Interview: Henry Thorogood

Henry Thorogood

I didn’t find sake immediately after coming out of university, initially I worked in the investment world as an analyst which let me travel a lot, especially to Japan. That gave me an introduction to Asian and Japanese culture (including Japanese drinking culture) but I was already interested in wine and studied the WSET Level 2 and 3 wine courses as a break from work. After leaving that job I took some time off, took the Level 3 in sake, and was introduced to sake brewers through friends in wine circles. I then tied it all together with a degree in Japanese Studies, where I basically just wrote about food! My major was Management so my dissertation was on management practices in Japanese breweries, interviewing female employees.

Q: How did you then end up specialising in judging and education?

Henry: Judging is something I find really stimulating. Firstly, you get to see so many sakes – of course it’s all blind, but you get to taste so much, and I really believe you can only get better by practicing. And we don’t get to taste that much sake, no matter how hard you try you don’t get all the sake in the UK. So it’s an opportunity to taste a few hundred sake in one go, and yes it’s hard work but you see so much when judging.

I think it’s important for myself, if I’m being serious and honest. Turning it down would be losing a big opportunity to improve my tasting ability. And judging is also a chance to pick out trends, at least from the limited set of sake you try. It’s not perfect data but there is no perfect data so it’s the best you can do for spotting trends.

Q: How long have you been judging at IWC?

Henry: This (2024) was my fifth run, I joined during COVID. (*1)

Q: What changes have you seen during those five years?

Henry: Obviously the first couple of years were COVID judging, we were three, sometimes four or five judges to a panel and in separate rooms, we didn’t meet the others. So it was quite lonely in a way, but you got to know your panel really well. There were fewer people around so it felt easier for one person to dominate the conversation, and discussions were more intense. But the quality of judging was still very good. You had to spend more time thinking about what you were going to say, compared to the more free-flowing discussions if everyone is together around the tables and moving around.

There were also few Japanese judges during that time, as they couldn’t travel, so the question of Japanese palate versus Western palate was removed a little bit. But I don’t think that was visible in the final results, as they’re moderated by the chairs. The judging is more fun now there are more people, and more people from different places. The competition is getting more international as well, more people from Asian countries, more people not from the UK. And the competition itself is evolving as well in terms of the sakes that are coming in, with new categories coming in. Even over the five years I’ve been judging, sparkling sake has come on hugely in terms of quality for both the injected styles and the bottle fermented styles.

Then there’s the breakout of koshu and aged sake, and there’s nothing new there, we’ve had these low-matured sakes for a long time. (*2) But there’s so many of them now, and in terms of characteristics they’re so different from a koshu. But it’s interesting that this is happening, that the category needed to be created because they’re getting so many entries, when before it was all judged under koshu.

Q: Do you see any other new categories that might be created?

Henry: I’m still wondering what will happen with junmai. It’s such a problematic category because it’s so wide. When you get a flight you have to ask yourself what kind of junmai is it. You could try breaking it down by yeast, acidity and sugar content, if you have nothing else to go on. Or quite subtle, quiet junmai versus more in-your-face ones. The quiet ones really get blown to bits by the louder ones, it’s not fair. You really want to give everything a chance. So it’s quite challenging.

I wonder if there will be a “wild card” category for very unusual sake, maybe where the brewer has put very little information on the label. I’d love to see it, even though I don’t know how you would judge it! It would be for sake that brewers otherwise wouldn’t submit because they’re too far away from their “style”.

Q: Could you break down the junmai category by rice variety?

Henry: That would make sense if it was for example Yamada Nishiki versus Omachi. But beyond that there are so many rice varieties, it breaks down very quickly. It’s not a bad way, it’s better than nothing, but I’d prioritise other things as there’s so much that can be done at the brewery to control what sake you’re getting. I don’t think there is a good answer right now, that is the challenge of the junmai category.

Q: Does it get a lot of entries?

Henry: It does, although not as many as say junmai daiginjo.

Q: How did you meet the Shimizu family and become involved with Zaku?

Henry: Through wine, friends I met at a wine dinner encouraged me to taste sake. I loved it and made a mental note to go back to it again later, which I did with the WSET course. Then the same friends were at another wine party where they introduced me directly to the Shimizus who told me to keep in touch. I did, and asked to visit them the next time I was in Japan, at a time I spoke only a few words of Japanese. So we started off as friends and from that a professional relationship gradually developed. I count myself very lucky as not all breweries have such an open outlook as to hire someone who’s not fluent in Japanese to help them in Europe.

Q: And you’ve worked in the brewery as well.

Henry: Yes, I developed all kinds of weird muscles I never knew I had, which have since atrophied. The things you do as a brewer, the parts of the body that you use, it’s so specific. Your hands get so strong from breaking down the koji or cooling the rice. And those clumps of rice are hot! Your hands are getting burned as you’re putting all your effort into breaking these clumps of rice up. Anyway, I did everything, say the whole brewing process from washing and soaking, scooping the steamed rice up with a huge shovel, making the koji…

Q: Was experiencing the process useful to you as an educator?

Henry: Yes, I’m always talking about my experience in the classroom. Trying to convey how painful it was! How strong you need to be to shovel wet rice with a spade! Steamed rice full of moisture, shovelling it out of a batch steamer while on a ladder, trying not to fall off… And being told off for getting too close to bits with signs saying to not put your hand in there, what’s in there? Trying to look in and see exactly what would happen.

Q: How would you describe Zaku as a brand?

Henry: Zaku definitely has a house style, which is quite understandable. If you have several side by side you can pick it up. Mostly aromatic intensity, although we do have some more restrained sakes. There’s certainly clarity, definition of flavour, always aiming for that tōmei-kan (透明感, transparency), that sense of purity. And generally our sakes have a persistent finish. We have one or two with kire (キレ, short finish) but we’re aiming for something which is more approachable for a wine lover because it has that evolution over time on the palate, that speaks to how we assess wine and enjoy wine.

Especially if you’re teaching, a lot of people come in to the classroom with wine experience and are completely floored by something that is pure and delicate with a short finish, quite refreshing and ephemeral. The idea of a short finish is just (mimes head exploding). So it’s a very different way of enjoying a drink and something people have to learn to appreciate about sake when coming from a wine culture. And I think we’re more at the wine end, with not quite robust but clear flavours, tōmei-kan, long finish, and refreshing.

Q: Has that always been the Zaku style, or is it something more recent, for example for export?

Henry: The Zaku style has been pretty consistent since the current tōji started, the current tōji created the label. We’ve added to the range over time, we didn’t initially have super-premium products but we’ve developed those, and the jika-gumi Impression range, something that looks like a nama in some ways through the pasteurisation process we developed over seven or eight years… So we’ve added lines where we think there’s something different they can add, but for the most part the tōji had an idea for Zaku that he expressed early on and continues to refine.

Q: How long has the tōji been there? 

Henry: He’s quite young, in his 40s now, but it must have been 20 years. He joined some time in the 90s.

Q: How did you end up working with the British Sake Association, and how do you see them developing?

Henry: Marie Cheong asked me! I knew her through IWC. I see the BSA as something that can unite people around sake – it already is doing that on a small scale, but building up to a national scale is the next step. I joined in 2021, I think, as operations officer to use my analytical and problem-solving skills. There were lots of internal improvements I was able to make for productivity, data security, site hosting, GDPR. And while doing that I thought we need to run more events, everyone shares the events role but as we were coming out of COVID I asked Zaku to sponsor an event and we had a big Christmas dinner, one of the first big sake events after COVID.

I also wanted members to be more engaged on an academic level – it’s easy to go to a bit tasting event and have a good time, and that’s absolutely fine. But there was no forum for members sharing sake and discussing it in a more serious manner. Not forcing them to take WSET style notes – although some do – but I wanted to introduce this idea of the study group, so I coordinate them and on the day everyone pitches in.

Q: Was it easy to set up events and find venues? Was there demand from members?

Henry: There was demand from members for the event series. Money is always an issue, everyone at BSA is a volunteer. Members pay membership dues, which are quite reasonable, but I want them to feel they’re getting something for their money. So we run the study groups on a Monday at the wine bar where I work, every 6-8 weeks. Everyone brings a sake around a theme and we make sure there are no duplicates and people bring something they’re interested in. We get some catering from the venue and pay for that, on a night when nothing else is happening, so it’s a win-win. But it’s tough to find venues for events like these, the venue has to be free and accessible. Some people come from other parts of country and stay overnight, which is amazing! It shows us we’re on the right track. Members will be bringing a bottle of sake for say £30, and paying for food, and I don’t want it to cost more than that. We’re not making anything off it, maybe £5 for renewing the website domain!

There are some more member improvements coming in the next few months, but I don’t think what I do will change very much as honorary Secretary. We’ve grown the organisation recently as well, so we’re on the right track for making the organisation truly national. It feels very London-centric right now. We have members outside London, but we don’t have the resources to run events.

Q: And now you’ve started Sake Scribblings – what made you shift away from judging and educating?

Henry: I’ve always loved writing, and been told I’m a clear and compelling writer which is nice! I will need to get back into the swing of it, and I haven’t written anything like this before except for Instagram posts which get a good reception. The sake community is great, very supportive, but even friends who aren’t in sake enjoy them. Writing is also a better fit when there isn’t a clear visual element to whatever I’m doing, when it’s less a diary and more something I’ve sat down and thought about. And I think this longer form might be interesting for people to read, but ultimately it’s a selfish project because I want to do more writing! I haven’t created a publication that serves a particular need or fills a gap in sake journalism, people have enjoyed what I’ve written about sake on a smaller scale and this gives me an opportunity to write about it in a longer format than Instagram does. There may be some shorter posts in there, but mostly it will be articles, essays, depending on how thought out it is. Something spontaneous like telling people about a great pairing might be shorter, but then I’ll also have room to dig into why I think it worked

Or where I’ve heard something repeated by different people as conventional wisdom and I wonder “is that really right”, I can think about it and realise that actually no, I don’t agree with it, that will be more essay style. If people really like something I’ll consider doing more of it, but basically it’s a selfish project that I’m sharing with people.

Q: Is there anything happening in sake at the moment that you’re particularly interested in or concerned about?

Henry: I’m concerned that I’m not spending enough time in Japan. It’s hard to really keep your finger on the pulse in the UK, we only get such a small snapshot of sake here. I don’t have access to the sakes I want all of the time. And if I feel like that, when I’m in this central flow of information from IWC, from BSA, from teaching, and have perspectives from other beverage paradigms, and the Shimizu – if I feel like that, then the punter on the street who may be interested in sake may just go ah, it’s not worth it, it’s too impenetrable. That’s a problem I want to contribute to fixing.

Sake is always exciting. Like most things, it’s a pendulum, things come and go. In wine in the 1900s people didn’t know what they were doing, they knew what to do but they didn’t know why, then science came along and now they know what’s going on and how to control everything, how to make modern wine. And then it swung all the way back the other way, back to natural wine, and people pointing and saying “that’s unnatural wine! We’re going to put things in clay pots like we should have been doing all this time! We’ll leave the clay pots open to the yeast and it’s going to be what nature gives us!” There will always be some new innovation that causes a new trend and then somebody will react against it.

And you’re seeing the same thing play out with with sake, the revolt against polishing at all, the revolt against Brewing Society yeast, trying to find different points of uniqueness. Internationalisation is key, sake makers want to appeal to their home base, of course, but it’s tricky with other beverage categories.

Q: Do you see sake brewing outside of Japan playing a role?

Henry: It’s difficult from the European perspective, we don’t have so many breweries in Europe. We have more coming up, of course. The US side is really interesting, it’s not something I spend a lot of time on. Others who know the US better than I do are always saying how vibrant it is. And these sakes are being recognised, Kanpai getting that gold, and I think there was another foreign gold this year at IWC. (*3) You’re seeing the quality of these foreign sakes really come up, and if that makes sake more accessible to people, fantastic. It’s definitely a trend but not one I’ve spent much time thinking about outside of Europe, and I suspect it’s being propelled by the US.

I always want to talk to people in Japan about sake, but I have to make the most of the opportunities that I have and try to share what small learnings I get. I’m going back in January and doing a tour of Mie, a comprehensive survey of the prefecture working with the Brewers Association to produce a guide. It’s not a major brewing region, but producing some high quality sake.

And sake and food pairing is being taken so much more seriously, even than since when I began. Really interesting restaurants are popping up in Tokyo and elsewhere doing either very successful traditional pairing, or innovative pairing, or pairing on a theme, like really good hot sake pairing. These very nerdy types who are obsessed with just one thing in sake are getting into the light of day now. Partly because sake is being treated more seriously as a craft product, and partly because there’s more evolution in sake itself.

All these categories are ceasing to mean anything, and as polishing technology gets better you start to see people saying “who cares?” It starts in the brewery but trickles out to other people, into the psyche of restaurants and sommeliers. Maybe there’s a shift about to happen, an enthusiasm for variety in sake that wasn’t there 20 years ago. There are lots of little things threading together that open up more space for experimentation, which pushes out to the restaurants and the concepts behind them. I may be late to the game here, but I have seen attitudes to sake changing even in a short time.

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Online interview conducted 25 July 2024.
*1 Travel restrictions during the pandemic meant that many non-UK-resident IWC judges could not get to the judging and so more people were recruited from inside the UK.
*2 The koshu category is for sake with strong mature characteristics, usually aged at ambient temperature, and the aged sake category is for sake with more delicate mature characteristics, usually aged at low temperatures.
*3 The other non-Japanese gold went to Yuchan Junmai 2023/2024 made by Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corp. Taoyuan Sake Brewery.

Henry’s new newsletter, Sake Scribblings, is available here. (Free, or you can support with an annual donation!)