This is a podcast to chronicle my journey into the world of sake and other Japanese drinks, food, culture and history. While I have a sake qualification (International Kikisake-shi), I still consider myself as a novice in the sake world. I have plenty to learn about the drink and I want to share this experience with my listeners through personal accounts, interesting facts about sake and interviews with sake experts.
The new season of Sugidama Sake Podcast is out and I am releasing the first episode on Saturday! This is the start of a mini-series "How to Enjoy Sake". After talking to a lot of people who don't drink sake I have realised that very often the reason is that they believe that sake has some special rules for buying, drinking and enjoying it and they don't know them.
Don't forget Sake & Pintxos Discovery Night! The tickets are still available, see the bottom of the post!
in the conclusion of the Sake Around the World miniseries, I am talking with Jamie Ryder, the publisher of the fantastic Yamato Magazine, about the sake scene in Manchester.
This is the last episode of the Brewery Focus miniseries for the season talking to Nao san and Hiro san from Japan Centre about the Kuheiji sake brewery and its fantastic sake.
We continue our journey around the world to find out how sake fares in different countries. And today I am talking to Tony Yip from VSF Wine Education about France.
A new English-language book about sake is always big news. They do not come that often. And this time we are treated by Discovering Yamaguchi Sake by Jim Rion. You should know Jim very well. He's a sake writer, translator and co-host of the fantastic Sake Deep Dive podcast together with Andrew Russell. In this episode, we are talking with Jim about his amazing book. I've read it already, and it was a joy to read.
In this episode, I am talking to Elena and Laury from Sake Collective about Niida Honke, which has been brewing sake in Fukushima Prefecture for more than 300 years. The name of the brewery's flagship brand, Shizenshu, means “natural sake". Niida Honke uses only organic rice, fresh water from the local spring, and natural yeast from its own brewery. They even use frogs on their own rice paddies to get rid of harmful insects.
A new episode of the Sugidama podcast is about the sake scene in Hong Kong with Eric Fung from Flavour of Life, a sake importer and retailer and Will Jarvis from Sake Matters, a consulting business, both are based in Hong Kong.
If you have ever watched The Birth of Sake documentary, you definitely know Tedorigawa sake made by Yoshida Brewery in Ishikawa prefecture. So we sat down with Asami Tasaka and Masayo Nuttall from World Sake Imports UK to talk about the brewery and try three of their excellent sake.