Sugidama Sake Podcast

In the final episode of Season 2, I am talking to Andy Travers, the founder of London Sake, an online sake shop, and Sugidama Podcast's sponsor. We covered quite a lot of topics from the London Sake story, to the Olympics, bottle labels and managed to taste and discussed three excellent sake during our conversation. London Sake is an excellent online sake store and has one of the widest premi...

The fourth episode in the short Sake Focus series is about ginjo, premium and super-premium sake made from highly polished rice. The name comes from two Chinese characters and could be translated as "crafted or carefully brewing".  But there's much more in ginjo than just a high milling ratio. Don't forget, Sugidama Podcast now has a sponsor, London Sake , an excellent online s...

The third episode in the short Sake Focus series is about namazake, unpasteurised sake which is known for its unruly wild and lively character. Nama can be translated from Japanese as live, raw, fresh, or even natural. And it's all true about namazake. Listen to the episode to find out about different types of namazake including famous autumn sake called hiyaoroshi. Don't forget, Sugidam...

The second episode in the short Sake Focus series is about nigori, which takes its origin from the ancient sacred drink called doburoku. Doburoku is the oldest method of sake brewing which survived more than a thousand years of history and is still around nowadays. Nigori is cloudy sake, where rice and yeast particles from fermentation left in the final product. Sometimes it’s called unfiltered sa...

Recently, I have spoken to one of my listeners, who praised this podcast for its wonderful content. “But you know”, he said. “Sake is a completely new thing for me and I feel a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information you put in each episode. Why don’t you make them a bit easier to digest?” And he’s absolutely right. So I decided to do a series of episodes focusing on one particular topic, I...

The conclusion of the Sake Ingredients mini-series with an interview with Andrew Russell about sake yeast, which he calls an unsung hero of sake brewing. Andrew moved to Japan from Scotland to pursue his interest in what he described as “a fascinating and multifaceted country” and fulfil his dream of becoming a sake brewer. He started working as kurabito, a sake brewery worker, first at a small br...

On a nice April morning, I've got a call from Rie Yoshitake, whom I know from numerous sake events.  "Alex, would you like to be a sake judge at IWC", she asked out of the blue. "Yes!", I replied without any hesitation. It was my dream for the last couple of years and now it's been fulfilled! Yay! In this episode, I am talking about the IWC (International Wine Challen...

A great interview about sake, cooking, mirin and other things with Kinu Yukawa. She is a Japanese chef and cookery teacher from Kobe, Japan, currently based in London. She ventured into the world of food early in life and fostered the basics of cooking from her grandmother. Later she trained in French cuisine at Ecole Ritz Escoffier Paris and traditional Japanese cuisine in Kyoto. Don't forge...

Koji is a magical ingredient of sake. A tiny microorganism that turns starch into sugar and makes it possible to make this beautiful drink. It's a national benevolent mould of Japan, which appeared in the country more than a thousand years ago and responsible for a large part of Japanese cuisine. And to talk about koji I invited Akemi Yokoyama, who is a chef, cookery teacher, specialising in...

Rice is the essence of sake. It’s the source of alcohol and it gives sake its flavour, aroma, texture and character. It’s like grape to wine but slightly different. But rice is not the most suitable ingredient for an alcoholic beverage for one obvious reason: it does not have much sugar. But people found a way to turn starch which dominates the rice grain into sugar using koji and to make beautifu...

The importance of water is difficult to overestimate. It’s second only to the brewer’s skill and as important as good rice and koji.  But honestly, given good water, a skilful toji can make excellent sake from even table rice. But I am not sure if even a genius of a toji can make a delicious sake from low-quality water. At least there is a quote in the excellent The Japanese Sake Bible by Brian As...

What could be more disappointing than ordering something, waiting for it with excitement and then realising that it’s something you don’t like. It happens quite often unfortunately and buying and ordering sake is not an exception. So in this episode, I would like to give you a few tips on choosing sake and also talk about some parameters you will find on the bottle beside a milling ratio. And my t...

There are plenty of books about wine or whiskey. You go to any bookshop and you can always find something. Unfortunately, there are actually not many English language books available about the beautiful drink of Japanese sake. Definitely more than 5 (I’ve got seven) but still probably fewer than 15. But the five books I am going to talk about are probably the must. Don't forget, Sugidama Podc...

The origin of sake is covered in mystery. In order to get some clarity, I have spoken to Natsuki Kikuya, who is a certified sake and wine professional, educator and sake sommelier. She’s been a sake judge at the prestigious IWC Sake Category since 2011. In 2013, she launched “Museum of Sake” website, which she calls an intangible museum providing sake education, promoting the craft sake across the...

Erika a sake and wine specialist and director of Moto London, a sake bar which opened in London Covent Garden just about a year ago. She is an amazing person and whom I have known for some time through my blog, Instagram and personally. The story of Moto is really fascinating. You can imagine what it means to open a bar and not just a bar but a sake bar three months before the UK went into a compl...

Oliver Hilton-Johnson is a Sake Specialist and Director of Tengu Sake, a sake imports, wholesale & retail company. Tengu Sake supplies quality Japanese sake and spirits to some of the UK’s finest restaurants and bars and is the recipient of the International Wine Challenge’s ‘Sake Merchant of the Year’ award 2016 - 2019. In November 2019 Oliver was named as one of the ‘Future 50’ drinks indust...

The second part of the exciting two-parter about how sake is made. I never stop admiring the skill and craftmanship of sake brewers. They manage to create a beautiful drink from rice and water. In this episode we continue exploring the sake brewing process learning about sandan jikomi, multiple parallel fermentation, pressing and post-production.  Don't forget, Sugidama Podcast now has a spon...

Satomi Dosseur is a sake professional and educator, a founder of Enshu Limited , which runs a  great and very interesting sake specialist course (Kikisake-shi) in London, which I took a few years ago. Satomi can talk hours about sake and is very good at encouraging people to try it and enjoy. Born and raised in Tokyo, Satomi grew up with a deep understanding and love of Japan’s exceptional culture...

Great news! Sugidama Podcast now has a sponsor, London Sake , an excellent online sake store. London Sake has one of the widest selections of premium and craft sake available online today. They deliver across the UK and Europe, and with over 100 sake from 25 breweries, there really is something for everyone.  Using simple online tasting notes and sensible, affordable food pairings they help you fi...

A lot of people often ask me why sake. They are usually quite intrigued. I’m not Japanese (they don’t know that sake in Japan is not that popular these days), I’ve never lived in Japan (only visited two times as a tourist), my wife is not Japanese (again, another thing that could link me to the drink, don’t know why). I wouldn’t say that I fell in love with sake at the first sight or shall I say s...

The process of making sake is really exciting! There are several sake brewing methods: three main ones, kimoto, yamahai and sokujo (or sokujo-moto) and another one, bodaimoto, which is even older but has been rediscovered only recently. Sake taste profile depends to a certain extent on the method used to make it. So if you know what each method means, you can make a better choice of sake. All the...

While sake has a milder taste compared to wine, it's diversity is astounding. You not only have sake grades or styles which have their own flavour profiles but also sake types, which add another dimension to the sake universe. Nigori, namazake, koshu, all these words mean variations in brewing technics adding unique characteristics to sake. If you know what these names mean, you can better ch...

Junmai, honjozo, ginjo, daiginjo... What do all these strange words mean? Do we have to know them to enjoy sake?  It will definitely help you to identify the sake types you like, to understand a difference between these incomprehensible sake bottles in a shop or exotic sake names on a wine-list, to decide what sake you should choose for a particular meal, or whether you need to pop the bottle in t...

Welcome to the first episode of Sugidama Podcast, the podcast about Japanese sake, the amazing drink, I am madly in love with, profoundly fascinated by and eager to tell you about! Sake is a mysterious drink for the Western audience. Many heard but only a few have tried. As any mysterious object, it’s surrounded by myths and legends. Some of them are completely false and others have some truth in...