Photos by Kelly Ishikawa It's been 10 years since Yoko and I went to Japan for the Open Harvest project. We spent three jam-packed weeks with our pals from Ramen Shop, Rintaro, Kronner Burger, and The Perish Trust, visiting farms, markets, wineries,...
As soon as we got our beer and wine license in 2015, we stocked our shelves with Ichinokura's Mukansa, one of the first dry sakes to hit the sake market in Japan - back in the 1970s. It remains an Umami Mart staff...
Orizake has always intrigued me. Ori, in Japanese, means bottom or lower. In the context of sake, orizake is a style of sake that incorporates the rice particles that settle at the bottom of the tank while aging. The first time I encountered...
Tomita Brewery is a sake brewery on the northern tip of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. They make Shichi Hon Yari sakes, which this month, is featured as part of Sake Gumi. We also always have their junmai on our...
The first time we met Mayuko Kita, of Kita Sake Brewery, was in Fremont at a sake trade show. An uninspiring setting (sorry Fremont trade shows) for such an inspiring person we would meet. This sake trade show was like...
Last year, my husband Johnny and I took his mom on her first trip to Japan. We had been talking about it for years and we were finally able to make it happen! When planning for the trip, we thought about going on the usual tour of Tokyo-Osaka-Kyoto, but I wanted...
Order a bottle of Den Sake today! I met Yoshihiro Sako back in 2014 for the first time when I dined at Yuzuki in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco, where he was the Sake Sommelier in the early to mid 2010s. Even back...
My love for sake can be traced back to a winter night in 2006 when I had my first sip of Shinkame junmai. After that night, I was hooked. Shinkame had revealed to me the potential for sake that I had never known. I wanted to...
We visited Kitaya Brewery in Kyushu, Japan, where we met the brewers, workers, and got a tour of the sake-making facilities.
The makers of beloved Japanese Hitachino craft beer (Kiuchi Brewery) will distill whisky next!
It was our true pleasure to visit the Hitachino Brewery in Japan last week where Hitachino Nest is brewed.
We visited Oregon sake brewery, Sake One. Operating since 1998, Sake One produces all Momokawa sakes.
Sake is one of those things that really makes you appreciate locality. It's like the meyer lemons in Berkeley. It's totally cliche and played out, but local food traditions are a sight to behold. The fact that they are native to their land, makes...
In 2011, we visited Hakkaisan, a sake brewery in Niigata. As one of the most well-known breweries in Japan, it was a wonderful experience to walk through the vast facilities, hosted by the production master, Mr. Nagumo. You can read about our visit here. Yoko and...
During our visit to Aoki Brewery in Niigata, we were told that the three most important factors of brewing sake is the rice, the water and the people. The rice that breweries use for sake-making are not the usual grains you find at the grocery...
Kayoko and I go to Niigata every February. Our friends in Tokyo gasp in horror, "Why would you go somewhere so cold? In the middle of February?" The reason is kind of simple: it's low season and getting around is cheap and less crowded. And...
Our Japan trip last month was a jam-packed, 5-city tour with barware factory tours, sake brewery pit-stops and a visit to a craft brewery! Niigata Beer has been around for 17 years now, brewing beers for the local market, and also making beers for other...
I recently spent a month visiting my family in Tokyo. I had so many great meals, went to an onsen (hot springs), a winery, and paid my respects to my family's gravesite. Many places to visit. I also had an opportunity to meet my new Instagram friend,...
Going on a mezcal tasting was very high on my list of things to do in Oaxaca. I was introduced to mezcal last year at the San Francisco pizzeria Beretta, when I told the bartender to make me whatever he...
Photos by Mike Brandeberry and Kayoko Akabori. 'Tis true: there lives a kickass distillery named St. George Spirits, just east of San Francisco, right across the Bay Bridge, in a little town that bleeds into Oakland, called Alameda,...
