Sake Entrepreneur Ryuji Ikoma’s Push to Elevate Sake’s Image and Price

Ruji Ikoma, founder of Saketimes and Sake Hundred. All photos courtesy of Sake Hundred.

As the quality of craft sake continues to rise, a commonly heard refrain is “sake should be priced far higher than it is.” Craft sake is a little like immigrant food in North America, pigeonholed into an affordable category that does not recognize its true worth. Instead, price tends to conform to a western-centric notion of quality.

The reason sake makers should charge more, the argument goes, is because the amount of skill, technical know-how, and labor that goes into making a great bottle of craft sake is not reflected in the price—one of the reasons so many breweries are going out of business. Those that have succeeded have drastically reduced the amount of futsu-shu, or table sake, that they make in favor of smaller volumes of premium craft sake. Yet this so-called “premium” beverage is not priced to reflect how premium it is.

Sake entrepreneur Ryuji Ikoma hopes to begin to change all of this, or at least spark a conversation about it. The founder of the bilingual online publication Saketimes has selected a handful of Japanese breweries that he admires and has collaborated with them to put out a line of luxury-priced sakes that he calls Sake Hundred. By pricing labels in his collection from US $270  to $3,100, he wants to place sake alongside fine wine or high-end Japanese whiskey where he believes it belongs.

Launched in 2018, the line is now available in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and the UAE, and arrived in the US in June. Sakes in his lineup have collected a number of awards from the French Kura Master competition, the International Wine Challenge and the US National Sake Appraisal.

Ikoma did not grow up in the sake business, or even have relatives who were in the business. So breaking into this world—filled with generational brewing families, a close-knit community of prefectural research institute scientists, Tokyo University of Agriculture professors and graduates, and complicated distribution networks—was an uphill battle. The son of parents who didn’t touch alcohol, he grew up in Tokyo and attended Nihon University in Tokyo. His father taught world history, so he grew up on conversations about government, art, the goings on across the world. That influence led him to join the strong journalism program at Nihon University, part of its law department. The program focuses on training media-literate communicators, and it is where Ikoma developed his interest in advertising and copywriting.

His discovery of sake came late, when he tasted a bottle of Kouro sake from Kumamoto Prefecture, the brewing arm of the Kumamoto Prefectural Sake Research Institute and the birthplace of the Brewing Society of Japan’s kyokai yeast #9. His life changed, he says, when he realized the drink he considered too sharp and strong could “have a mellow and calm roundness,” completely different from his previous perception of the drink.

Once he decided this was the business he would devote himself to, the long, arduous process of breaking into the industry began. “I was a complete outsider. For three or four years, I traveled all over the country to study sake.”

But breweries remained closed to him.

“The response I got was, ‘Who are you? We don’t know you.’” Finding a stranger trying to learn about their business made owners anxious at best, and at worst, suspicious. Ikoma eventually wore them down by professing his simple love for sake, and in 2014, by launching Saketimes. What started as a one-man business now involves 25 employees, with Ikoma’s revenue streams divided between advertising, sponsored brewery content, and now his Sake Hundred line.

Both the Japanese- and English-language versions of the online publication are free, so that he can reach as many people as possible and report on “the charm of sake,” Ikoma says. One reason I was eager to meet Ikoma and write about him is that I’m a fan of Saketimes, and often refer to it for well-reported sake information.    

So far the Sake Hundred line includes eight different labels, each a partnership with a brewery that Ikoma has selected based on his six years of sake research and reporting and hundreds of brewery visits.

Since he wants to show the world that sake is as good as fine wine or whiskey, the breweries he’s selected have either maintained their own rice fields for some time, or have begun to grow their own rice. While the careful nurturing of rice fields “isn’t going to perfectly equate to the relationship between the vine and the bottle,” he writes in Saketimes, invoking the contentious term “terroir” in sake, “the reality is that those rice fields are going to produce something special.”

Sake Hundred’s flagship label is its Byakko Bespoke, (US $380) a Yamada Nishiki junmai daiginjo made by Tatenokawa Brewery in Yamagata Prefecture. It’s polished to 18%, and features a rich flavor along with white flower and stone fruit aromas. Shirin (US $435) is another Yamada Nishiki sake polished to 18% but aged in mizunara oak barrels for two weeks, which gives it an underlying toasty profile and a long finish. It’s made by Oujiman Brewery, a neighboring brewery to Tatenokawa. When Oujiman faced the risk of going out of business, Tatenokawa sent a team of young brewers to inject new life into the business.

 The dessert sake Amairo (US $270) is made by Miyoshino Brewery in Nara, the maker of the Hanatomoe line of sake. A kijoshu, it is made by replacing a portion of the brewing water with the brewery’s mizumoto sake (a variation on the “monk starter” method developed by Nara monks in about the 15th century). The most expensive bottle is Gengai, (US $3,100) from Sawanotsuru Brewery in Hyogo Prefecture. When the brewery was destroyed in the 1995 Kobe earthquake, workers pressed what survived of its starter and decided to age it to see if it would turn into something drinkable. That didn’t happen for 25 years, but now it has apparently taken on flavors of caramel and chocolate; only 50 bottles of this sake are available in the US.

 I asked Ikoma why, if he wanted to spread the charm of sake, he decided to go first to the luxury market instead of trying to democratize sake by marketing delicious yet affordable bottles. His answer: “Wine and whiskey sell for millions of yen, and really good sake is equal to them in quality. I want to demonstrate that. In the sake world, breweries can’t make money because sake is priced too cheaply, and that’s because at one time, profits were made on volume. So breweries are closing—I want the sake industry to make more money so it can survive.”

 And he pushes back on the “luxury” image, too. “I don’t imagine just rich people buying these sakes. I’m not rich, but I might save up some money over the year so that I can buy that one Louis Vuitton backpack. Luxury is not just for the rich, it’s for everyone, to elevate the quality of their lives,” he says.      

He imagines a couple deciding to celebrate a birthday or anniversary, for example, and splurging on a bottle of Sake Hundred for their at-home dinner celebration.

All of this, Ikoma continues, is a way to change the image of sake in Japan. “In the past, sake was cheap and it was for old people. Young people thought it was uncool. Now, they’re realizing that it’s actually a sophisticated and culturally important drink, something that can confer a rich feeling, just as an expensive imported wine or whiskey might.”

 While it remains to be seen if the US market will share this idea of high-end sake bestowing on buyers a sense of luxury and wellbeing, I applaud Ikoma for all that he has done and continues to do to raise awareness of the craft sake industry and create a new generation of fans.

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