This week, we’re bringing you a double episode exploring the impact of COVID-19 on the sake industry here in Japan, and how that impact is beginning to reverberate through the international market. The entire nation of Japan, while never undergoing a formal lockdown, was officially placed on State of Emergency status as of April 7th, …

While this summer has certainly been a lot of things for many of our listeners, we hope that one thing which has been a defining mainstay throughout the summer of 2020 has been sake. Summer is gradually winding down a bit at this point, but we thought it was about time we did a (semi-)timely …

This week’s episode is precisely what you’d assume it to be: the crew talking shochu. It had been a bit too long since we’d last done a real shochu-centric show, so we decided to drag Christopher Pellegrini into the studio to update us on some of the latest industry happenings and also humor our questions …

Although we’re all still grounded here in Japan, this week we’re getting off the island for a visit to the great Pacific Northwest to chat with Andrew Neyens, the one-man-band behind Seattle’s Tahoma Fuji Sake. Between stints at some of Toyama’s most exciting and inspiring breweries, including Fumigiku Shuzo (makers of Haneya) and Masuda Shuzo …

With LINK, Pernod Ricard made their first foray into the world of sake. Bringing together the craftmanship and nuance of Chivas Regal with the pioneering spirit of Toyama’s Masuda Shuzo – makers of Masuizumi – the company in charge of many of the world’s most iconic labels in spirits set out to bring an unprecedented …

Here it is! The final installment of our “Know Your Hosts” series, introducing our listeners to the minds and motivations behind Sake on Air. For the first half of this week’s show, we have Rebekah Wilson-Lye in the hot seat. Currently the head of international marketing and public relations for Japan Craft Sake Company, we …

Like most all of our listeners, we’re keeping rather close to home these days. The nature of things makes it a bit challenging for the team to gather and record, but on the bright side, it’s given us the time to dig through the archives and finally get around to editing some of our on-the-road …

This week we’re tackling arguably one of the most misunderstood segments of the sake world: Kanzake, often simply referred to as, Hot Sake. For a complex web of reasons, the quality and general nature of hot (or warm) sake is still shrouded in generations of preconception and misconception. However along with an aggressive reexamination of …

To all of our listeners: thank you for your patience. As much as we go out of our way to include awamori as part of the broader shochu conversation, despite many months of listener requests, we have yet to do an entire episode dedicated to Okinawa’s incredible indigenous spirit. Until now! The progenitor of the …