Back to School: The Sake Studies Center at Brooklyn Kura

Hello everybody. And welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America's first sake podcast, and I am one of your hosts. My name is John Puma. I'm from the Sake Notes. I'm also from the internet Sake Discord and Reddit's R/ Sake community.

And I'm your host, Timothy Sullivan. I'm a Sake Samurai. I'm a sake educator, as well as the founder of the Urban Sake website. And every week, John and I will be here tasting and chatting about all things sake, and doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand.

Hello there, Tim. How are you today?

John, how's it going?

It's going well, it's going pretty well. Um, I have a confession to make. I

love true confessions.

I have yet to begin my sake revolution resolution for this year, 20 and 24. I know we talked, I talked a good game,

sure did.

but I haven't done anything about it yet.

Well, remind our listeners at home what your resolution was for this year.

my resolution was to get some formal sake education. most of my education, I am self taught, I guess you'd say. And you know, I've done it by reading books, by tasting things, by going places, by doing things. I haven't had the thing where you sit down and actually learn the thing. And I find that in a lot of places in your life, you do learn a lot from hands on. experience. But you do have holes in your wisdom when you don't get proper education.

Well, you know, I know a guy

You don't, do you? I thought you might. After all, what do you, what do we say here? Uh, you're a sake educator, sake samurai and a sake educator? Yes, and the founder of the Urban Sake website. Do you do, is it, do you have any other, anything else that you, um, that you run or

well, I'm going to need to update our intro because, uh, yeah, there's some, uh, shameless self promotion about to happen. but I've been working on a big project since last November. I've mentioned it here and there on the podcast, but I thought today we might devote some time to talking about Something I've been working on for the past few months, which is the Sake Studies Center at Brooklyn Kura.

Alright, so is this going to be like one of those things where you go to the timeshare and they sit you down and you're going to try and sell me on it?

Sit through my presentation and you'll get a,

this is actually, something I think is interesting and I I have been to the space where the sake study center is, but I have not been present during a sake study center event. So, um, this is kind of nice to be able to Chat about it and, uh, you know, get a little knowledge, get a little information about this. and then, uh, I think also, Tim, we're, we're going to be tasting some sake as well, right? Um, where, where is this sake going to be coming from?

yeah, well, I brought in a Brooklyn Kura sake for us to taste today. I thought it was only appropriate

I thought so too. the best thing about this brooklyn Kura has a subscription service called Kura Kin and I have been a member since day one I think they I want to say they launched this in 2020. And so the ability to have sake delivered to your home was Suddenly, very, very appealing, because you really couldn't go out too much. And so once a month they ship a certain, uh, usually two bottles to your home.

I want to mention that we did an episode last year called Back to School, where we talked about all the education offerings that were available in the States. And that was before the Sake Studies Center opened. So I think it's good for us to revisit. That's one of our most popular episodes, by the way, based on downloads. So I think there's a demand out there for education. And I think it's appropriate that we kind of refresh that and talk about.

Okay. Because yeah, I, I think people should understand that learning about sake is, is like a two-way thing. It's, it's beneficial for people who are tasting sake to, to learn about it, um, and to learn about tasting sake and that experience, kinda like people going to wine tasting classes all the time. Uh, and then you've got the other side of it where you're kind of. learning how to introduce people to sake. Is that, is that the idea basically?

Absolutely. We've got an intro to sake course, which is our foundational course. We offer that most often, and that's, you know, a 90 minute class where we do all the sake basics. We taste four sakes, we have a few little bites for food pairing, and then we do a brewery tour. So it's a crash course on the basics. I call it everything you need to be dangerous with a sake menu. And, you know,

I like that. That's pretty good.

Yeah, we just want to give people enough confidence to know the different classifications and understand what the ingredients are, have walked through a brewery, tasted a variety of styles, and they can take that knowledge. And then when they're in a restaurant next time, staring at a sake menu, or they're in the liquor store looking at the shelf with all the sakes on it, they'll know some of those terms and they'll be able to make a more informed decision when they buy sake next time.

So let's say, you know, you've, you've done your 101 class and you're, excited, you're, you're interested. What, what's, what's next? Not

but one of our, do you know where I'm going with this?

yet. I'm very curious. Mm

One of our most popular food pairing classes is our sake and cheese

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's definitely not for me.

You and I've been talking about a sake and cheese episode for Sake Revolution for a long time, which hasn't happened

No, I am a major hurdle to making that happen.

for those scratching their heads, John Puma is a cheese. Hater? Is that fair to say?

Hater means, hater sounds like I've got some kind of vendetta or I have something against cheese. I don't have anything against cheese personally. I just don't enjoy eating it. Or smelling it or

Or looking at

at it really. It's I just, all right, fine. I don't like cheese.

Okay. Well, even though this class isn't for you in particular, it's been very popular at the Sake Study Center. We take five sakes and we pair them with five different types of cheese. And one thing I want to make clear is that We introduce other sakes, not just Brooklyn Kura sake. So Brooklyn Kura is always in the mix in these classes, but we have a lot of sakes brought in from Japan, and you can taste a variety of sake.

I'll take your word for it.

Yeah, you'll have to, you'll have to take my word for that one. I will say that when I was cleaning up the classroom last time, I picked up a napkin and there was, Five crumpled packets of lactate under there. So someone attending the class was chomping down on lactate between every bite of cheese.

I mean, let me tell you that if I were to take that class, I would need to do that. That's for sure. I cannot, uh, cannot handle the lactose. Unfortunately.

let's move on from sake and cheese. How about sake and desserts? How does that

That sounds like fun. I like dessert. I like sake. So yeah. Uh, let's, let's talk a little bit about that.

remember Eat Your Sake? Do you remember that episode we did?

Yeah, of course. That was, uh, that was fun. We got to, uh, have some ice cream, which by the way, uh, for anybody concerned at home, interestingly enough, ice cream doesn't bother me in the least.

okay,

I don't, I don't make the rules. I don't know why it happens that way, but you know, this is the way it is

well, that's, that's very fortunate. I would feel sad for you if you were denied cheese and ice cream, so what we did in the Eat Your Sake episode was we actually took an eight year aged Kijoshu and we poured it over the ice cream as a sauce, as a topping. And that is one of the courses of the sake and desserts class that we do at the study center. Did you enjoy that pairing?

Uh, I sure did. Uh, it, it sounds to me like you guys just have a lot of fun,

Yes,

That's pretty cool. the question I have for, and this is a little self-serving, um, what I, with John Puma for my resolution, am I taking the 1 0 1 class or do I need to scoot into like one of the, um, one of the more business oriented classes? Mm

I think that your resolution was focused on getting a certificate. And currently at the study center, we only offer certificates for the full day professional class.

Mm, you gotta earn it. That's how it is.

You got to earn it. You got to put in the

Gotta put in the time. If you, uh, if you, if, yes, exactly. You have to put in the time. So, yeah, that's interesting. You know, that may, may be a thing we have to look into. How's it gonna go? Full day, huh?

Yeah. I can tell you about that course. It's the called the sake server certification.

Sake server certification. And I guess I will be learning how to serve sake. Mm

Yes. It's designed specifically for people who work in restaurants or for people who sell sake in a retail store. So this is kind of an underserved community. I think in a lot of the educational programs that are out there, we focus a one day course specifically on training people. in the sake basics, um, sake communication and sales techniques for introducing and selling sake. And then we do a whole module on serving, pouring, etiquette and stuff like that.

that sounds lovely. That does sound like something I would benefit from. You've seen me pour sake, Tim. It's ugly.

No comment.

You made some snide remarks at Thanksgiving dinner when I was pouring you

I did? What did I say?

Nothing overt, nothing too mean, but you gave me a little bit of a, you can approve on this, kind of

Did I, did I give you the samurai side eye?

Uh, maybe a touch, just a little bit. And I was like, Oh man, I gotta, I gotta up my game. Yeah.

Well, uh, there is an exam for that, John.

Oh, I think that what I'm envisioning involves an exam. So this is

Yeah. Yeah. So when you, when you take the sake server certification, you come to Brooklyn Kura. We also offer it online for people who are not in the New York City area. It's, I think it's better to come in person if you're nearby or if you're going to be in New York because you can do the brewery tour live and in person. Whereas the online version, I walk around with my iPhone and I show you the brewery, but it's just not the same as being there in

I would, I would agree with you on that one. I think that, uh, you know, TV is never as good as being in that person.

Yeah. But, uh, when you, when you complete the course, whether you've taken it online or in person, uh, at the end of the course, I send you a link and you have two weeks to do an online quiz, an online exam. It's one hour, it's 100 questions and you have to get, it's multiple choice and you have to get 75 percent correct to pass. And then you get a certificate in the mail.

Okay. cool. maybe I need to look into that.

Yeah.

Good relevant question. What's this all cost?

Oh, yeah. So the, the intro to sake, of course, is the least expensive and that is around 75. And then the cheese pairing course, the desserts course, those are 99. And then the sake server certification is currently 150.

Okay. That's all sounds reasonable. I imagine you'll be sipping a bunch of sake as well That's that's part of you know

yeah, there's, uh, sake and nibbles with every course and every course we offer, every single one includes a brewery tour,

Okay Mm

an add on, value add on. You can walk through the brewery, you can see the sites, Smell the smells. and, you

Are these tours ever done, uh, during brewing or is it, uh, generally they clear out first?

Brewing is usually concentrated in the morning time, like 9, 10, 11. So sometimes for the sake server certification, we can catch the brewers in action.

Nice.

The consumer courses are either, they're usually, like an evening on a Wednesday or a Friday, or we have them on the afternoon on a Saturday or Sunday.

Well, that makes sense.

Great thing is that even if you don't see the brewers in action at that moment, there's the, I'm not joking about smelling the smells, like when you go into the pressing room and there's the giant yabuta, they're pressing now in there and It could be running overnight and you're going to smell this intense fruity aroma coming off the press. And it's really intoxicating and beautiful and just makes you fall in love with sake all over again. So it's a true experiential, tour.

Hey, that is, that is accurate. That's what you're doing. Sake is definitely made on site and you're learning.

Yes, you're learning. I just think that having the sake school the site of a working sake brewery is unique in a our country. It's the only school that is located at a sake brewery. So we can give you the in depth education and you can tour the brewery and taste all the steps along the way through the production process. So that's, that's super unique. And that's what gets me really excited.

That's pretty cool and for you this must be particularly exciting because you've been You know into sake education for a very long time Tim And you've got your own place now, you know, you're going to kind of run these these events Design them if you're even if you are you generally teaching most of the classes or even all of them.

Right now I'm teaching all the classes. We've only been up and running since November of 2023, but our goal is to have. A number of teachers teaching classes, and we're creating our own curriculum, but it's important for me to mention here as well that we invite other educators to come to our classroom and teach as well. So one example is we have Michael Tremblay, who's been on our podcast before, and he teaches this sake scholar certification.

Excellent. That sounds pretty cool. just to let everybody know at home, uh, you may, you may think that if you are in the New York area, you may consider, Industry City where. This is located to be, it's a bit of a trip, but, and I say this without exaggeration, I feel like every day there's more stuff to do around there, in industry city. you know, there's plenty of shopping, there's amazing restaurants, there are small distilleries in the, in the area too.

That's such a great point, John. Industry City, where Brooklyn Kura is located, is a destination in and of itself. So when people, when people come in to do like the sake server training and they're there all day, they get a one hour lunch break and they can go to Japan Village. They can go to the food court. And there's all types of things to explore for lunch. And then when class is over, there's distilleries, there's beer breweries, uh, there's a tap room at Brooklyn Kura.

awesome. So, maybe it's time we, we cracked open this sake and talked a little bit about this latest offering from, Kura Kin.

Yes. So Kura Kin, again, as you said before, is the. Subscription service. John, do you get it monthly or every two months? How often do you get it

monthly. Um, I, I, like I said before, I really like getting the, special bottles like, like this, for example, and seeing like what they're up to. I think that's a lot of fun. it feels like we're shilling a little bit here, but I really do authentically, like this service. I, I, I wish there were more, craft breweries that were doing something like this, uh, hint, hint, hint.

Yeah. Kura Kin is amazing. And one of the things that is really special about it, as you mentioned, is that you get these limited release bottles, which is what we're going to taste today. It's not available. If you go to your local liquor Kura, these are limited edition bottles that you can get in the tap room. If you visit the tap room in person, or if you Sign up for the subscription service. All right. So John, why don't you introduce us to the delicious sake we're about to taste?

Sure. Uh, so this one is a, uh, Nama Chozo Junmai Ginjo. Most of the additional bottles that come through are nama Chozo or have been historically.

Do you want to remind us what namachozo?

Namachozo means that it has been pasteurized, but once,

Correct.

the sake is all Yamada Nishiki, and it's milled down to 60%, uh, the ABV is 16%. The sake meter value, that measure of dry to sweet, is minus 5. 7, so it's a touch on the sweet side. But, the acidity is 2. 6, Tim. You know what that means. Balance. Balance. At least that's what I'm hoping for. I've actually never tasted this one. I haven't opened it yet. Um, and for the record, I have bottle number 182. These are numbered. What's yours? Ooh, okay, not too far. They're

What's, what's this, uh, what's this special edition called?

Oh yeah, I never, I never mentioned that. Oh it is called Brooklyn Kura near and far Now the name Tim I think I believe the name is is a is a pun about the transition between their original brewery and their new facility now was this made at the new facility or the old facility? Would you happen to know that?

I do know that for sure. This Sake was made at the old facility, so the small batch facility, and we moved from 68 34th street down to 34 34th street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. So near and far, we felt like during the transition, we would go back and forth. And, uh, so that's where the name near and far comes from for this limited edition Junmai Ginjo.

excellent. Excellent. All right. Well, let's crack it open and get it in the glass. You can see what one of the last batches to come out of that brewery is gonna taste like. At Sake Revolution, we generally encourage people to make use of the wine glasses they have at home, because you probably already have wine glasses at home. So, They're real easy to sip out of. They capture the aroma of sake exceptionally well. Um, and again, you've already got them. All right, Tim, let's get the nose going.

Well, I have a little note here from Brooklyn Kura that says this has notes of golden apple and hints of melon.

All right.

I think I picked up more on the apple aromatics than melon per se.

I definitely don't pick up on the melon too much. So yes, I'm

Yeah.

you. It's got a really pleasant

Hmm.

It would have taken a while for me to arrive at Golden Apple, though. Hmm. I like that. It's kind of, it's almost a little, like the nose is almost a little jammy. Just a ton, you know, not like, I know that when we talk about jammies, like woohoo, but you know, this is a very light one. Light

Yeah.

a little bit.

Yeah, I pick up on notes of strawberry, and this is going to be very random, but you know when you are trimming strawberries, and you cut off all the green bits on the top, and you pile them up in a little bowl?

them off?

off the green bits on the top of

I just, I just, bite them off. I just bite. Right? But no, it's actually not true. I just, um, I pluck them off and I eat everything, including the stem, but I pluck off the green bits.

Okay, let's go. Envision this, jP.

I know, I know, I know, people who do it that way. I married to somebody who does it that way. Okay.

and I need to prepare the strawberry. So I'm cutting off the green bits and I've got a bowl of those green stems. Okay.

Got it.

to your nose and and smell the strawberry leaves and stems, it kind of smells like

Okay. All right. I'm with you.

So there's a little bit of fruitiness, but I think the golden apple and. Strawberry

the strawberry is really front of mind now for me. I'm going to be really disappointed if this doesn't taste like strawberries.

Let's give it a taste.

All right, let's, let's see what it actually does taste like.

Okay, so your note about jamminess comes across more in the mouth, right? it

It's nice. Um, this is fun. This is a fun sake.

does have an apple crisp taste to it.

I will say that it's a little warm in my apartment and we do turn off the air for these recordings. And so this has been sitting for a little bit as we've been recording. And I think it's approaching room tempi. And I think that's making the jamminess come out a little bit more. And I like it. I think it's doing it favors. It's really nice. we've, we've talked a little bit about how, you know, you don't have to really warm up a sake necessarily. You can just, you know, give it a few degrees.

Yeah, mine is relatively well chilled, so I, I think it, it tastes great at that temperature as well. And the more this is resting on my palate, I'm getting, we talked about golden apple, but also green apple, like that is finally solidifying in my mind. It's like, ah, it's like green apple, Granny Smith, apple flavors. That's coming through really,

Granny Smith. Mmm. That's some good stuff.

Yeah, it's it, but it does have a little bit of a jammy texture to it, meaning that it's not bone dry. It's got a hint of richness. This is only once pasteurized and it's all Yamada Nishiki. So that can help bring out those fruit flavors because it supplies a lot of starch to the, to the moromi mash. So, uh, yeah, really well crafted. I think this is a tinge sweeter than most their standard sakes.

so I will say that I only know of a couple of other sake's where Brooklyn Kura has done a full, full Yamada Nishiki, and I think that usually when they do, it comes out pretty dry, and I like that they went the other direction with this one, and let it get a little sweet, and tried something different.

Yeah, so this is, an example of the type of sake you would be able to enjoy at the Sake Studies Center. If we have limited releases like this I often fold them into the sakes that we taste in class. So we try to keep things interesting and unique and really focus on the pairings or make sure that the sakes we taste are very relevant to the topic or what we're trying to get across in the class.

mmm, nice. All right. So, Tim, we've, uh, we've talked about education. We've sipped some delicious sake. where can, uh, people who are curious about taking one of these courses or perhaps tasting some of the sake, where can they do that?

the website is, uh, Sake studies center.com.

hmm. Mm

we also have an Instagram at sake studies center. And you can also visit the Brooklyn Kura website and connect through. Uh, but if you want to visit us directly, sake studies center.com, and there's a courses page and we have a full list of all the courses we're offering. we have the sake and. Cheese course, the introduction to sake. We have the sake server course, coming up soon. We also have, uh, sake and desserts.

Ooh, that's going to be interesting.

Yeah, it's a survey of five different types of sparkling sake and a little pairing to go with each one. So I think in the summer when it gets a little warmer, some ice cold sparkling sake would be really good.

That sounds like a good time.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well, I welcome every one of our sake revolution listeners to check out the Sake Study Center. Thanks for indulging me today with a little bit of self promotion. And I'm so, so happy

I like that you're, I like that you're being straightforward about it. Like,

yeah, yes,

self promotion,

it is. But I think, you know, I think honestly, our listeners would probably be interested in what's happening at the Sake Study Center.

right?

from the Sake Revolution audience comes to the Study Center. Please let us know when you sign up. There's a little form when you sign up and you can put a message in there. Let us know if you're a Sake Revolution listener because we'd love to connect with you when you come into class.

Oh, so if I do it, I have to say, yes, I am a listener. guess.

Yes. Yes. You have to say you're a sake revolution listener.

noted. noted.

so John, am I going to see you in class?

Yeah, let's see, I mean, I'll, I'll class. I don't know which class yet. Uh, you know, I, I, I'll figure something out.

Okay. We're halfway through the year. You've got, you've got about six months or so to figure it out.

halfway?

Almost.

Oh my God. Oh, I wasn't ready for that. All right. Well, hey, all right. Good to know.

All right. Well, John, this was so much fun. Thanks for letting me introduce the Sake Studies Center and thanks for tasting a Brooklyn Kura Sake. I think this one is really delicious and I think this bottle is going to disappear pretty soon.

They usually do

I usually do, right? A thank you as well to all our listeners and a special shout out, hello, and extra special thank you to our patrons. Thank you so much for contributing to our podcast. Without you, Sake Revolution would not be possible. So we're so grateful. If any of our listeners would like to learn more about supporting us as a patron, please visit Patreon.com/SakeRevolution.

yes, and also if you have a moment, please take it and Review our show over at Apple podcasts or your podcast platform of choice It really helps get the word out about the show and you know People hear about us a little bit more quickly when they look up sake stuff and they say America's first time Oh, look at that. And and hopefully they give us a listen. That's that's That's the goal. That's the, that's the dream. Uh, so yeah, please take a few minutes and do that if you can.