Sake News from Japan / Sake Muse

Another new take on an existing sake trick, this time sake ice cream! I've seen a few breweries selling soft-serve or packaged ice cream made with their own sake, sake-kasu (sake lees) or amazake, but they mostly contain little or no alcohol and are made to appeal to...

Ageing sake isn't new, but breweries seem to come up with ever more inventive ways to do it. They've sunk crates full of bottles beside dams, stashed bottles away in old wartime shelters... and now they're burying whole tanks of it in Hokkaido's winter snow. The NHK...

It's always interesting to get some news from inside the sake industry, which is just what I found when I came across the "e-Academy" section of the Kita Sangyo site - the company supplies containers and closures for the drinks industry in Japan. In their latest "Sake...

International Kikisake-shi and sake expert Tomoko Takiguchi writes an article for Nikkei Style about – sake news! Sake is increasingly popular in Australia, not only in Japanese restaurants but also local ones. Australia also has its own highly individual sake...

You may have already come across the idea of a sake affogato - a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a suitably sweet and savoury heated sake poured over the top in place of a shot of espresso - but here's another very Japanese take on how to include kanzake in a dessert...

The “Punk Nihonshu” column in Excite News looks at another unusual brewer – this time a former wine sommelier who left the wine world to brew his idea of “natural” sake. Kazuki Usui is the 11th head of the Senkin brewery, which has been passed down through the family...

Shūhei Yamashita reports in the Asahi Shinbun Digital on Watanabe Shuzōten in Furukawa, Hida – not far from Takayama with its cluster of breweries – who saw in the new year by bringing back an ancient technique. They pressed sake on 10 January 2020 in a fune [船,...

You may be more interested in what’s in the bottle, but the Fashionsnap site reports on sake brewery Sawanotsuru teaming up with a number of Japanese artists in a project to create eye-catching labels. 14 artists including shoe designer Yasuhiro Mihara, illustrator...

In the midst of the New Year party season, also prime time for fresh sake, Livedoor News looks at how the export market for sake has tripled in value in the last 10 years and, more importantly, why. Total sake consumption (reckoned by tax revenue) is down to less than...