Sake In The News 2

Hello everybody and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America's First Sake podcast, and I have the honor, of being, one of your hosts. My name is John Puma. You may know me from the Sake Notes. I'm also the administrator over the internet sake, discord, as well as Reddits r slash sake community.

And I'm your host Timothy Sullivan. I'm a Sake Samurai and 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, doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand.

And, uh, and I'm hoping, I'm hoping that today's episode will be extra fun. I think, uh, with what, what we have in store. Then, you know, Tim, uh, I don't know if you've been, uh, checking things out lately, but the news, the news is not always good. It's frequently bad. Uh, actually, yeah. But Tim, you went out and, found us. Very interesting sake news and, and we've done this once before, when, when it was bubbling up, there was a lot of sake news.

I can't promise only good news, John

Oh no,

But we do, we do these sake in the news episodes, few times a year. We've done it once before, so this is our second sake in the news, and there's been some substantial news, so I think we should get into it.

All right. All right. I like that.

Well, the sake elephant in the room is the New York Times.

Yes.

is from February 27th, 2023. We'll have a link in our show notes. There was an article in the New York Times, a big, big article about sake. Sake is booming in America now. Do you saw this article? I'm sure you

Uh, I did, I did. Uh, and this fits in the good news category for sure, uh, because we're all, I think, very excited about the growth of sake in America. You know, we do have a sake podcast, so it's probably a good thing for us that sake is growing in America. Uh, I do hope that we're doing things to help sake grow in America. but yeah. Let's, let's talk a little bit about that article.

The article was written by Eric Asimov, who's normally one of the wine writers for the New York Times, and my understanding from hearing some background sources is that he reached out to a few people to write a small article about sake and then kind of discovered that there's a lot more going on than he thought, and the scope of the article expanded. And I think that he tried to cover a lot in the article. He talked about import sales, he talked domestic production and.

They covered, Brooklyn, Kura and their expanding relationship with Hakkaisan. Uh, they talked about Dassai opening of their brewery in Hyde Park. And then a lot of information about, uh, origami, the Sake brewery that is currently, being built over in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with a friend of the show, Ben Bell, over there is a big part of it. Uh, and that. A 24,000 square foot brewery. We're gonna, we're gonna revisit that in a, in a big way one day, I'm sure, Tim.

And I know it is a mainstream article. When I have friends of mine who have nothing to do with sake, message me out of the blue and say, Hey, I know you're connected to sake somehow. And did you see that it was in the New York Times? I'm sure you saw it, but here's the link. So when people, people on other sides of your life are sending you the link, you know that it's reaching a wide audience for sure.

Yeah, I had people in my office do the same thing cuz I, I do work in a, a finance firm and some people in the hallway were like, Hey, did you see that article And I was like, yes I did. It was really nice. Anything that raises the sake profile I think is really, is really great to see.

Yeah, so the thrust of the article, as we said, really was two pronged. And let's talk about the first one, which is that sake sales are booming around the United States.

Yeah.

Yeah. So from 2012 to 2022 exports from Japan more than doubled.

I can easily believe that. I just, you know, from our, you and I like our observations. We talk sometimes about how like, when we were first getting into sake, how, uh, limited the selections were and how hard it was to find certain things. And, between then and now, it's like there's so much more. And, and that's gotta be because people are buying, they're not doing that for the fun of it.

Well, John, I think you drank a good portion of that doubling that happened.

So, so what you're saying is that the, the main, the main change is that I entered the chat

Yes. When Puma hit the scene,

hit the scene and they

exports started to

single-handedly increase. Does that mean that there's a significant dip every year when I go to Japan, pan

I don't know about that. No, I think when you go to Japan, you encourage brewers that don't export to get their act together and send more sake over here. So you're, you're doing the Lord's work

uh, yeah. This was this, again, this, I think this was a really a feel good. And they, as you mentioned, they did start out with talking about just like how the exports are growing and that's, that's really great.

Yeah, and the article opens with information about Kato sake works, who's also a friend of the show, uh, he's also featured in the article and he's expanding his brewery in Bushwick, and that's another really exciting kind of indication of where the sake industry's headed right now is so exciting,

Yeah, it's great.

Okay, John, so we've talked about our first big sake in the News New York Times. If you haven't listeners, if you haven't read it yet, we'll have a link to it in the show notes. Be sure to check it out. John, before we go on to our next two articles, should we get some sake going here?

Ah, that's a great idea. We are gonna do our part to increase sake sales and imports by drinking some sake.

All right. What do we have to drink for today?

So, um, today is, is a local variation of, of something I like to do in Japan when I go and that's having, sake from familiar brands with bottles that I'm not that familiar with. That's, that gets to be a lot of fun. In this case we have the, Choryo Omachi Junmai Ginjo if the Choryo sounds familiar to you,

It does ring a bell. It does ring

it it is because we talked about and drank their sake. Uh, on episode 86. Now they are known primarily for their taru Sake they are specialists in Taru sake. They have a lot of, uh, feelings, they have a lot of thoughts on ta, on Taru sake, and go back to 86. We talk about it at length. but they're not just Taru Tim. They also make, uh, a couple other sakes including this one again. This one is the, Omachi Junmai Ginjo.

No extremes,

no extreme. So I'm guessing they're probably not gonna be, uh, to Myshell's taste.

Well, I, I, we have to guess this is not crazy style then.

not, definitely not crazy style, and they probably won't be featured on an episode of, uh, of extreme sake, but

Well, usually,

like a nice easy sip in sake too.

I don't know. I don't know about that motto. Cuz if you say no limits, that usually means you're willing to go pretty extreme. But then they say, no extremes. I'm getting mixed signals.

Yeah, Tim, I didn't ask. I just saw it and I'm, I'm just reporting

You're just reporting

speaking of the news, I'm just reporting the news

Alright.

uh, back to the sake at hand. It's, uh, omachi Rice from, Takashima in Okayama Prefecture. It's milled down to 58% of its original size. That's. Oddly specific number in my opinion. Uh, the sake meter value is 3.5. Acidity is 1.5, and the alcohol percentage is a nice and reasonable 15. So it'll be something that we can sip on while we talk about the rest of the news, and we probably won't don't get too drunk.

Right. And this is good to know that they make sake in Nara Prefecture, but they're using Omachi from Okayama Prefecture, which is the home of Omachi. So that's a really good, interesting detail here. So should we get it in the glass?

I think we should.

All right.

So one thing that's really interesting about this, like right when you take a look at the, the bottle is that the label is a really thicker sticker than usual sake label, and it has some texture to it and an almost like reflective quality. It's a little eye-catching when you see it on the shelf. Uh, I did a little research and it looks like this is not the same label that you use for the sake in Japan. Based on what's on their site at least. it is very eye-catching, very unique and different,

hmm. It's not unusual for breweries to pick out a different label for their US exports versus domestic.

yeah.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

All right. Well, let's give it a smell here.

yeah. It has a lot of that richness and that nuttiness that I associate with Omachi in a lot of ways. And

Yep.

I do. And there is a rice-y note as well, like a, just, you know, your steamed rice note.

It's got some earthiness to me.

Hmm.

Often we talk about omachi being the more rustic kind of, earthy down to earth sake rice. And this kind of encapsulates that for me. The aroma here is earthy and little robust.

Yeah.

All right?

earthy is definitely, a word that comes to mind here. I get, I'm getting a lot of that here. Is

Yeah, some umami too. There's some savoriness. If you think about, just like a little hint of a soy sauce flavor going on. Um, some Rice-iness.

from a, it's interesting, like stylistically, I feel like this drinks more like what you'd call Junmai rather than like, you know, what we usually think of with, with Junmai ginjo, I know that at the end of the day it's just a rice milling and blah, blah, blah. But I think there's, there's a stylistic component to what a brewery decides sometimes. And so this definitely, uh, fits a little bit more with that. What I think of when I think of like a, a nice, rich Junmai.

Yeah, definitely has savoriness, I think is the word I want to use here. It's savory sake.

I like that.

Yeah. And you know, I might think that this sake could be good warmed up as well. What do you think about that?

Completely agree. this is definitely something that as I sip on it, I'm like, you know, room temperature, maybe a little bit warm. It might be like the, the bullseye spot for this. We always default to chilled here when we start, unless something very unusual is happening. But, you know, we do, we learn and we we taste things and we learn about them. And, and I do think that maybe room temp or something like that would open this up in interesting ways.

For sure. Well, we can let it sit and chillax. We have two more. We have two more articles to talk about.

Excellent.

So John, the next sake article you actually found, do you want to give us a, the, the Deets on that one?

Yeah. So I'm gonna put this one under bad news.

Oh, bad news.

I think this one's bad news.

Okay.

This article is from Nikkei, in, uh, Japan. But it was published in English, uh, is that, um, supersize sake. Bottles are becoming a thing of the past in Japan. Uh, this was published on March the sixth, 2023.

Ooh. So we all know those bottles, right? The 1.8 liters. I call them the party size or the magnum

The party size. I love it. Yeah. The Issho-bin, the, the party size, 1.8 liter magnum of sake. And apparently the sales have falling. Um, yes. And the shipments of the 1.8 liter bottles have declined by, and this, this blew my mind when I saw this number, 80%. Since 2002, so I didn't know what sake was in 2002. That's quite a long time. But, you know, I think that what we're seeing here with this is covid. Didn't help. You know, generally speaking, those big bottles go to restaurants in Japan.

Well, you know, from our point of view. 1.8 liter bottles have never really been a huge player in the US market. Right. Yeah.

We know a handful of places around here that I really serve that really use them. Most places are using the smaller, um, 720 milliliter bottles.

Yeah. As we've talked about in the past, we did a episode on different bottle sizes in the past and in Japan, as you mentioned. Very often you're gonna see these large 1.8 liter bottles cuz they sell sake by the go, by the 180 milliliter serving. And it makes financial sense for restaurants to serve out of the larger, it's basically like selling everything by the carafe.

Yeah.

and if you buy a sake fridge in Japan as a restaurant, like a restaurant equipment fridge, the bottles fit in there perfectly. But those bottles do not fit in my American fridge. Have you? No.

There, there was a, there was a period where I reconfigured my fridge so that I can put them in, but you still can only fit like three or in a converted wine chiller, you know, it's, it is where it is. You know, I think like the purpose of these bottles were for sake bars and for izkayas. And as long as they're really healthy, they'll probably continue to sell.

For me, one interesting thing is that I think this mirrors a trend that's been happening, which is. The growth of the premium sake market and the diminishing of the table sake market, the futsushu market. So as more and more consumers turn to premium and ultra premium sakes, those are more often bottled in 720 ml and smaller like wine size bottles. And the more entry level table sakes, everyday sakes are bottled, usually in the larger size.

Well, I think that's right, but I also think that if you look back at our previous news story sake booming in the West,

Hmm?

and as you pointed out in the west, they're not buying issho-bin really. We're buying 720 milliliter bottles. We're buying one cup sometimes or 300 milli bottles, but we're not buying really large ones. They're not what sells here. And so if the foreign market is gonna become a bigger portion of the pot, it leaves less room for those other big bottles that are just gonna be used domestically for the most part.

But I will give you my point of view on one reason why I don't think 1.8 liter bottles are gonna go away.

Okay.

It's because a lot of breweries in Japan have invested in the machinery to bottle this bottle size.

That's an excellent point.

I don't think that they're just on a trend. I don't think they're gonna chuck that equipment in the garbage. And I think that even if it doesn't make it over here as often, 1.8 liter bottles will continue at a smaller scale to be a presence in Japan for sure.

Hmm. Yeah, I think, yeah, you're absolutely right about the, the fact that the machinery's already there and also in Japan, they do a really good job of recycling those bottles.

Hmm.

Yeah, the, the izakayas put out the empties every night. They come by and, you know, they're picked up every morning. Their glass recycling there is quite advanced, uh, compared to what we have going over here, I wanna say.

Yeah. And it's very ecologically friendly to keep recycling and reusing these bottles. And you, I, I've seen it as well. The recycling program is like next level in Japan when it comes to these bottles. It's great.

Yeah,

Do you like the 1.8 liter bottles personally, when you have them at home, are they, is it fun for you or is it an annoyance?

honestly, I haven't bought one in years. it's also, there's not that many places in New York that sell them.

Hmm.

I know a couple places that do, but I just haven't bought them in, in the longest time. And also, you know, they, well don't, don't ask either of us, but can the average person finished that in an appropriate amount of time? Again, ask us

Yes.

Uh, but you know, you bring it to a party, Hey, that's nice, everybody wins.

Yep.

you're just having stuff at home, it's, it's hard.

So for you personally at home, you think it's a little inconvenient, not offered that many places. Doesn't fit in the fridge, hard to finish.

If I, if I had a bigger fridge, maybe I'd change my mind. Maybe the rest of those things would not be factors.

Well, for just for everyone's reference, the 1.8 liter bottles we're talking about is equal to 2.5 of the standard bottle size, the 720 ml. So it's like having two and a half bottles in one.

If you find a place that sells them and you compare the pricing with the 720 milliliter bottles, it's a steal. It's a really good deal. If you have a sake that you absolutely love and you see the Issho-bin of it, you, if you have the space for it, you buy that it's great. It's a really cost effective way to get a lot of sake

Yes, I've done that for parties. I think I might have done that for my wedding reception too. That, you know, you order the, the. 1.8 liters and it's just more fun per ounce or

more fun per ounces. Oh, that's gonna be a headline for our next show. Sake Revolution. More fun per ounce than your average podcast. it's been a few minutes now, Tim. I wanna revisit our sake

oh yeah, that's a good idea. All right.

So, I kept a very small amount in my glass so that it would warm up a little bit faster, and I've been, I've been kind of treating it with my hands a little bit, kind of putting the money outside of the bowl of the wine glass just to, just to help it along. I wanna see what happens when it's a little warmer.

hmm. Alright.

Aroma wise, I'm still getting that, that rice-iness is actually more forward

Hmm.

I wanna say Hmm.

Yeah, it's still the same sake. It's still savory to me.

Yeah, it's still, I mean, I don't, I don't expect it to get fruity, Tim, but but, uh, I'm enjoying it more.

Hmm

For certain. I think that, you know, I think that having it as chilled as I did might have been trying to stick a round peg into a square hole. And it's much more comfortable at this, um, at this temperature. It comes off a little bit, a little bit smoother. I want to say.

Yeah, it's definitely opened up as they say,

They they do say that, don't they? Oh, boy. So I think we do have one more article that we're gonna talk about, and Wow, Tim, you're gonna, you're gonna lead us in this one. Is this, is this good news or bad news?

This is good news.

Ah,

yes. So this is an article from that was published on bbc, and this is right on the heels of the New York Times article. So this was published on March 1st, 2023. And the headline here is that Sake Brewers Toast, Big Rise in Global Sales.

Hmm. So what I'm getting outta that title is it's not just America

it's not just america. Right. I think that this is a supplemental article, a little bit smaller in scale to what the New York Times was saying, which is that the exports have really increased over the last 10 years. And this is all with the backdrop of domestic sales of sake in Japan declining,

Yeah, and that that's been the story for years that domestic sales are dropping. So they need to look to the west and off we go.

Yeah, so the article highlights that of the 1100 breweries or so in Japan, the ones that do exports have seen a bright spot in that there have been increases for 12 years in a row. So the increase in export sales have been ongoing, continual upward trend, we mentioned that. That sake sales have been going down, but you know, in Japan, all alcohol has been going down. This isn't just, I think, younger people, generation Z, triple Z, whatever

C C is that hard? Z I don't know. Um, we, we actually talked about this in our previous. In sake, in the news episode, there was an article that you had picked out that talked about how young, the younger generation weren't drinking sake, and they were looking for people to come up with ways to make them drink alcohol. Um, and that was, uh, that was, that was the thrust of that.

Yeah. Another really interesting point, and you and I have talked about this a lot, is that brewers are looking at wine like sake profiles

We know that's the, we know that's the

we know that story

is it? Wait, is this story that a son or daughter of the Kuranoto ventures out into the world and comes back and takes over and then make sake that is a little bit wine like.

yeah. The article mentions not the prodigal son storyline, but the fact that. They enter sakes into wine tasting competitions and are making more wine like high acid. Long finish sakes.

Yeah. there are plenty of them out there. That's definitely a trend.

it's a big trend and I don't see it as the silver bullet answer to growing the sake industry, but it sure doesn't hurt. It's a great supplement, don't you think?

Yeah. I think it's a good thing to have them there. And I, and I do think that they're more approachable to people who are into wine. Uh, I think that all, what do they say here? Uh, also in the article, uh, lighter fruitier sakes are more accessible to people used to wine. All right. I like lighter, fruity or sakes, so this is perfect for me. And that's great for me, oh.

Right.

And that's great. So yeah, I'm, I'm really, it makes me, it warms my heart to see that that sake is rising globally.

Yeah, well it's interesting to look at it a little bit from a historical perspective as well cuz we are history's happening all the time. We're right in the middle of a transition. And when people look back in 50 years to what's happening now in the sake industry, I think this is really, we're right in the middle of this wave of transition from sake being. Domestic Japanese product that is, has a certain quality to a super premium worldwide beverage.

A world beverage. Yes.

that's the goal for so many brewers. And I know with so many brewers have their eye on that goal that we will get there more and more. Um, but articles like this are just, I feel this is like the crest of the wave happening. You know, over the next couple decades we're gonna see the fruition of what happens with all these efforts to make sake more globally approachable.

Yeah. Do you see a world where one day, like American sake is just like a regional type I think that when, when we have sake here that's brewed in America, we, we always have this thing about like, Mmm, is it, it's not quite as good as the stuff in Japan. Is it quite as like, maybe one day it'll just. Different. It'll just be its own, you know? It'll just be like equally respected, but different vibe.

Yeah. I mean, history repeats itself and in the wine world, they had the judgment in Paris, which. We've talked about where they did a blind tasting of French wines and American wines, and the French wine judges picked the Napa Valley wines as the best, and the world freaked out, and it was never the same.

Yeah.

And uh, right now we can count everything on a couple hands, but soon it will be we'll get there. Yeah.

Yeah. I, to follow up on your, point about the, wine challenge thing is that there's also Japan had their moment of that for whiskey

Yes.

where, where, um, Santori won a whiskey tasting in Scotland and after that happened, everyone knows this mad rush on Japanese whiskey that has not ended yet.

Yes. that's a good point that it hasn't stopped. Like Japanese whiskey arrived and it wasn't like, oh, this is a trend. It's going, no, people still want whatever they can get their hands on.

It, J Japan is recognized just like Scotland is as a place with exceptional whiskey.

Hmm.

And it's, it's always gonna be like that now. It's great

I think it's only a matter of time

Mm-hmm. It, it'll be one of those tipping point moments too, where there's a, there's some kind of a thing and something from America really, uh, shows up great. and then that'll become big. And you'll see people in Japan will start trying to get that sake from America.

That is so great. Like the, the what, the boomerang effect of sake becoming so good and so appreciated overseas. It mirrors back to Japan and the Japanese people are like, oh, this is, you know, our thing and. They're going to rediscover even more appreciation for sake when it gains such appreciation overseas. What do you

I like that idea. The resurgence of sake in Japan will come from sake, becoming a big deal in America. I like that. That sounds like a lot of fun.

yeah,

It could happen

yeah. It's more and more people really discover sake overseas. Japanese are gonna say, Hey, this is, this is ours and this is cool. And yeah, get back into it in a more deeper way.

Yes.

All right, John. Well, we hit three big news articles.

Mm-hmm.

I think despite the reduction in use of the 1.8 liter bottles, I'm gonna call this a win.

I think so too. I think that too. I think that, you know, even though the vessel maybe shrinking the sake is increasing, at least in the West and everywhere else in the world according to BBC, which is great. Uh, I'm really excited. These are, this is great stuff to hear.

Yeah, for the foreseeable future, there should be no shortage in high acid wine like sakes to keep us talking.

Yeah. And there's, you know, and, and in the West there'll be a whole bunch of selections. We got a lot of breweries opening up. It's gonna. It's gonna be a hell of a ride, I

yes. Watch this space.

Yes,

All right. Well, great to taste with you, John, and I want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in again this week. A special hello and thank you to all our patrons. If you enjoy Sake Revolution and you want to support us, you can visit patreon.com/SakeRevolution and consider becoming a patron.

And while you're considering that, go ahead and drop us a review over on Apple Podcast or Spotify Charitable Anywhere. Really wherever you get your podcast, that's the place we wanna see your reviews. It, uh, really gets the word out about our show, helps the algorithm find us so that when people are looking for sake stuff where the sake stuff they find

and be sure to check out SakeRevolution.com for our show notes. We have a full transcript each and every week. All the details on the news articles, and the sake we tasted today.

and I can think of nothing else better to do right now after all this good news than to raise my glass like you should be doing at home. Remember to keep drinking sake and Kanpai.