World Sake Day 2021 Celebrations around the Globe
Back in those long-ago pre-Covid days, October 1st—aka World Sake Day—was a joyous occasion to mark the beginning of the brewing season. There were dinners, lectures, parties and rowdy izakaya gatherings, often featuring newly released hiyaoroshi sake.
But for the second year in a row, in Japan at least, virtually all celebrations will be online affairs. The Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association (JSS) is planning a September 25-October 3 “Kanpai Week,” during which people can visit this list of participating shops and restaurants for takeout and delivery and tag their posts #kanpaiwithsake2021. JSS is also planning a live World Sake Day program from 5:30 to 7:30 pm JST, which you can watch on the organization’s website or YouTube channel. The nationwide celebration starts off with a fun kagami biraki , or ceremonial breaking of the sake cask lid, then a relay of video toasts across the nation. It will culminate in a virtual nationwide toast at 7 p.m. JST.
The planned nationwide celebration “Nihon-shu Go Around,” has been postponed, says sake expert Tomomi Seki, and sake writer Ayuko Yamaguchi tells me that Osaka’s Nihon-shu Go Around has been postponed to October 29th. Singapore, meanwhile, has its own version of Nihon-shu Go Around, which looks like fun.
Elsewhere in the world, there are many live events as well as online parties and promotions planned, so I’ve compiled a list of those that I’ve been able to track down.
In the U.S. the big one is San Francisco’s 16th annual Sake Day, founded by sake retailer and Sake Samurai Beau Timken. It started in 2005 as a kind of teaching opportunity for a still-unknown drink import. Held in a classroom at Fort Mason, it involved Timken pouring about 30 different sakes for 80 or so visitors. Since then, it has morphed into an event that gathers up to 1,500 people a year to sample sakes from more than a hundred breweries. Although the event was cancelled last year, Timken is going ahead with this year’s event, putting in place stringent Covid-19 protocols. Although few brewers will be attending this year due to Japan’s slower vaccination rate and travel restrictions, he’s already sold out the allotted 700 tickets he negotiated with the city and county. Despite being deluged with requests to release more tickets, Timken is putting the safety of guests and vendors first. One of the things he’s enjoyed most about seeing the celebration grow in scope is watching Sake Day give birth to new sake-related businesses. “People will attend, enjoy sake, meet brewers that aren’t yet represented, and they’ll put together a business. In a year or two, those sakes will be exported to the U.S. – it’s beautiful,” Timken says.
Sticking to the west coast of the U.S., California’s newest brewery, Covina’s Nova Brewing Co. is holding a double celebration marking both its first anniversary and World Sake Day , says co-founder James Jin. “At our tasting room, we will have food that pairs with doburoku, cocktails made with doburoku, and I will be doing a doburoku homebrew workshop in the brewer on the same day,” Jin reports. As of today, all three workshops were nearly sold out, with only one ticket left. Congrats, James and co-founder Emiko Tanabe on you one-year birthday!
In Portland, Oregon, sake retailer Paul Willenberg, or as he is known to many, Namazake Paul, has two seasonal specials he’s planning to release for World Sake Day, a hiyaoroshi pack and an akiagari pack. Why not get a pack of both and study the differences between the two? The offers will be available through NamazakePaul.com. To make sure you’re among the first to be notified when the packs are released, sign up here.
On the southern fringes of the U.S. West Coast, meanwhile, check here for the details of San Diego Sake Day. Tickets are very limited in number, so click fast.
In New York, where there is such a concentration of sake expertise as well as great sakes available through retail, izakayas, bars and restaurants, the must-join event is The American Sake Association’s in-person celebration at the Brooklyn Kura Taproom. For a mere $25, you’ll get a sake tasting sampler, the opportunity to play sake-tasting games with local sake somms and Sake Samurai, snacks and light appetizers, and a cash bar where you can go through the entire, awesome, Brooklyn Kura lineup. Or, if you can’t make that, the association is also offering a livestream celebration. Click here for details on both the live and online event. I won’t be in town for the live event, but I plan on tuning in for the online celebration.
And speaking of Brooklyn Kura, in Austin, Uchi sake somm Peyton Walston is excited to be able to offer four different Brooklyn Kura sakes to guests for the first time. The quartet of sakes, Blue Door, Number Fourteen, Occidental and Grand Prairie—will be available the evening of World Sake Day and through the weekend of October 2nd and 3rd. “Occidental and Grand Prairie have never been sold in Texas before, so we’re feeling really lucky to have them,” Peyton says. If you’re in Austin, this is a rare opportunity.
In Boston sake educator Marina Giordano’s Wine and Sake and The Koji Club are launching the Eastern Seaboard’s answer to Sake Day San Francisco with Sake Day East. At the city’s first sake-focused event, guests will have the chance to sample and buy more than 40 different sakes.
Heading south, in Charlottesville, VA, another brewery birthday party is planned. The North American Sake Brewery will celebrate turning three as well as World Sake Day.
Before we leave the U.S., I have to give a shout out to South Dakota. I came across this listing for Rapid City’s very own World Sake Day event, to be held at SUMO Japanese Kitchen and sponsored by the Rapid City Nikko Sister City Association. Who knew Nikko’s sister city was in South Dakota?
For global fans of sake, here are a few more online events that you can take part in on World Sake Day. Kyoko Nagano of Sake Lovers is planning a World Sake Day lunch time Clubhouse room to mark the day. This means that wherever you are in the world, and whatever the local time is, you have permission to kanpai and drink sake when you tune in. Add it to your calendars!
Sake Lovers is also marking Berlin’s first Sake Week ever on October 3rd, with an online sake tour available in Japanese, English and German, with Miyagi Prefecture’s Tanaka Shuzoten.
One of the sake community’s most active promoters and educators is Australia’s Simone Maynard, who is behind the fun and informative online “Taste With the Toji” series. She has a marathon World Sake Day and nijikai (after party) planned. Guests will include Dave Joll from Zenkuro Brewery in New Zealand; Matthey Kingsley Shaw and Quentin Hanley from Melbourne Sake, and Charles Stewart in Japan discussing his Kura Cats collaboration with Tokyo-based artist Erica Ward. Check in as “going” on TWTT’s Facebook page to receive a Zoom invite for the event.
Wishing everyone a happy and safe World Sake Day—kanpai!!
More Sake News
If you don’t already subscribe to it and you are passionate about keeping up with the world of sake, I suggest getting a subscription to John Gautner’s excellent Sake Industry News. As the foremost non-Japanese expert on sake, John and his team are great at putting together sake news from across Japan and the world, from startups, interesting new sake-related products in development, to development in the rules and regulations governing sake making and sake exportation. Since so much of his news is gathered from Japanese-language sources, it’s information that’s hard for non-Japanese to get elsewhere.
I’m fascinated by Winc, a kind of crowd-sourced winemaking company that’s become huge in what seems like a short span of time. Their latest play is to reverse engineer a millennial-friendly sake, with the help of $10 million USD from the Japanese government’s Cool Japan Fund. To learn more about this, I went hunting online and found this short bit about the Japanese funding piece of the story. I’d love to learn more about this if any of you know more about this deal!
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