Hard times

As you’ll have seen in this newsletter and many other places last year, the extreme summer heat in Japan made a lot of rice harder and less soluble than usual. Instagram is currently full of breweries and farmers planting out rice seedlings, and you have to...

Annual Japan Sake Awards 2024

Annual Japan Sake Awards (official title), National New Sake Appraisal, zenkoku shinshu kanpyōkai (全国新酒鑑評会), whatever you call it, the results are out! Currently held jointly by the Japan Sake and Shōchū Makers Association (JSS) and the National Research Institute of...

Noto Peninsula earthquake update

As the dust starts to settle (metaphorically and in a very real sense) after the New Year’s Day earthquake on the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, more details are emerging about the extent of damage to sake breweries on the peninsula and in the...

Sake funding draws the crowds

Japanese crowdfunding site CAMPFIRE has seen a few sake-related projects. More than a few. Actually, enough to warrant their own event. For March 2023, sake crowdfunding will have its own special event on the site, called Nihonshu Matsuri (日本酒祭り, Sake Festival). As...