This month we are featuring Female Frontrunners of Sake. These are women who either own or act as the toji (head brewmaster) of their brewery. One of our favorite toji is Miho Imada of Imada Shuzo. She makes the staff favorite sake...
Before we sold alcohol at Umami Mart, we had a pretty extensive shrub collection. After we started to see more shrub lineups at other stores, we decided to pare down our shrub offerings – I still love shrub and consume it often. I crave the tartness of the...
This month for Sake Gumi, I'm featuring four women in the sake world. As usual, you can find the notes to the club sakes here. In the process of writing this month's notes, I interviewed four of the women who either own the brewery, are...
Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with over 200 members throughout the US. Join today! In a time when nothing seems to be moving forward and we can’t see into the future, I’m pleased to feature four breweries with innovative women...
Many of you know that my father Kuni is a chef. Classically trained in Tokyo, he worked in several Japanese restaurants in Los Angeles and the Bay Area before opening his own, Sushi Kuni, in 1994. There, my father made the sushi and my mom Hideko...
Lately, amazake (sweet non-alcoholic sake) has been on our minds. It all started on March 1, when we celebrated Girl's Day at Umami Mart and Den Sake was kind enough to make us a batch of amazake for the second year in a...
Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout California. Join today! This month, I wanted to explore sakes made with rice that hasn't been super polished. These are sakes that go against the grain (get it?), that are moving away...
If you are stuck in a home with no rice cooker, or are caring for a loved one who doesn't have one, I hope this how-to will help you rice-lovers to cope with your rice-related anxieties. I learned how to make rice on...
A few years ago, Yoko treated me to a tea ceremony course in Tokyo for my birthday. It was such a special, memorable experience! Tucked back into the bustling city streets of western Tokyo, we walked to the Akasaka Hikawa Shrine, where they take in about two dozen people, twice...
What a crazy roller coaster ride these last few weeks have been. And it ain't over yet, folks, so strap in. Most of us now, across the globe, are advised to stay put. And we don't know what to do with ourselves. Our daily routines have gone...
Hot on the heels of Sake Gumi Nama month, we're excited to announce that West Oakland's Soba Ichi has debuted nama (fresh), hand-cut noodles to take home enjoy in the comfort of your own home. This is what you get in the two portion...
Sake Talk was our first class on sake at our new space. We wanted to create a 3-D version of the sake part of the zine, Sake + Shochu Talk, in seminar form. During this course, we touched on sake types, koji, and serving temperature....
Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout California. Join today! Nama sakes, or namazake, are unpasteurized sakes. Before we dive deeper into namazakes, let's talk about how and why most sakes are pasteurized. Typically, sakes are pasteurized twice, once after...
The Hinamatsuri (Girl's Day) celebration was very special this year because it was the first time we threw the event in our new space and it was the first Hinamatsuri for Kayoko's daughter, Mion! This is one of...
Shochu Gumi is our quarterly shochu subscription service with members throughout the US. Join today! Rice is the heart of Japan’s cultural pride and agriculture. It accompanies most meals in Japan, and has signified opulence in the country’s long history. It was most certainly the...
Louis Anderman, founder of Miracle Mile Bitters, used to make Celery Bitters in very limited quantities only. We love his rendition of these bitters, savory and earthy, and have been begging him for years to make this a part of his regular line-up. And it's finally here! Made with celery...
We celebrated muroka sakes in January. So what does muroka mean? Muroka is comprised of the following kanji characters, 無 (mu): nothing; 濾過 (roka): filtering, referring to sakes that have not gone through charcoal filtering. You can read more about muroka here,...
Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout California. Join today! My goal for this month is to show you that there’s more to nigori than sweet, syrupy sake in pink bottles. The bottles this month are all made by...
Most of you know Yoko – our fearless leader and beekeeper! Inspired by our Umamiventure to a beehive in Oakland in 2012, she has been beekeeping for several years now. I've watched her journey as a beekeeper since she began: starting off modestly in her backyard...
In celebration of Yoko's most recent honey harvest, I've come up with a simple recipe for the iconic cocktail, Bee's Knees, but with a Japanese twist of course. So we'll call it Hachee's Knees! In Japanese, hachi means bee – I can't take credit for the clever...
