Blog

Yakitori + Sake Party in Kayoko's Backyard 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...

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...

Happy Shochu'sday!To get us all in the mood for our upcoming Awamori Bazaar event with our friend Nick Korn on July 21, we are featuring Taragawa Awamori this week. Clocking in at 44% ABV, Taragawa is a robust awamori with notes...

Hello friends! It's been another long week, thus Shochu'sday is upon us. How the time does fly. This week's shochu, Shiroyutaka Hozan, comes to us from Kagoshima's Nishi Shuzo, a distillery well-known to our customers with offerings like Tomino Hozan and Tenshi no Yuwaku....

Gins from Japan are all the rage at the moment, within the country and abroad. We've lined up a stellar collection of some special gins and are so excited to announce our second Zoom cocktail event, Summer of Japanese Gin, with our great friend Chris Lane,...

Happy Shochu'sday!The other day a customer asked me, "Where's the first place you're gonna go on a plane?" I hesitated for a second because I'm not ready to deal with the airport quite yet – I used to travel a lot to quell my wanderlust,...

All hail the captain! This is an mind-blowing bottle that we are just starting to explore after having it on our shelves since the holidays. Aged for 10 years in oak barrels, this genshu (cask strength), 100% barley shochu is limited to only 20,000 bottles a year....

Join us June 24, 2021 at 5:30pm on Zoom! Pairing Sake + Cheese with Kevin Corcoran CCP Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 250 members throughout the country. Join today! This is our sixth annual Sakqueso! I look forward to this theme...

Umami Mart seeks a friendly, smart, and take-charge Shop Keeper. We are a small retail shop specializing in Japanese sake + spirits, barware, glassware, and homewares. This position will be at our shop located in Oakland, California and will be for 20 hours per...

Welcome to our first Awamori Bazaar! This summer, the awamori will flow through Umami Mart with special events, recipes, and spotlights on our favorite bottles of Okinawa’s beloved beverage. I’m excited to feature two distinctive bottles for this month’s selections that demonstrate the range,...

A heartfelt Shochu'sday greeting to you and yours. Ian here! I'm a Certified Shochu Advisor with Sake School of America, and Kayoko's resident shochu nephew here at Umami Mart. I assist Kayoko in keeping our shochu selections current and snazzy and spend a lot of time looking at shochus on...

Good evening, everyone! It's been a lot of fun having the store open and seeing everyone's faces (or the top third-portion) in person for the first time in a long time. I love getting to make recommendations and seeing what you are all excited about eating and drinking; it...

In honor of the awesome event we are hosting this Thursday with @stgeorgespirits , I want to focus on their California Shochu. It's a kasutori shochu made in Alameda, CA! This means that they distill sake kasu (lees) for the shochu – here, they...

This is one of my favorites on our shelves – Kintaro Barley Shochu is made with roasted barley so it's super nutty and chocolatey. I get a strong kurogoma (black sesame) note. Nishiyoshida is a beloved distillery in Fukuoka, that has been around since 1893....

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 250 members throughout the country. Join today! As a bartender for several years, the most common response when I would ask, “What kind of wine would you like?” would indubitably be, “Something dry.” We get this at our...

Happy Shochu'sday!This is a very special shochu by Kagoshima's Komaki Jozo that just hit our shelves. Beni Ikko Sweet Potato Shochu uses 100% imo! This means they inoculated the koji onto the imo, not rice, as they usually do for imo shochus. This creates...