Blog

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 250 members throughout the country. Join today! Organic, biodynamic, slow, and natural – these are buzzwords that are often used when talking about farming or wine. But how do we talk about these methods in sake-making? I've always...

And here we are, the end of 2021, a year that we can now accurately call purgatory. If you've read Dante, you'll know that hell can be much more jubilant and inspired. But we made the most of it, in our little corner of Oakland, and we're happy to...

This post is in conjunction with the Sake Gumi December 2021 theme Winter Food Traditions. Sake Gumi is Umami Mart's monthly club celebrating Japan's brewed beverage! Join today to try all three recipes with our club offerings. Although we can not visit Japan again this year...

This post is in conjunction with the Sake Gumi December 2021 theme Winter Food Traditions. Sake Gumi is Umami Mart's monthly club celebrating Japan's brewed beverage! Join today to try all three recipes with our club offerings. Although we can not visit Japan again this year...

This post is in conjunction with the Sake Gumi December 2021 theme Winter Food Traditions. Sake Gumi is Umami Mart's monthly club celebrating Japan's brewed beverage! Join today to try all three recipes with our club offerings. Although we can not visit Japan again this...

The pandemic made it clear how much we craved the retail experience. There's nothing like walking into a shop, being greeted by the shopkeep, and taking in all the offerings with your own eyes and hands. It's a feast for the senses that no online outlet can...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 250 members throughout the country. Join today! As the bears start getting ready for hibernation, the bees hunker down in their hives to stock up on their stored honey, we start hanging up our hoshigaki and...

We’re celebrating two years of Shochu Gumi this month! Thank you members for all your support of our little club, now with nearly 70 members nationwide. This is an exciting drop for Shochu Gumi, as it’s the first time we’re featuring bottles that are not the...

What better way to kick off the holidays than an intimate cocktail party at our bar? We were jazzed to partner with our favorite bar man Chris Lane, currently the Spirits Specialist for Skurnik Wines West, to bring on a night of cocktails made with Iwai...

Ian here, and Happy Shochu'sday! 久しぶりですね。 Thanks everyone who's been coming to keep us company at our bar! It's been awesome seeing familiar faces and some new regulars coming in to learn about and enjoy shochu. This post has been a long time coming, as I finally...

Every year, when I see the hachiya persimmons fruiting on neighbors trees I think to myself, "I should learn how to make hoshigaki." But as soon as I think this, Kayoko and I are already in the throes of the holiday season: building gift sets, receiving a ton of...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 250 members throughout the country. Join today! This month we bring in exclusive bottles from your favorite brewers! These are sakes from breweries that are consistently best-sellers at Umami Mart since we started selling sake in...

Happy Shochu’sday and International Shochu Day!Greetings from Yosemite Valley, where it snowed for the first time this season, which means cozying up to the huge fireplace with a book and some imo shochu. Today I drink Yamaneko by @kurokihonten_osuzuyama , a shochu I’m proud...

This recipe is for our event Umamimosas with Anders Arhoj x Umami Mart: 10 Years of Friendship on Nov 13th. Buy the Umamimosa Pack, RSVP to the event, and make the drink. See you at the event! We're making Umamimosa cocktails for our Zoom...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 250 members throughout the country. Join today! Who doesn’t love bubbles? For the little ones, there are bubble baths, root beer floats, and gleefully blowing and chasing bubbles in the park. For us adults, bubbles are...

Happy Shochu'sday!To get amped for our event tomorrow night with Akita Seishu Brewery, I want to highlight the little known category of kasutori shochu for this segment of Shochu'sday. I featured kasutori shochu for our latest Shochu Gumi selections – one bottle is by Akita...

It's been several years now, since we first met Mayuko Kita of Kita Shuzo in Shiga, Japan. I first saw her at a sake show in San Francisco, it must have been in 2016, at the Toto Washlet showroom of all places. From there, we met her...

Happy Shochu'sday!There's nothing like a janky meal lazily slapped together that calls for an upscale drink, am I right?! A fancy cocktail or a fine wine can effortlessly turn a drab Monday into a jazzy Friday night. Case in point on a recent evening where...

Kurabito (worker) at the Akita Seishu Brewery Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 250 members throughout the country. Join today! This month, Kayoko and I are collaborating on the theme for Sake and Shochu Gumi, highlighting shuzo (alcohol makers) who make...

Happy Shochu'sday!  Before the pandemic began, our bar in the back of the shop was a groovy little spot where you could relax and enjoy a variety of sake and the best shochu we have to offer stateside. While our shochu catalog has grown since then to an array of...