What is the biggest factor for making quality sake or making sake the way it is at any level of quality? I think number one is technique. It's skill. So this is a craft in the way that you know, painting a picture, that's an art. Of course there's a lot of science when it comes to making sake or any other alcoholic beverage, but it's a combination of those things. There's science, there's art, there's craft coming together, there's skill. You're making style choices. Sit back and grab a
glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul K. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today in beautiful Southern California about to have a conversation with Ben Bell all the way out in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Introductions in just a minute. Hey, have a listen to a show I just put out. It's with Emily Steckenborn. Sounds Chinese, right? Well she's the LVMH representative for the ambassador as I called her in China. Incredible insight and career path that she's carved out
for herself. And have a listen to that. But not why we're here today to have a conversation with Ben Bell. I was going to say Big Ben Bell, but I say Ben Bell of Origami Sake in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He's the co founder. Welcome to the show. Hey Paul, thank you so much for having me. And just as a little note, I'm kind of a short guy so I don't get Big Ben very much. Maybe I got one more gross for it coming. I'm just fingers, fingers crossed.
One of my, my son in law's best friend is Ben and he's about 6, 5. So whenever, whenever I say Ben I think of Big Ben. Anyway. Yeah, you know, a real big, a real big Ben. Yeah. Thanks for being on the show. This is, you know, your, your PR firm reached out to me and I thought this is so interesting because here's this young man making saki in America which is, you know, I've seen, I've had a few American sakis before. But then Hot Springs, Arkansas, you know, triggered a thought
here. But we had a, we had a nice recall about what we were doing. I said this is not your first rodeo in the wine, wine or spirits world. Where did you come from? Yeah, that's right. I mean I'm an Arkansas native and I got a job in the drinks business. I guess the way you normally do when you start out, which is you think you're, you're doing something else with your life and then you get a job at a liquor store or get a job at
a restaurant and, and then I think that just hooks certain people. And it hooked me on the wine side. And you know, after a few years go by, it ends up becoming your career. So I did get a job for what became Arkansas's largest retailer, Shout out to Colonial Wines and Spirits in Little Rock. The. They had always had a great wine selection and what really hooked me into wine, and that was my first love, was how it could be from being from a small town in Arkansas. This was my
way to touch different countries, different cultures around the world. And of course, you know, you enter it through those wines on the shelf, but then you get to food, you get to cuisine, and then you go out to culture, then you go out to history. So that was, that was really my first love in the drinks business. And it was the first thing I started getting professional certifications in. So I, I did really start as a wine specialist and that
was about 20 years ago. You know, that, that's shocking really frankly for me because, you know, the. Usually it's the coasts, you know, the east and the west coast that are wine related. New York has a specific level of wine shops and they're one on every corner and they have a vast variety of imported wines. And of course California, the hotbed of American wine. But here in the mid part of the country hasn't been part of the wine culture really. And
now you're saying 20 years ago you were doing this. No, that's right. Yeah. I, you know, I think in terms of, certainly in terms of production, there's not a lot that is happening in the middle of the US But I think in terms of sales and interest, you know, of course we are right next to Texas, that's a neighboring state. Texas is a heck of a fine wine state and has been for quite some
time. They really, you know, of course Texas is an economic powerhouse, but you know, craft spirits, craft beer, fine wine, it's been a great market for that for a while. And I really feel like, you know, Internet's been around for a while now too. Great. There's always great books to get your hands on. My first book was Windows on the World by Kevin Zarley. And then I got into the wine Bible not long after that. Really, to me, access to the
knowledge wasn't so hard. And as long as you had, you know, enough good distributors who were bringing some good things to pick from, you could put together a good shop. And thankfully the owners of the shop that, that I worked at, they met In Germany they had a love of German wine. They knew European wines very well. So they had this unus unusual interest, I guess in really high quality wine and they wanted to show it off in Little Rock. So that was very
lucky for me. That's interesting. And you're talking about cuisine and food pairings, which I have, I have a very peculiar opinion of food pairing that sort of substantiated by master of wine Tim Hani, I had on the show. But you know, let's face that. Also the Midwest is very specific in this food thing. One of the things that's always interesting to me in the American food scene is that, you know, you can get now Texas chili and in New Hampshire and you can get
New England clam chowder in Los Angeles. And that wasn't always the case. You know, the freeways, transportation kind of changed that. And so the regionality of food sort of blurred all the lines. But, but back then at 20 years ago, was there a cuisine movement? Was there food? I mean it happened in LA in the 80s, but I don't know what happened. So I really think if you look, this is a thing I've thought about for a long time. You know, what is the, what's the food
identity of Arkansas? Do we have a famous thing that, that we are specifically known for? And I think you look around surrounding states and you could pick out quite a few things. Texas, of course, has Tex Mex, great brisket. Louisiana, to the south, has Cajun creole food. Some of the best food in the world in my opinion. My mom's Cajun, so I guess I'm biased. But I think some of that food is easily some of the best in the world. The Mississippi, Missouri, Kansas City, you got some
great, some great barbecue. And then on the drink side, I'm going to add another neighboring state, Tennessee. Obviously this is the home of Jack Daniels and some very fine Tennessee whiskey. So there are famous food and drinks all around this state. But Arkansas to me never really had something that had a strong identity like that. Now I will add just a detail. This is, this will be
probably a surprise for you and a lot of people listening. I know Arkansas, if you look at it on a map, it looks like a Midwest state. But I will tell you from a food perspective and culturally, it is definitely a southern state. So in general, if you want to just make this large bracket of southern food and or so we're talking a chicken fried steak, biscuits and gravy, shrimp and grit, this is all very much the food that you will find In Arkansas at
a lot of, at a lot of places. And this is what folks like me would, would grow up with. So I do love that fruit. But it's not very specific to Arkansas. This is just the south generally. But the idea of doing sake here was maybe something that we could do that is based off of something that's. I don't know if unique to Arkansas is the right word, but we're, you know, we're the, we're the top producer of rice in the United States. And I do think that's a bit
of, that's a bit of education right there too. You know, maybe this could be something that, you know, Louisiana's. No surrounding state is doing this rice producing states. Now California is the number two rice producing state. Definitely has quite a bit of sake being made there, whether people know it or not. But that was the impetus for what could Arkansas be about when it comes to something that we can show off on the food and drink side. That's a great segue into the sake conversation.
Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, to me, it was also, by the way, my like life segue from wine into sake. Why make this move? Why are, you know, why would me as an Arkansan even really be thinking about sake? I have no connection to Japan. I also, this is a question I get quite a bit. I didn't grow up watching anime or, you know, Yeah, a real strong like, you know, I didn't kind of come to
it that way. To me, it really was still through the wine shop. It was, you know, I had gone through, I think, my first level quartermaster psalms exam and was getting more into certifications. Got my certified wine educator, certified specialist of spirits. And so I love, you know, a big range of categories. And I always liked the oddballs. I always wanted to learn about wines from unusual, you know, regions.
And so I love, you know, some, some, some Zweigelt from Austria or let's say like, you know, wines from Juro were starting to be interesting at least in, in terms of being on the, on, on my radar. And let me stop because you, you're covering a lot of stuff on
it. We should stop and break it down a little bit. One of them, one of the points is, you know, you, again, you're not in a hotbed of, of wine and spirits territory about Lynchburg, Tennessee maybe, but you know, you, you set upon studying and learning and that's, you know, that's the beginning of this type of process and that inspires you. Once you read one book, if you Read the. The wine Bible or you. You picked up some periodicals and now the Internet, of course, has tons of stuff. And that.
That seemed interesting to you. That's like, wow, this is. Or was it the combination of being in a shop, tasting wines with the owners who had a lot of passion for doing this, that all of a sudden it clicked? The. I think it just let my. Being in a place like that just let my imagination run wild. And there were enough people pulling enough things. You know, I wouldn't have known Zweigelt really if somebody wasn't bringing. Bringing it in via an Arkansas distributor. So, you
know, shout out to whoever was bringing it in back then. I don't even remember at this point. It's been a long time. But, you know, the. It was having just. I, you know, I think a lot of this really comes down to the people. If you get into a lot of these stories, there were the right people who were interested enough to make a thing happen, bring something in that's interesting, and if they weren't there, then maybe it wouldn't happen. And I think that continues into the sake story.
It. It all got me where there was enough things that, you know, I've always been kind of a dreamer. And, you know, I went to a. I went to a boarding school that was math and science focused, but I love the arts, too. I play music and I love learning. I love digging into stuff. And to me, there was just a lot of stuff to dig into. So it. It really played into my. My strength and my desire to learn. Let me. Let me take that one more step, and then we'll get back into the
Saki conversation. That's. That is. I just was playing back a podcast with a gentleman named Chad Ludington, PhD, two or three masters and mostly in history, but now he's become this wine historian. And the way he was very articulate, he was very conscientious about who he was talking to. You know, me. Like, who is this? What is this guy know? He, you know, he's a lecturer,
right? By trade, he's a professor. And I thought, you know, I wonder if that's the part of wine which is now the lip service we're seeing on the Internet. A lot of. And LinkedIn and social networking. You know, we have to change the language, we have to change this. We have to make it more appealable to the general masses. Wine has always been the same. Saki's got a renaissance here, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But maybe that's the. That's the
positive part of wine, this academia, this, this idea. You can read about it and every time you read something you want to read more about it and that's the part. But that's also could be the part that turns people off because it can be very academic and very snooty and aristocratic, which I don't think it is personally. It's just how you perceive it when it comes down to it.
Yeah, I, you know, I agree. Of course, I used to sell a lot of wine and I'd sell, look, I loaded up a lot of trunks with cases of Franzia. Also would sell some first and second growth Bordeaux. That's the job, right? And I think actually I had a great co worker who kind of, I think I was maybe up in my own head about, you know, what wine should be and how to talk about it and maybe was a bit snooty myself and I had a
good coworker. I'll give another shout out to my old friend Jimmy Hamilton, who really put me on the right path of hey, when the customer comes, when a customer comes in, you need to just listen to them and whatever they're looking for, you need to help them find the best version of that. Sometimes that is a case of Franzia, sometimes that is a super obscure wine from the outside of Rhone or something like
that. It doesn't really matter. And then, you know, I always viewed my job as to, from then on to be the connector. You know, I'm going to connect people to what seems like, you know, everyone who comes in is a blank slate. And my job is to make things simple and, you know, get them to what they would probably enjoy based on what they're saying, kind of the fastest and the easiest and make it
approachable. You know, if you're putting up barriers, you know, for me, from a sales perspective, you're going to lose, you're going to lose a sale or you might lose a customer. Don't put up barriers, make it easier, make it more approachable. And I'll add into that. Can you tell a story about it? Can you tell good stories about, you know, the things that you're, that you're talking about the place, if you know the place, if you did that studying
of, you know, the place, the people who's making it. You got some stories there. If you have some personal stories, that's great too. The way something is made. I've sold, sold a lot of scotch for Milo by talking about the process of how it's made, right? So to Me, any one of those things could be something to kind of latch onto. But to your point, I think wine can be both ways. Sometimes people want to just recite a bunch of statistics like tonnage per acre and just really, you know,
rattle off a lot of numbers and a lot of terms. And to me, it's. I know that that works for, for some people because if it didn't, then why would every salesperson, you know, be memorizing these things? But to me, it's. It should be more the opposite. It should be more story focused, people focused, make it more approachable, make it simpler. And I think that's the way to go about kind of all these categories. So you said something really important. Two things. One
was, yes, it's consumerism. My wine has always been about the consumer. And so that's how the trends change. And we're in the middle of some trends changing now. But you also said they're very important. That, which is my trade. I grew up selling stuff. I sold for Xerox, I sold software, I sold wine. You know, so selling things has its. A technique, so to speak. Not that you're trying to hustle somebody, but you're trying to understand
what their need is. And sometimes they don't tell you exactly what their need is. And sometimes it's implied, and sometimes it's explicit. And if you're just a. Whether you're in sales of, of a widget or whether you're selling wine on the floor, if you're listening to the customer and you're just satisfying the needs of the customer based on, you know, what you have
in your quiver to do that. And I think I get that gets lost sometimes, Ian, I think the details you're talking about, tons per acre and the, and the micronutrient exchange, the tap root and that's. That stuff's the part that's intimidating. But you're not going to change somebody's palate while you're standing on the floor of a restaurant, liquor store, or a wine shop. And so you sell them what they need. And I had a wine. One of my managers at one of my shops years ago was
a pro at that. You know, what are you drinking today? And then he'd guide them to the proper thing, and then are you interested in moving ahead on that, on your palate to the next level? Yes or no? No, I just want what I usually drink. Okay, great. No problem. I'll sell you what I have. So it's important. But in the world of sake, which I will Tell you that neither my wine shops that I've had here had had sake in them. And I live in Southern California. I live near, you
know, right near Los Angeles. It was never a thing, but it has had a renaissance, I'm gonna say 20 years maybe that, that the idea of premium sake emerged, that there's different levels of sake and that the brewmaster's job. And I'm gonna, I made that name up. I'm not sure that's the exact name is rather important. So from your floor sales at a wine shop into the appreciation and then now developing and manufacturing sake, what that transition occurred because it
also was fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. So the first bottle of sake that wasn't, you know, some cheap mass produced sake, which the shop that I worked at had. What I'm going to say is kind of the usual suspects of sake that brands that you would get at a sushi or hibachi place all over the U.S. you know, we had those bottles and I didn't think much about them. I've had them before and I've had good times at a sushi place having some. But I've had some fuzzy times also with those. But
yeah, the. But you know, it wasn't something that made me think, oh, you know, sake is interesting. It's a category that I really want to, you know, learn or explore. But then one a bottle came into the shop about 16, 17 years ago, something like that, and it was. The price was higher. I'd never seen this brand before and I was intrigued. Like I said, I like the, the to dig into the oddballs and see what' and this was certainly an oddball to me. And I'll
tell you, look, I took it home. This probably go into my not strong connection to anything Japanese really. It looks like white wine to me. So I chilled it in the fridge and I put it in a white wine glass and that's how I drink it. Yeah. And I will tell you, that is still how I recommend generally drinking craft sake. There's other ways to do it, but I think that's a very solid way to drink craft sake. I guess I just sort of lucked out that way. But I had it in my thought, having that
sake and it was definitely. So you said the term premium sake and I think that's great. I often use the term craft sake. I think we're kind of conveying the same thing. It's something that is above the level of mass production and we're really talking, you know, more quality and care in what people Are making. So. But do they always exist? At least not to interrupt you, but do they always exist? Because I think what you just said a lot, obviously, again, chilling
sake and you're chilling the craft premium sake. You know, we go to sake houses in the 70s and 80s and you know, you, it was always warm, you did a depth charge, you drop it in a beer, you know, and you're chugging it. So but, you know, was that was that idea of mass produced sake was that you warmed it up because you were masking something and now you're suggesting chilling it because you can get the nuances of a premium or craft sake? I mean, that seems like I've been bamboozled all this time.
So I hate to dispel you or the nobody likes the feeling of getting tricked. But I will tell you, it seems counterintuitive that heating something up could actually mask flavors. But it does work if you get to a certain temperature level. And yes, that is one of the main things that heating up kind of does. Now I want to add on to there, there is some very fine sake, some of the best sakes in the world that
are also really wonderful warmed. And one of our sakes right up here where I'm pointing to White Lotus for anyone who can see this video. Yeah, this is our Nigori sake. That is a wonderful sake warmed and we're very proud of it. Now, at home, I still keep it in the fridge and I still pour it into usually a wine glass. So that's the way I like to drink it. But it is also fantastic warm. But I'll give you my general hot versus cold advice. Warm sake. So, well, let's say lower tier, rougher,
maybe let's say more robust. I'm going to add some nice terms on there too. Robust, bigger flavor, but maybe also rougher, more warmed. This is more going to be served warmed. And then when you get into the craft world of sake, now we're going to be more chilled and maybe chilled by default, but can exist in a range. And my best advice for how to know that easy mode is when in doubt, just chill it and you're going to be right in the craft sake world. I'm going to say 95% of the
time. Now what you can do is this is my best advice. A good bottle of sake should have a recommended serving temperature on the back. Let's see if I got it right here. Oh, where is it? Here it is right here. So you'll see, look, served warmed or chilled, some people will actually Give a temperature range. But yeah, look at, look at the advice on the back. To me, this is,
this is my, my best advice for that. Now when you get into the highest, let's say class of sake, which is a category called daiginjo, where they've polished the rice down a lot, they've taken a lot of fat and protein off, which can give rougher, bigger flavors. Now it's more delicate, it's more light. This style is almost exclusively
chilled. So you've gone from more warmed to we can play in a range and you know, check the back and you know, see what they say to pretty much just chill it every time. There's exceptions to everything. But that's, that's, that's my advice. Now
to your question of how long has that been a thing? You know, we all know mass produced hot kind of rough sake in the US but just to give you an idea of how long craft sake has been made in let's say, Japan, I would say, you know, some of the, there's technological things that happened in the sake world that were real big quality jumps up in the
world of sake. And without getting into too much history, I'm going to say around the year 1900 was when some, a few things started to happen that really got a lot of producers into making higher and higher quality sake. Rice polishing technology, having that ability to mill down, take fat and protein off the grain of the rice, get more starch, that gave you these cleaners pretty your flavors right off the bat. Understanding
yeast and understanding how to isolate yeast. And as soon as that happened, people started picking for strains of yeast that give fruity flavors and aromas, which is key to our style. This was a big development and that was definitely in the past 100 years or so. The I'm 100 years is a long back. So yeah, then it's not contemporary because it seems to me, it seems to me that sake, like maybe even grappa is probably the peasants drink at some point.
Actually it was the opposite sake, because rice was actually rice was currency in Japan. It was so valuable. Yeah, this was kind of during like the feudal era era of Japan. You would pay for things and you would pay your taxes in rice. And making booze out of rice was considered to be almost like the drink of, of royalty or definitely you would be
privileged to get it. Everybody would want to have sake. And it's not like you, you didn't have to be royalty to have sake in Japan, but it was definitely considered to be an elevated beverage. And the, like, the methods for making it in the way that it's made now were codified around 1500, 1600 somewhere around there. And then, you know, there's been sort of jumps with it. The. And then it coming to the us, I would say, has been a
phenomenon. For the past 40 years or so, craft sake has been, you know, sort of exported to the us. I think what the US is seeing right now is Japan's been making craft sake. It's just now getting exported and shown in a way that never really was before. But I will say, you know, kind of what I was alluding to with this further back history is it wasn't always the case that Japan was making amazing sake per se, or the way that we know it now. The, you know, it went through its own, you
know, series of changes. It's still a very dynamic industry in Japan in terms of trying new things and, you know, growing in category in quality. But now we are getting more and more connected, or let's say Japan sake brewers are getting connected with the outside world more and more every year. It's really accelerating, you're saying, you know, it's having its
renaissance and I really do feel like that is happening. And then part of that renaissance is sake brewers, like us, we are having access to the techniques to make this very high quality sake outside of Japan, which I have to say, I moved to Japan and trained at a sake brewery and learned Japanese to do it, because that was impossible 10 years ago, but
now it can happen. Wow, that's a fascinating part of the history because I think most people in America just look at, as you go to a Japanese restaurant, you get some sake, because that's what you're supposed to do. And what would be the. Then the driving factor? And I want to get into this, your immediate soiree into the industry. But what would be the driving factor for quality? We talk about terroir with wine and the soil and the continent, and I don't know how rice absorbs
its surroundings. Is it the polish, is it the quality of the rice? Is it the hybrid of the rice, is it the yeast? Or is it a combination of all those things? Yeah, so there is a debate within sake about, you know, should the word terroir be used? What does it mean in, in the world of sake? I definitely have a. You're. You're about. You're about to get my strong opinion about it. I don't think terroir is very applicable
to what makes sake. You know, the, the thing that you are Enjoying, uh, rice itself, it's not as sensitive to its surroundings as grapes are. Let's say out in the field there are changes and you know, rice changes from year to year. But if anything, in the sake world, you are working to deal with the changes from harvest to harvest to keep making the same thing.
You're taking these differences in the field and you're actually changing your technique in the brewery to make sure that, you know, whatever product, if it's our White Lotus or Thousand Cranes, that, that always tastes the same and it tastes the same as it did last year. In that case or in that sense, sake adheres generally more to the concept of house
style as opposed to releasing vintages. And that vintages advantage is going to give information to customers that, oh, this year is going to be different than last year. Right. So to me, when you make a non vintage thing, the expectation is it's always going to be the same and sake is more like, let's say beer or spirits in this sense where the, you know, a main release is a house style and it's always going to taste the same and you do a lot of work
to get it there. So the real thrust and to better best answer your question, what is the biggest factor for making quality sake or making sake the way it is at any level of quality? I think number one is technique, it's skill. So this is a craft in the way that. I don't know, this may sound like. Well, I think in the way that, you know, painting a picture is, you know,
it's, that's an art. Of course there's a lot of science when it comes to making sake or any other alcoholic beverage, but it's a combination of those things. There's science, there's art, there's, there's craft coming together, there's skill. You're making style choices. And I would say the way that our sake tastes, this is, this is 90% of the way it tastes are style choices that we made to get to what it tastes like. So it's really more about craft. I do not like using the word terroir in sake.
There's some people who are very good in the sake business who I very much respect, who would strongly disagree with me, but I'm going to put us on team craft for. Well, I think that just seems to me on the surface there's more down from a consumer standpoint, down the lines of a craft beer or a premium bourbon or scotch in that I drink Heineken or I drink Jack Daniels because I Know what it tastes like. And that's what, that's what I'm looking to do. I'm not here for an
academic exercise in terroir because I'm having a Bordeaux. So I think that's really a fascinating part of that. You, your, your, your path wasn't so easy and I want to get to that and then I want to talk about the segmentation of the market in America. But you know, I just, it made me laugh a little bit. I, I chuckled, I guffawed. I had a, your career path to get into this and to be able to speak as eloquently as you do about the, the subject was not the case always.
Yeah. So the, you know, I told you about becoming a wine specialist and having that bottle of sake and then, well, what came after that? So I went to, of course I searched are there any sake professional certifications? And I found that there are. The first one I got was the. Oh, sorry. Certified sake professional certification under a man named John Gauntner, who is a lot of people in the business, Their, their sake teacher. And he got
me kind of connected with it, with a sake brewery. I was always this guy who was flying from Arkansas, going to New York back then New York, and New York still is one of the best cities in the US for craft sake. The. I would be this guy that just shows up to events from Arkansas. And I think for local people in New York, it was amusing to say the least, that this guy just kept coming for events. But to me, this was the only way to learn.
And then from that and from John in particular, I got hooked up with a sake brewery called Mitobe Shuzo, which I found out later is really stellar world class sake brewery. And I remember talking with him, I, I wanted to learn how to make it. I didn't want to just academically learn about sake. You know, I already had it in my mind, Arkansas could be a place that,
that makes sake. So the, I talked to the president of that brewery on the phone, Mitobae san, and he said, yeah, can you, can you come in for an interview? And I thought, okay, do you mean come into Japan? Come into the country of Japan and then come to. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. They haven't built the bridge yet. So it's not. I can't
do the drive, but, but. So yeah, but you know, in my mind, I think in a way that was really almost shocking, but in another way, I think I knew exactly what he was asking for. This was a test. I thought it was a test. And I Still think it was a test to see how serious I was about it. Because back then it was extremely rare for a foreigner, and by foreigner I mean non Japanese person, to work at a sake brewery full time in Japan.
So. And you know, he didn't know me and he probably didn't know where Arkansas was or maybe he has ever heard of it. So the. I wasn't coming from like a big restaurant in New York or LA or San Francisco or coming from a famous winery. So the, you know, who is this guy? How serious is he? I think even if you did have that background, especially over 10 years ago, somebody would
still want to assess how serious they are. Because in Japan, you know, when someone makes a commitment to bring you in, they're kind of making a commitment to see your help, see your dream through. This is a cultural difference between Japan and America that I think Americans often don't understand. So there's an idea in Japan that they're very hesitant to, you
know, maybe start a business relationship or get into it. But I think, I think what Americans don't understand is from a Japanese perspective, when they say yes, they're saying yes to, to more than maybe you realize. So you're going to get extra tested for, you know, do they. Are you serious? And are you someone that they want to be involved with? So I flew to Japan, got that ticket as soon as I got to Tokyo Station. I'd been learning, you
know, some vocabulary and I thought, yeah, I'm. I feel like this is a classic dumb American thing. I didn't know what it really was like to learn a second language. So I thought, oh yeah, I'll learn some words. And then I don't know it somehow it's just gonna all pop together. And I knew I wouldn't be good at it. But when I got to Tokyo Station, I was lost. And a station attendant came up to me. Clearly
he could see just probably from the look on my face, I was lost. Said something to me probably along the lines of, hey, where are you trying to go in Japanese? And I got none of it didn't happen. And I knew in that moment, oh, crap, I really don't know any Japanese, you know, I can't speak it at all. And then proceed to get from there. It took a while, but I got from there to. Out to the country where this, this brewery was. And I think I
got maybe three, four hours of sleep. Got to the brewery the, the next morning. And when I sat down for the interview, I really think the President could tell from Our talking on the phone and our interactions that maybe. Maybe I couldn't really speak Japanese. And this is on me. I think I oversold what I could do with it. So the. That's an American thing to do, too. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Over. Yeah, right. Oversell. And then
was it fake it till you make it? These are. These are things that I've really come to loathe. But the. So I sit down for the interview, and this was the interview. He said, can you do this interview in Japanese? And I said, no, because I knew at that point there's no way it's happening. And then his response was, oh, then you can't work here. And that was the end of the interview, so. Oh, good. That was what, 30 seconds? Yeah, I feel like it would be hard for an interview to be shorter.
Yeah. So. And then his thing after. And of course that felt like a gut punch knocked the wind out of me. And. And then he said, oh, well, would you. You're here. Would you like a. A tour? And I was just like, oh, sure, okay, I'll take a tour. And so he's given me a tour. Yeah, I mean, that was like. It felt kind of heartbreaking, and I guess in the moment, you don't know how to respond to something like that. But the, you know, as we're doing the tour, I'm pointing out pieces of his
equipment. I'm saying, oh, this is. This is your fune press. You know, this is done for this and, you know, this piece of equipment. And he's like, oh, so you. You know how sake is made. And, you know, to me it was like, oh, finally I get to show. Demonstrate some level of skill and knowledge. I did. I, you know, I did have, you know, my first level certification in sake, and I'm a pretty good student. So, you know, he. I could see the gears kind of turning in his head.
And by the end of that, he said, look, you can't work here full time because my crew just doesn't speak English, so you have to speak Japanese or you really can't work together. And I think that was actually a very reasonable thing to say in a reasonable request. He said, but if you want to come back and train for two weeks, you can come back and train for two weeks. And in my mind, that was the door cracking open. And I said, okay, I'm going to take you up on that.
So, uh, I scheduled my advanced sake professional course, which was in Tokyo the next year, and I was the only person from my class where everybody said, hey, after this course, where are you going to go? My answer was I'm going to go train at a sake brewery for two weeks. And that was my first in. And then I got another even better in via a sake brewery called Nambu Bijin. And that was my real long term work. Two years at a sake brewery.
And, and that was thanks to Hot Springs sister city Hot springs where we're at right now. Really? The sister city of hot springs? Yeah. In Japan. In Japan, relationship through the mayor or the city council or you just. Wow, that's great. Yeah. I graduated from high school here, but I did not know about this sister city relationship. And it was actually on an alumni meetup after I came back from that two weeks of training, I was at an. I'll never
forget it. I was at an alumni meetup at an Irish pub in North Little Rock having probably a pint of Guinness. And someone said, hey Ben, you know, you've been to Japan, you like sake stuff. Did you know about this sister city relationship? And I said no. And they said, oh, it's a, it's a place called Hanamaki. And I started, of course I started looking it up on my phone and I see it's in Iwate
Prefecture. And I'm like, well, I know from my sake studies that Iwate is home of the, the Nanbu Toji Brewing Guild, which is the largest, most famous sake brewing guild in Japan. And then I thought, I wonder how far Hanomaki is from it. And, and I look up the guild and this is the craziest coincidence. The guild is in Hanomaki. The largest slackly brewing guild is in my high school town's sister city. How is this then? It was just, oh boy. Then I, I needed to, you know, talk via
those connections. And it was so man. Fortuitous is, is, you know, probably couldn't. Get out of that fast enough. Right. I'm like, you're like, you know, I. Got good on the phone. Yeah. So I, I called the head of the sister city relationship over here and you wouldn't believe it. When I talked to her on the phone, she said, you know, believe it or not, we've actually. They've been looking for someone on their side to come train and make sake
because of this, you know, this Nanbu Toji. Toji is a master sake brewer in Japanese. Because of this connection with the, with the brewing guild. And I thought I. Man, this just feels like the best, unbelievable, the best connection you could ever have. And I will say I think that they hooked me up with, among the non butoji, you know, breweries, maybe the best one. And it was. Changed my life, you know, two
years living in Japan. I learned Japanese. I got Japanese learning the hard way, you know, you know, immersion, full immersion. I think I got about three months of, you know, lessons before my work actually started. And then it was make sake six days a week. Seventh day, I was on the train for an hour to go do my Japanese lesson and rinse and repeat. That was my week.
And I will say, in addition to working through the brewery and working at every possible job you could have at the brewery, and they made sure that I got to work every possible job. In the summer, you usually don't brew sake so much because it's hot and you want cold, slow fermentation in your tanks. So in the summer I actually got a job for a few months working for the local farming co op, growing sake
rice. So I got to do everything from planting the seeds, growing that up, bringing that finished, you know, sake rice into the brewery and then the next season, you know, whole batch. So I really got, you know, this agricultural experience out of it as well. It was a deep, great experience. And then for us, for Origami here, that company, Nambu Bijin gave, has been giving us technical advice to
get our batches going. And even though we've only been selling sake for a year and a half, I think it's gotten us to a level of quality that normally it would take years or maybe even decades to get to if you didn't have advice like that. So they've been really instrumental in helping us do what we're doing here. I wonder if there's any other way. In other words, you already reflected on sort of the American mentality, the way we look at life, and, and
there, this is a difficult road to hoe. I've. I've learned a foreign language on my own because I fell in love with the, the culture. And if you don't do what you did, it makes a ton of sense. That would take 10, 15 years to figure this out. But you said, no, I'm going to three sheets to the wind. I'm just going to immerse myself. And so I'm just wondering, like, based on that comment, what.
And I always ask this question of vintners, like, do you think that a vintner who spends 20 years in the same vineyard is going to make a better wine from that vineyard than somebody that's worked all over the world? But being that in for 20 years, in 20 different vineyards.
But in Japan, because it's such a local, you know, I mean, seriously, I don't know how many different countries make sake, but clearly the world's major majority of the sake made in the world, this comes from Japan that's such a location sensitive product that if you didn't do that that you really, it would be almost a hobby at that point, like you didn't do what you did. It's just never more than a hobby. To do it at a high level to, to do it beyond, you know, glorified home
brews or mass production. The only way, I would say a little over 10 years ago or so to really learn the craft and learn it well, I think is to move to Japan and go train at a sake brewery. And for a native English speaker, that does mean you're going to learn, you know, top three or four hardest languages for an English speaker to learn. So I, you know, look, my Japanese isn't very good. So, you know, it's not like I, I wasn't like some kind of language savant and really just picked it
up. I think I was on the same learning curve that a lot of people would be in that position. And I think it takes, you know, I was there for two years. To me, I think you need at least four years of immersion like that to speak like the level of Japanese that I would want to. Although, as I'm sure you understand, once you really get into a language, you never feel like what you're doing is good enough. It could always be better, you could always be doing more. And I'm
not shy to use my Japanese, as poor as it might be. When I need to talk about what I need to talk about, usually I can get there. And if I'm talking to someone who speaks some English too, then we can meet each other halfway and really get through it. Now I will say I, I have a bit of a cheat code on that, which is I hired another sake brewer who also trained in Japan at the exact same time that that I was and he lived in Japan for the better part of 20 years. So his Japanese is immaculate
and he is now our head brewer. I am really, I'm more tasting, I'm more like quality control. I taste things and make sure that everything that's going out is on point and it's where it needs to be. I do not get my hands in brewing so so much anymore. I can give advice and I can help out on things, but the, yeah, now these days I'm more sales Now I'm back to sales where I started. You know, it's. It's more talking and both, I will say, a very strong added dimension of tasting.
And me and Justin, our head. Our head burner now. Justin Potts, who's from Seattle originally, um, we put our heads together a lot on what are we trying to make and, you know, where does it need to go? That was a brilliant move because in order for me to maintain my French and I. My father passed away, so he spoke French. So I can't speak with him. I have to speak with somebody else. It doesn't take a whole long time, particularly maybe after the
level you're at, to. To not forget, but just to have to re. You know, realign yourself when you do it. Now you've got a built in, you know, sort of tutor that Lee can have the conversation with. But I did want to say something. There's a book that I read early on called Flirting in French. It's about. It's an author who decided that he was going to immerse himself in the language and the. In the French culture. And he did everything. He did the
pen pals and he had, you know, he had masculine. He had a pink sticky on the feminine nouns and he had a blue sticky on the masculine nouns throughout the house, the wall, the floor, the cameras or whatever. And he said, I. The first thing I did, I went to a seminar. And this seminar was an academic seminar on language learning. And he said, the guy told us we would never, ever speak like an indigenous speaker. And I kind of
understand that, though he said it frustrated him and. And the story goes on. But I kind of understand that you. In order to think in that new language is the hardest part. You can speak, I can have a conversation. I can go to the Paris. I can do whatever I want. I can order food. I can. I can see how you're doing. I can go to the hotel. I can do all that. But to think it is different. Difficult, for sure. And honestly, I had thoughts along those lines of when I was going through the process,
am I thinking in Japanese? And, you know, the dreaming in Japanese actually started pretty fast. And I will tell you, I can't speak for everybody else. I did actually start thinking almost exclusively in Japanese within the first year of being there. But I will just add an element onto that. I purposefully avoided English speakers or people who wanted to speak to me in English. And so I wanted all of my surrounding environment and thoughts
to be in Japanese. And then I'll add on top of that when I was thinking and talking in Japanese, I had the grammar structure and vocabulary level of like a child. So the I'm thinking in Japanese, but it's not sophisticated stuff. The. And then sometimes, you know, I would hit upon a word that's like, ooh, I need to use this word. I can't get there in Japanese. And I'd switch back to English. Yeah. Maybe do some translation and, and do it. But in my head I wasn't translating from
English to Japanese. And it's still that way to me now. When I start to talk, I'm not even really thinking about it so much unless I'm getting to something that I have to work on. But the. And I, I do really enjoy that now. I think when it comes to true native level speech like you're talking about with, with French, the boy, there's nuances to that. Right. When you start to pick up like a regional accent and you know, from a place that you've never actually, you know, you know, really
lived at or you're not really from. Yeah. Right. There's nuances like that where I think it's, it would take so much work and you have to be really exceptional speaker to really smooth out all of your native accent. And for somebody to really just be listening to you and be like, I don't know, if I close my eyes, I think I'm talking to, you know, someone who's really like from this place. I can tell you Japan has some thick regional
dialects. So some people tell me that my regional, the region where I stayed actually does come out in the way that I talk. But it's not, not, not that they would mistake me for, for someone well, but that's from the area. I, I, I get thrilled when people ask me where I'm from. At least they know my accent's not an American French accent. That's, that's, that's like progress, right?
That's pretty good. Yes, absolutely. Well, we don't have a whole lot of time left, but I want to get, I wanted to get to the now the domestication of sake and how you, you know, when you came back from this, obviously at this point you decided probably while you're in Japan that this was going to be a career you wanted and coming to America. I'm just wondering if the logistics of starting a sake
house in Arkansas, no less. I'm thinking maybe it'd be easier in California or New York because of the availability of equipment, et cetera. But what would surprise you, the headwinds you encountered when you came back to Arkansas and said, okay, there's rice here, but now what do I do? Okay, so this is such a good question. And I'm really just gonna. I think I can just kind of bang off each one of these, so biggest
hurdles. And I know these so well because they're. They've been, you know, every part of doing all of this continues to this day. Equipment difficult, but I will say it's not any easier in any part of the US Some equipment, especially made in Japan for sake, and you're going to have to get it from Japan or maybe try to get it fabbed in another country or have it
fabbed here. Those are really your only options. And it's kind of the same no matter where you are in the US there's specifically some pieces of equipment for making sake, where, if you get it from Japan, it's probably going to be the best version of that equipment. And really made for sake. It's also going to be the most expensive, and the lead time can be pretty high. You just got to make this. This choice. So equipment, yes, absolutely. I'm going to add on top of that,
skilled labor. How you heard how much it took for me to go train in Japan. How hard do you think it might be to hire other people who have experience making Japanese or, sorry, making sake? It's hard. It's very hard. So usually people in the sake industry, higher from the beer industry, it could be winemaking. I would say around here it's going to be more beer. And, you know, look, as long as you know how to clean the heck out of a commercial facility,
well, that's half the job anyways. So the other stuff you can. You can learn. But if you can clean a big stainless steel tank, this is a good start. So the. Now some things do translate, like packaging, bottling, caning. This is really going to be the easiest skill set to translate, but yeah. So equipment, labor. Let's mention that this is starting a business. So all of
the business, you know, issues and problems still apply. You know, you can call me talent if you will, but you got to find a business partner. You got to find somebody who really knows the mechanics of business, can finance or get the company financed. And I will tell you, that part was so hard for me, I actually kind of gave up for a while, or at least I put it on hold. I tried for two years after I got back from Japan in 2016 to get a company going, and
I never found the right person. I did meet someone during that time, who ended up becoming the right person. But I actually kind of gave up on that for a while, and I ended up moving to New York and working for the wine and spirits and sake importer Skernik Wines. And I worked there for three years and then came back. And thankfully, Matt Bell, who's the CEO now, who did finance the company, we met at a bar and talked, and he never forgot this
idea. And after I moved to New York, I remember I got a phone call from him that said, I want you to move back to Arkansas and start this sake brewery. And my prompt response was, no, thank you. I have a good job in New York selling sake now. It's paid the bills. Way to go, Ben. Yeah. Yeah, right. Well, you can see I didn't stick with that. So the. No, he. He was serious. I. I didn't know him that well, and I didn't know how serious he was. But the building that I'm talking to you from, without
me even saying yes to it, he bought this building. He was like, hook me up with somebody who can make sake. So I started doing that, and I came back to visit. And while I was back here in Arkansas visiting, he said, hey, do you want to go see the building? And I'm like, sure. So I come, I look at this building. It was in rough shape back then, but it had the bones for a good sake brewery. And I'm looking at it, I'm like, yeah, I could do it. And then
I felt that feeling come back, and it was so funny. On the. We get into his car. We're heading back from Hot Springs to Little Rocks about an hour drive. And on the drive back, he just turns to me and he says, okay, so when are you moving back and joining me? Now, but dang it, I am going to do it. So, yep, just gave my notice. That didn't take a whole lot. Yeah, I guess not. I don't know. Of course, it was my. My life dream. So, you know, it's
somebody just holding it on a plate for me. And look, it's been a. It's been a hard road. It continues to be a very difficult exercise. But honestly, even being able to talk with you, talk with other folks, get the word out about sake generally and what we're doing in Arkansas, this feels to me like the dream being realized. And, you know, we've got some accolades on. On top of that, we are Junmai Daiginjo. Our top level sake just won a gold medal at the Tokyo Sake
Challenge. So we went back To o home country. Got some, got some hardware, our thousand. First of all, let me stop you there. So they allow first of all foreign entries, which is really interesting. Let me give you. Yeah, let me give you an exception to that. So we did win it in the international category. I see. So that is absolutely. Yeah, look, I'll put some, like some details on that. The some. So the other sakes that won gold medals were actually still made in Japan at very good craft
sake breweries. But they were international collaborations actually, all with a champagne maker, chef de cob, you know, like a head blender from one of the big champagne houses. So in my mind, hey, I know it's the international category, so not yet are we going head to head with, you know, some of the best sake breweries, you know, straight up in Japan. I do think that time is coming and there's some other competitions that probably I'm just not
thinking about and you can do that. But the still those sake breweries, it was very famous sake brewery names in Japan with like, you know, big head of champagne, you know, maker, you know, like blending skill on top of that. So I'll take that, I'll take, I'll, I'll take a gold medal. Yeah, that's a phenomenal accomplishment if you think about it. You know, think about in the wine world the amount of years and, and level of understanding and processing and you know, vintage to vintage to learn
enough to be able to topple. You know, people have been doing that for a long time. That's really quite interesting. So what were the number one then? Headwinds. Once you've produced this first bottle and you've, you've taken to the street and we'll wrap up with the Saba. What were the, what were the either surprises that, that you saw in the marketplace when you went out to sell your first bottles or was it easier than you thought? Boy, the. It's, yeah, nothing. Well,
here's short news. Nothing's easier than, than I thought it was going to be. It's, it was a challenge. All of it's a challenge. The now I will say the response generally when we pour our sake we usually get a great response of I, you know, maybe I've. A lot of Americans have had sake before, but it's kind of cheap mass produced stuff. The general response, if they can taste it and this is an important detail is wow, I didn't know sake could
taste like this. And now they're considering, you know, having sake on a more regular basis and then, you know, from there we get into food pairing and I love getting people out of the traditional Japanese food pairings or let's say East Asian food pairings and give people the good news that sake can pair with any food in the world. It's super versatile for pairing with foods. So it's actually, I would say easier as a category to pair with food
than wine is. You just don't need to have all the kind of rules and guidance that you have with wine. So that has been really good. But you, you do have to create those opportunities for people to taste or those opportunities for education to happen. And to me that is part of, I view that as still part of the, you know, mechanics of sales. And it just, it, you just gotta, you still have to do that footwork. Yeah, I
think, I think at that point you just, you're now in the mix. It doesn't matter where you're selling beer, liquor or wine, you are now part of that process. And the three tier process in America is a pain. And telling the story, I mean, it's all about the story. You said something interesting though, that, that I, that I reflected on a conversation with Clovis Tate and early on in, in this podcast, actually it was about the idea that champagne was always
pigeonholed into the celebration wine. And he said you should be drinking, you know, it every day like this should be part of your, your regiment. And I, it is part of our regimen at home to have champagne whenever we feel like it. Is that an issue with sake that, that everybody thinks it's just a Japanese beverage and that's your first line of, of objection is like, well, you know, I don't, we don't eat that much Japanese food, so why would I drink? Yeah,
it's, it's okay. So you know, when you're talking about, you know, like special occasion, this is, you know, it's an occasion, you know, related beverage. In sake, the occasion often is just being at a sushi place. Right, right. So it's not even. People aren't really cooking that much, you know, Japanese food at home. No, the. So it really is, has been really tied more to going out and you
know, having sushi and stuff like that. I would say top two, top three, you know, points that we are sort of pushing is absolutely not. You know, I remember selling champagne and hearing similar talking points about champagne can be for any time, bubbles can be for any time. And it's a very versatile food pairing to I. It's in my top three food pairing beverages. A good bottle of bubbles. So I was, I was absolutely one of those guys who said, you can have champagne anytime now for real
good French champagne, just because of price. Usually my response is if somebody would be happy to provide me with champagne so I could drink it anytime, then, yeah, I'll let that. I'll let that rate. But. But, yeah, no, definitely. We don't have a lot of Japanese, you know, restaurants in the area. We're lucky to have a few, you know, very good ones. Particularly there's one in Little Rock that has been fantastic for us. The people, you know, like I said, Arkansans have generally Southern
food. And, you know, if it's, if it. Sometimes it's Cajun specifically. These are literally my favorite pairings with sake. And I want to get people to drink sake with the food that they're having kind of wherever they are. And like I said, it's. It's very easy to pair sake with different ranges of foods. The same sake, the very same sake can hit light foods, medium intensity foods, even
heavier foods. And because it has low tart acidity and higher, let's say, umami slash savory as the base, you get this like, with, like, pairing with the savory. And less tart acidity means less stuff that can fight with different kinds of food. So this is part of the mechanics of why sake is so easy to pair. It's a. It's a huge part of it. And I really feel like when as that work is happening, sake will just grow and grow. And I do think the end game for
craft sake is to take its place as one of the. The real great categories, along with wine, beer, and spirits. And I know that's very ambitious thing to say, but I, I've worked with all those categories. I do really believe sake has got what it takes to do it.
Well, we're going to leave it at that. And I think the, the final analysis on your story, which is fascinating, is Calvin Coolidge's final comment, which is one of his comments was persistence is omnipotent, and that none of this would happen without your tenacity and desire and passion. And nothing will happen in the future without that same tenacity and passion to do it. And it does take passion. And I've, I think every podcast I've ever done with anybody in the
wine and liquor business says that it's. That if you don't have the passion and a philosophy that surrounds that passion, it's just another job. And you can't. It. It doesn't work that way here, just another job is not a successful methodology. So. Fascinating conversation. I hope I can do it again because I'd like to check in in a year or two and see how things are going and what new headwinds you encountered and how you overcame them. Absolutely. Yeah, I'd
be very happy to do that. I do think we'll have some interesting things to say in a. In a year or so. And maybe I haven't been to Arkansas for, who knows, forever, but. Yeah, certainly try to swing into the plant when it happens. Yeah. Come visit Hot Springs. It's a beautiful resort town. People are always surprised when they come here. It's a nice city. And then there's always interesting stuff to show at the brewery. So. Yes. Thanks again. Cheers. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Paul.