![]() ![]() Because of its light and fresh taste, it elevates curry dishes,” says chef Hong Thaimee. “Sake is just the right combo of sweet and vegetal, like Thai food. New York Thai restaurant Thaimee Table now carries the Manzairaku Yamahai Junmai. In the meantime, while it’s been a challenge to get into wine bastions like Italian restaurants, more non-Japanese spots are embracing sake. “Our selections are small-production, they’re not famous names like Moët Chandon,” says Geiger. The company’s market niche is bringing the small, independent producers with unique products to the fore and letting them cultivate a fan base, much as the craft beer movement has made avid beer drinkers out of consumers burned out on Bud Light. And anyway, bulk product isn’t the point-quality is. Sake Suki is sanguine that this rising tide of sake will raise all boats. And Dassai sake is opening a $30 million brewing company in Hyde Park, N.Y., in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America in early 2020. Retired Dom Pérignon winemaker Richard Geoffrey is working on a product with Masuizumi brewery for 2019. “As sushi restaurants expand, sake sales will grow,” he told Bloomberg last July. ![]() The company’s president, Mutsumi Kimura, is optimistic about the future of sake in the U.S. Japan-based Takara Holdings Inc., for instance, produced 8.8 million liters of sake at its U.S. From 2017 to 2018, Sake Suki doubled the number of cases sold to 1,200, or about 10,300 liters (2,720 gallons), which is tiny by sake standards. “Sake opinion leaders in Paris and London have been most active so far,” observes Wolfgang Angyal, head of Riedel’s Japanese subsidiary. Riedel recently introduced the Junmai, its second sake glass, yet neither is currently available in the U.S. It’s still a push to get sake into glasses in America. To make the sake accessible-and to reach customers traumatized by bad hot sake and sake bombs-back labels are written in English and provide information about the brewery as well as serving and tasting notes. Its expansion plans include Las Vegas, Florida, and Illinois. Sake Suki’s bottles, imported exclusively by the company, are available in New York, California, and Texas in both wine shops and restaurants. “It was so expensive, we might as well have flown to Japan to pick it up ourselves,” says Geiger. “The most economical way was to bring it in in large quantities.” They got an importers license, rented space in an alcohol-licensed warehouse, and brought over their first shipments in 2016. The couple’s initial goal was to bring in sake for themselves. ![]() “I check markets and see the event schedule to decide the timing of trades.” “I traded 30-plus currencies and still trade USDJPY to buy our sake from breweries,” she says. in Tokyo before coming to the U.S., and that training has informed her business. Munekyo started her career as a sales analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Think pizza spots, burger joints, and beyond. The aim, the founders say, is to move sake beyond sushi counters and omakase menus and into the mainstream. It retails for around $145. “The bottle’s detail and design are exactly in line with the ethos of Sushi Noz,” says co-owner Joshua Foulquier, who admires the importer’s unconventional approach.īut Sake Suki’s aspirations are bigger. The Michelin-starred Sushi Noz carries the Nishide Shuzo “100 Year Sake,” made with natural yeast from the brewery and recognizable by its elegant hand-painted porcelain bottle. Sake Suki selections have also been embraced by the city’s modern Japanese restaurants. Read also: In a Tokyo neighborhood's last sushi restaurant, a sense of loss He prefers it to conventional Champagne and says the sake brings together the disparate tartare and caviar flavors and textures. “Sake certainly starts the conversation,” says Aldo Sohm, Le Bernardin’s wine director. Le Bernardin, Manhattan’s vaunted seafood dining room, offers the earthy, full-bodied Manzairaku Junmai Ginjo sake with an appetizer of hamachi tartare with osetra caviar on its tasting menu. So far they’ve had success at the top of New York’s restaurant ladder. ![]()
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