Blog

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...

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...

Hey all! Ian here.  On behalf of the Umami Mart team, I want to thank everybody who came out to our Honkaku Spirits event on the 29th. It was our first time doing an in-person event after essentially a year and a half of curbside bentos,...

  Happy Shochu'sday!We had incredible shochu times last week with @honkakuspirits founder and Japanese drinks expert @christopherpellegrini in the house for our first in-person bar event since the start of the pandemic! Not to mention our first spirits tasting at our bar!!!! Thank...

It was only a matter of time for Yoko and me to collaborate on a Shochu/Sake Gumi mash-up theme. For September, we are excited to present shuzo (alcohol makers) that make shochu and sake. So you’ll see bottles by Kitaya and Akita Seishu Brewery in both Sake and Shochu Gumi...

  Happy Shochu'sday everyone! The lovely people at Umami Mart have been kind enough to let me take the reins this week, so I thought I'd share a sweet potato shochu that I enjoyed at an izakaya in Kagoshima recently. Kamo Kagura is a...

Safe! We made it to another Shochu'sday. It's my privilege this week to talk about Colorful, a new imo shochu to hit the shelves at Umami Mart, and one I've been really taking my time in getting to know. This is a blended shochu comprising of...

It all happened organically, like all things do here at Umami Mart. The other day, Charles Chen, of the wildly popular Basuku Cheesecakes walked in to get some tea from our shop. He was dialing in a new hojicha flavor for a new, seasonal cheesecake. After chatting and catching...

Happy Shochu'sday!I'm still riding our birthday wave over here, and with our Anniversary Sale having just ended, I really need a drink!Today I highlight the very special Sennen No Nemuri, barrel aged in oak for several years. I enjoyed this genshu (tank strength)...

Grilling season is here! And in our 15 years of blogging on Umami Mart dot com (formerly umamimart.blogspot.com), we have never had a how-to for making yakitori at home. That's hard to believe considering how easy it actually is. But it is a lot of prep, so...

To celebrate our 9th anniversary, I wanted to kanpai with y'all with a special bottle. Washi, our dear friend and co-owner of @sobaichi_oakland , recently visited Japan and brought us back a bottle of the very lush and delightful @yamatozakura sweet potato shochu.Yamatozakura is...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 250 members throughout the country. Join today! It's the summertime, and I always look forward to having grilled foods this time of year. From St. Louis BBQ to yakitori draped in tare (sweet and...

Happy Shochu'sday!We've recently received a shipment of Selephant Kokuto Shochu, imported by our friends Stephen and Christopher of @honkaku.spirits and @japandistilled . This is truly a special kokuto shochu which we can't get enough of here. It is such a rad expression...

Happy Shochu'sday!I've saved the best for last for the finale of this awamori marathon we have been running this past month, to highlight our Awamori Bazaar event tonight with Nick Korn. Zuisen Hakuryu Awamori (featured in March 2020 for Shochu Gumi) is...

Happy Shochu'sday! We made it. As we are featuring groovy, rich, and exciting awamoris all month, it was my pleasure to get to sit down with Sakura Yamakawa, an exquisite and very limited offering from Yamakawa Shuzo in Okinawa. This delicacy of an awamori is a...

Sunset in Karatsu, Saga Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 250 members throughout the country. Join today! The last time I went to Saga was in 2016. There was a lot happening in my life and it was the perfect place to...

Happy Shochu'sday!We're featuring awamori here all month to get us ready for the Awamori Bazaar event with our friend Nick Korn on July 21st. It’s going to be super educational and fun, we hope you can all make it!This week I had a cup of...