: books, shopkeepers, sake pubs and even the internet. There are plenty of reasonable people out there that are enthusiastic about sake and keen to educate people about it, especially young consumers in Japan. I told him that he was just imploring the wrong masters when it came to sake advice.
Ultimately, you don’t need a teacher, I told him. Ignore the haters and curmudgeons. Avoid the haughtiness. Just drink sake; enjoy it. That’s all we ask and all you need.
An important note in this context is that sake has so far avoided snobbishness for the most part. Perhaps because sake kind of tiptoed into our collective consciousness of connoisseur beverages, it did not bring with it any of the hierarchy of the supposed illuminati. Sake will do better by maintaining a casual and approachable nature. Let’s keep it that way!
John Gauntner
