Chatting Sake Volume Two

0:22Welcome back to Sake on Air. My name is Miho and today I'm here with Christopher Pellegrini and Chris Hughes. double chrises how are you guys well thank you very much doing okay glad to be back

0:37Chris Hughes:it's been a while since we've had the double chrises the double trouble oh yeah big chris and christopher or chris hughes and christopher christopher queen we've got various nicknames i think but yeah from the beginning i think it was big and little wasn't it yeah although we're both really we're both big really compared to uh we're both in japan and compared to maybe uh you know the average size here we're big but yeah um i think that was the nicknames we had yeah but you're shochu chris aren't you that that works as well yeah christopher do you promote christopher i tend to go by christopher yeah yeah i because i always have that you know like flashback to when your mom's calling you in a supermarket and they use the long version of the name right yeah yeah my mother would inadvertently stick my middle name in there too just for added punctuation and effect right so if you get confused the one with the british accent is chris hughes and the one with the american accent is of course christopher pellegrini i'll call you chris and christopher um just so you know okay let's see how confused we go.

1:50Right, right, right. We don't get to talk to you much, Christopher. So let's start with you. What's new with you? Yeah, apologies. It's my fault entirely for being such a stranger to the show. I've spent basically the last two years, two plus years, about half of my time has been actually not in Japan. I've been traipsing about the United States, sometimes around Europe, soon to be Mexico as well just trying to preach the word get people in on the ground floor of Japan's indigenous spirits so that's like five and a half months a year can't cross the six month threshold because there are tax ramifications for that and then the remainder when I am supposedly in Japan when I am in Japan I actually am not in Tokyo very much I think last year I was in Tokyo for a grand total of two months, and the remaining four months were spread across Kyushu and Okinawa.

2:53And this year has been a little bit lighter on the international travel, although I am flying on Thursday. But it's been a slightly more relaxing year, a slightly less frenetic year, which is nice. when I'm in the States or when I'm overseas, I'm basically attempting to spread the news of these spirits, things that are happening in Japan and trying to apply them to a new context and educate new audiences. And so I spend, you know, the morning every day in meetings and on Zoom. And then in the afternoon, I start hitting accounts. I go to bars, restaurants, everything in between. and it's a lot of staff trainings.

3:34It's a lot of private tastings, one-on-ones, one-on-twos. It's a lot of just going back over it. It's not just one visit. It's always like, I was here a couple of months ago. I got some new things for you. Let's think about these things. And many times it's not even a conversation about getting these drinks into a specific program or into a specific venue at first. It's more about just the education. And so that's pretty much what my life is. It's just a constant, unending, guided tasting that just changes venue every hour, hour and a half. And it's pretty wild. I live out of two suitcases all across the world for months at a time.

4:18My longest stint was a 10-week business trip last year, which I will never repeat because that was way too long. But I tend to average six or seven weeks on these trips. And so not for everybody, but I love it. So here we are.

4:32Chris Hughes:And you have your own export company, right? You kind of export shochu yourself, right? That's right. Yes, I'm a partner in an export company in Fukuoka, which is also an import company. They do both sides of trade. And then I am a partner in a separate business in New York, which is solely an import company and solely works in the distribution channels in America at this point. So I'm sort of helping to co-manage two different entities that are in time zones 13 hours apart, which means they don't sleep a whole lot. So, again, not for everybody. Not for me. Not for me. flying is something I absolutely hate.

5:21Chris Hughes:Anyone who's listening who's as tall as me, around 6 '5". I think once you get to 6 '4", 6 '5", then it starts to become an issue. If I'm flying, I'm the guy who's got to grab that very exclusive, elusive bulkhead seat. That's what you call them in America, right? We call them the exit row seats or whatever, the tall people's seats. but like um and like airlines now charge such a premium for them as well so you know and i understand why you know i mean you can't you know someone's you you've got to you can't just like open it up to everyone can you you've got to have some kind of waiting system or um otherwise who do you decide who gets them right so i i mean it's completely fair but um yeah it's tough i know i can't remember if i've ever done a long-haul flight in the normal seats but but it's a really really tough i can only imagine i can only you're essentially the size of it for those who have never met chris hughes before think of a nba basketball player you know a shooting a shooting guard or a you know a small forward yeah that size and he's trying to imagine him trying to fold into economy it doesn't really work so no no do you guys drink uh on on flight i try not to drink too much it just it prolongs the misery on the other end i find you know it just kind of extends the the uh jisaboke the what's it called the jet lag thank you um it's yeah your english to japanese dictionary is broken the japanese english dictionary is broken broken down yeah i speak more about jet lag in japanese than i do in english i guess you know me too i i would probably say no definitely uh like my recommendation would be not to drink which sounds kind of strange but i mean if you're in the better classes uh and honestly to be honest with you unless you're in the better classes you don't get access to sake on board uh you said to drink you didn't mention sake specifically or shochu specifically but as were a sake and shochu podcast i assume you're probably alluding towards that the beverage in particular and unfortunately you know economy class rarely has a good sake selection um i can't think of an airline that does i think they all just basically basically put it in business class or first class which is crazy because i mean it's not even that an expensive beverage you know i mean depends on the airline actually to be fair uh i'm probably in my head thinking of japanese airlines but um actually a and a did uh old nippon airways did actually try and put a little bit of a selection in economy i think a year or two back but i don't think they're doing it anymore now um but yeah whenever i've drunk alcohol on a flight you like you said it just i don't think it's good for the body if you suffer quite badly from jet lag and if you're in economy class you you can't sleep really so you don't you don't really get you know any chance to kind of recover um it depends on the person of course depends on the Some people might disagree and say the alcohol is better for the system.

8:28Yeah, I also stopped drinking. I used to drink, you know, like free alcohol. Who would say no? But nowadays, I'm too excited about movies. But over the past two years that you've been traveling, I mean, you've been traveling back and forth forever, ever since I've known you. But over the past two or three years, What kind of change have you seen in the U.S. or other countries in terms of shochu and shochu markets? It's been moving along quite nicely. The pandemic gave people a chance to stop and think and reprioritize. Think about, discover new things was a big, there were a lot of new hobbies that came around during the pandemic.

9:18And what we've seen is people sort of focusing more on drinking less and drinking better. And so I think for koji-based drinks such as those that we love, it's a wonderful opportunity to get front and center in a lot of discussions. And what we've seen is that finally people are starting to be able to separate Japanese shoju from Korean soju, which was it will continue to be a challenge but it's not nearly as big of a challenge as it used to be and the reason is because we finally got into a point where bartenders at decent establishments are starting to experiment with japanese spirits indigenous spirits so awamori and shochu and they're they're really working hard to figure these drinks out and of course the bartender is the gatekeeper here because they are the ones who have input on refreshing or updating the menu the bar menus, and if they get really excited about one or one of these drinks or maybe the entire category, and they start to, you know, slip one shochu cocktail or one awamori cocktail into every menu refresh, then you've got an opportunity for conversations between that bartender and their customers.

10:36And that's what you're really going for. And so that's been a big change, Especially over the past couple of years, we've seen a number of pretty large-scale cocktail competitions really hit their stride in the United States, also in the UK. And that has been very helpful in terms of getting these drinks on people's radar. And it really does come down to winning the hearts and minds of the folks behind the stick, the bartenders, because they're such good storytellers in many cases. And when you feel like a bartender is really, truly passionate about something, as a customer, it's really hard to not sort of, you know, really be inspired by that or at least, you know, have your curiosity perked by it.

11:28And I think that's something today in 2025 that is very different from where we were just a couple of years ago. Very cool. And because we have you here today, what's new with the domestic shochu market in the world? Well, the big thing right now that I'm sure you've seen is that especially the sweet potato shochu makers have really gotten into something called Kaorike, which is something that's been going on for a while. but there were a number of brands that several years ago were made in limited supply, limited volumes, and became like runaway hits, and people really looked forward to their annual release, and these were all sweet potato shochu that weren't like the old school sweet potato shochu that your granddaddy used to drink, the funky, earthy, ashy stuff.

12:23Instead, it's the really bright fruit basket type of flower garden type stuff that is still sweet potato shochu. It's just new sweet potato strains, slightly altered brewing techniques, often new yeast strains as well. And they just come out a lot fresher, a lot brighter, a lot more fruit forward and designed to go into a highball glass with ice and sparkling water. And it even says so on the label on a lot of these. Perfect for a highball, you know, or, you know, sold awari, you know, that's what they're aiming for. That's a huge trend, honestly, over the last couple of years. And especially in the summer, everywhere you go that's a shochu festival or has some booths or table that are dishing out shochu, you're going to run into them.

13:13They tend to also have very bright, poppy, colorful, very un-shochu-like labels that give them away almost immediately. They look like natural wines or something. It's like, what is that? Is that, oh, that's a sweet potato shochu? Okay, what does that smell like? That smells like green apples. Yeah, I want to try it. So there's a lot of that going on right now, which is great because it's a very new, it's a way to get younger folks in. And when I say that, I'm not preaching to high school students here. What I'm talking about is the ever elusive 20-somethings and early 30-somethings who these days are not drinking nearly as much as their parents' generation did, let's face it.

13:58and who need something that is very approachable in order for them to get excited about this. And it's working. I was just at an event last Wednesday in downtown Tokyo. Great events, the third year in a row that they've done it. They had six distilleries represented there. And most of them were from Kagoshima. Yeah, and so there was a ton of sweet potato shochu. And of course, there was a lot of this kaorikei stuff. and it was perfect for the hot weather. I mean, it was Hades level hot. It was boiling. And so highballs everywhere. It was perfect. And I was the oldest person in the room, I think.

14:38I think there were 90, 110 people in there. I was the oldest person. It's like, this is different. I like this. And it was just, it was cool. It was just a totally different feel. And of course, the younger generation of Toji today, and many of them represented their brands, are very, very much cooler than their parents' generation and their grandparents' generation. And there's this, they're better at everything, basically, when it comes to just reaching their audiences and interacting with their audiences. And so that was on full display. You just had a bunch of fans there of these different places.

15:14So it was really cool. Signs of good things to come, I hope. It would be nice, though, if the 20 and 30-somethings drank a little bit more. But hey, I'm not going to criticize. They're doing what's best for them. That's great to hear. You're not even that old, you know. A plus. A plus, mijo.

15:40Right. It sounds a bit like a craft sake movement in a way. Absolutely. There's a generation shift. There's new energy everywhere you look. And it's fantastic. It's exactly what the industry needs. Right, right, right. Do you have any questions, Chris?

15:58Chris Hughes:No, no, no, no, no, no. All right. And do you have anything coming up that is exciting? Yeah, one very exciting thing that's coming up this very soon. We are doing the world premiere of a shochu documentary that I had a little bit of a production role in bringing forth. It's been a long time coming, a good 10 years, I think. And so it was filmed in Kagoshima. The full length is 48 minutes long. And it's a beautiful story about this, about the succession from father to son in this one sweet potato shouju distillery in Kagoshima. All of this stuff, you know, that's involved in the handing down of a multi-generational family business from one generation to the newest generation.

16:46And it's a beautiful thing. And we're very excited. We're going to debut it on Sunday. at Japan Cuts at Japan Society in Manhattan, New York. It'll be the final movie of the festival. It's a 10-day long movie festival. And the featured distillery, the featured touji, Tekkan Wakamatsu is going to be joining us for that event in Manhattan. Very exciting. I think he's flying out on Wednesday. And so it's going to be great. You know, red carpets, sweet potato shochu, the whole thing. Can't wait. And hopefully this is something that will be picked up by a streaming service or maybe you'll see it on a flight somewhere so that we can, you know, just tell one little small snippet of the story of this aspect of Japanese culinary culture.

17:38That's amazing. Do we get to see the trailer on the festival's website, maybe? um not at this point uh i think it's sort of been kept kind of tight i haven't seen actually there are no trailers on the on the festival's website at this point but i think once it hits the the circuit because i i know that the director wants to submit to more competitions i think he'll be releasing a couple of different length versions of the trailer and as soon as that happens then i'll be sure to make sure that those get forwarded your way that's that's very exciting Is that why you're going back to the U.S.? That is half of the reason.

18:20That's one of the reasons. So there's two. The second reason is Tales of the Cocktail is happening, as always, in New Orleans, starting on, I guess, technically on the 21st. So the day after the premiere. But I'm not going down until the 23rd anyways. Anyways, on the 24th, me and some people that you may have heard of, Julia Momose, Emma Jansen, and Stephen Lyman, the four of us are going to be doing a koji fermentation, a la, you know, the intangible heritage announcement from late last year. a bit of a tasting that evolves around or revolves around, I should say, sake, shochu, and awamori and how important koji fermentation is to Japanese culture.

19:07So that should be good on the 24th, I think at like 1.30 p.m. or something at Tales of the Cocktail. So if anybody happens to catch this before then, great, come get in line. There are no reservations and these things fill up quickly, so get there early. And if you don't hear about it until later, I apologize, but I can give you the executive summary anytime I see you face to face. Great. Great. Okay. Moving on to Chris Hughes. What's new with you? You're always busy doing things. Yeah.

19:42Chris Hughes:Well, I've been sort of doing quite a lot of tourism related sort of Saki experiences for tourists. and I'm in the process of putting together a sake brewery tour with a brewery in Kanagawa. Actually, I can say the brewery is because it's not a secret or anything. Izumi Bashi in Kanagawa, they opened a new visitor center earlier this year. And I was actually involved in the opening of that center. I was involved in the initial consultation stage. they kind of took me on as a consultant and I also helped make some videos that they could kind of show when they do sake experiences or actually just when they're sort of entertaining people from overseas who are interested in sake or who are actually working in the sake industry so sake professionals you know potential new importers they already have videos you know like a sort of an introduction to the brewery and a sake basics video but I basically uh I storyboarded and along with the company which they hired to do the video editing to put the video together I storyboarded an entire video basically introducing the basics of sake around their brand so of course you know there's no point just making a basics of sake video a general one for a sake brewery it needs to be around their brand and focusing on their brand so that was an interesting challenge.

21:16Chris Hughes:I never really storyboarded a video before. I dabbled a little bit in doing my own kind of videos because I was going to like sort of for YouTube a little while back. Here and there I've sort of had a go at making videos but this was like I'd never really put together a storyboard for a video I don't think and so that was quite a big challenge because you only have you've got to make the video as short as you possibly can but also you want to make it as concise you want to try and get as much information in there as you possibly can and you want the video to be quite easy to understand and for someone who's always kind of you know i teach wct in tokyo it's quite a high level sake course for someone who's kind of more used to sort of teaching to sake professionals people who already know quite a lot about sake it was a good opportunity really to just sort of step back and kind of reassess how i go about teaching the basics like you know just look at it in a complete new way and i mean i have to say um i was a bit worried about how it'd be received because you i'm not a professional narrator i'm quite happy to say that because there are professional narrators out there and i mean i said to izumi bashi why didn't get a professional narrator to do this but they were like well we want someone who understands about sake so that they're not just narrating that they're actually you know they're kind of the the way that they explain things and i mean it was narration but also i mean i put together the um the script for the videos uh because there was original kind of japanese and then i sort of translated that was it did we do english and then japanese this time we did english and then from that japanese i'm happy to be quite modest about this because you know i honestly i'm not a professional narrator and i have kind of listened to other people's narration you know other videos those other things and like already kind of noticing things, which maybe I did wrong.

23:11Chris Hughes:But for a video for a Saki brewery, I think it does the job. And they've been telling me that it's been having a huge impact. They've been really helping them to much easier now to sort of explain to people about the brand gives them, you know, it's, it's doing the job that it was intended for. But anyway, so that was part of my role for this opening of this visitor center and then we also ran a few little trial um tours at the center as well it was actually for uh people who uh live at and work at the military bases uh nearby i think it's your costca is one of them and i forget the name of the other one but basically they were our kind of guests on this trial tour and that now eventually um it's been quite a long time in the making but we finally as a brewery that traditionally didn't really do sake brewery tours because you know sake breweries there are various reasons why they might not do tours but one of the main reasons is that they're trying to maintain a kind of an environment where only a particular type of microbe is surviving and if they're letting people in from outside they have all these concerns about people bringing in microbes from outside bacteria from outside and also they're a small brewery it's not easy to sort of set up and manage these tours you need to have the staff to do it and everything so logistically it's a bit of a headache and also i think a lot of breweries during the lockdown just basically put brewery tours on kind of temporary pause if you like and they're sort of just starting to restart them now.

24:56Chris Hughes:But so Izumi Bashi has publicly announced that they will be doing sake brewery tours, proper sake brewery tours from now. So if you're interested, you don't have to wait for the tours that I'm going to be doing because they're going to be aimed more at a particular clientele who maybe don't have access to or would never think of actually going on the Izumi Bashi website and trying to book a tour. But if you know enough about sake, just head to their website, Izumi Bashi and you'll be able to book a tour if you're in Tokyo but I mean if you would like to take the tours that I'm doing that would be great as well I will be doing them privately and I'll also be doing them through the Kanagawa Tourism Bureau and it's kind of the same thing so I'm going to kind of continue but I've also been working with mingling with some YouTubers of it.

25:49Chris Hughes:So in Japan, there are a number of quite famous YouTubers that regularly YouTube, is that the correct verb for YouTubing? I don't know, but they YouTube about Japan, promote Japan to the rest of the world. They have been doing this since Japan became a popular place for people from overseas to visit. And just by chance, through a mutual friend, through a friend of mine, through an introduction from a friend of mine. I will mention his name because I am incredibly indebted to him. The great Toshio Ueno, who is the, I mean, if you don't know this guy, he is, how would you refer to him, Christopher?

26:31Chris Hughes:It gives him the right level of respect. He's kind of a jack of all trades, isn't he? He's in all of the different spaces. Yeah, he's a jack of all trades. He keeps himself, he doesn't do a lot of self-promotion, I don't think, But Toshio Eno is the heading the School of America. And he has all these different qualifications. And he's a good friend of mine. And he was in Japan visiting. And we had this get together with all our kind of mutual friends. And it was there that he introduced me to the manager of a talent company in Tokyo. and it turns out that this talent company is currently working with some youtubers to open a new bar in shabir fast forward three years later this bar is now open the youtubers that i'm talking about are none other than chris broad and charla hiskins also known as abroad in japan and charmeleon i was very lucky to actually get the opportunity to go and visit some sake breweries in preparation for some sake experiences that we now run at the bar.

27:43Chris Hughes:So basically, over the last two or three months, we just launched these sake experiences. And basically, at the bar, on particular days, in the evening, I provide a special bespoke sake experience. Sorry, I have a question. So it's a bar. So first of all, what's the name of the bar? The name of the bar is Lost. Lost? And it's in Shibuya? It's in Shibuya's Doginzaka area. It's a really like, I mean, the area is full of... Right. And it's a bar run by YouTubers, but you're not YouTubing while you're sessions or anything. Do they only have sake or do they also serve shochu? They do. They do serve shochu.

28:34Chris Hughes:Christopher you will have to go and give the bar a visit and see what you think of their shochu menu and give them some pointers but I can't remember what they have sorry I think it's I know they have a rice shochu and they have a soba shochu and a sweet potato shochu and possibly a kokuto shochu they have about four maybe three or four types cool everyone go to last and I really wanted to ask you about Sebastian's sake tasting event at JSS Information Center because I believe you went yes I did I popped along to help him with that so it's like a new initiative from sake on air hosts are starting to host actual like in person tasting sessions so Christopher if you're ever in Tokyo and have some time you can also host shochu so like the idea was wouldn't it be great if some of the sake on air team can actually appear in person at the japan sake and shochu information center when tourists are coming along to the center and maybe if we put a notification out on social media beforehand people can then actually just sort of come along i don't know how many people uh sebastian received in total but it was good turnout uh people from all over the world we had americans we had some people from scandinavia and we had some people who live in japan as well we had some tokyoites come along and the japan sake and shochu information center does actually run its own sake experiences tasting experiences i believe they're very very popular going very well so uh yeah if you're in tokyo and you've always wanted to try a few sake and meet Imara-san.

30:25Sorry to interrupt the recording. I just wanted to clarify about the sake and shochu tasting course at the Information Center. Imara-san leads guests on a tasting of three sakes and three shochus along with kind of explaining the history of sake and shochu production in Japan and what makes these drinks so special. It's available on most weekdays and you can find it on Airbnb or buy food. We'll put a link in the episode description. Now back to the show. If you're

30:51Chris Hughes:happy kind of tasting by yourself by all means go along and it's such an easy system you basically get a list of sake and shochu and then just circle the ones that you want give that back to the the staff and uh give them a few minutes and they come along with your sake and shochu and uh in like a little set and you can yeah taste your heart's content while sort of gazing around to wonder at all the amazing paraphernalia that they have displayed, that they're displaying in the center. Right. So... So, Miho, hang on. What have you been on to? Oh, good question. I'm never as active as you guys. But recently, I got very interested in sake labels using local washi.

31:44because I was in Niigata this March with friends to see not really sake but like washi. Washi is of course traditional Japanese paper because they bleach the ingredients of washi, this plant called kozo on snow. So they do snow bleaching. We went to see that and they have very small local paper makers, traditional ones. And they told me that Kubota is one of their major clients and they actually really support like their business because of their orders and they constantly order washi from them for their special labels and I thought it was a beautiful kind of like symbiosis type of story for you know two very traditional local businesses supporting each other um and i do notice nice washi labels on bottles and so now i really want to make a map of you know like sake breweries using local washi for their their um sake bottles and that's a cool idea yeah and i'm sure some of that happens in shochu as well um so yeah that's that's one thing that I'm really interested in.

33:02And this week, my friend Elvira is here. She's doing a kakogura in Sado, learning how to make...

33:10Chris Hughes:Yes, I saw her on Facebook. I saw she put some photographs upon. Yeah, so I think she's done that now. And we're going to Fukushima to visit some breweries. I think usually she wanted me to drive. But I... You want to drink. So we're going to do all by public transportation. and we're going to make it into an episode. So people who are visiting here can, you know, follow our footsteps. I look forward to that. And Alvito is one of our students, right? In the, in the, in this year. She's a sake specialist, sake and shochu specialist, I must say, in Spain, promoting both sake and shochu to the Spanish market.

33:53She has a lot of friends in restaurants and bars. So she's getting sake and shochu on their menus.

34:01Chris Hughes:And she took the Sake and Shochu Academy. Yeah, two years ago. And she also did the Advanced Shochu Academy last year in Kagoshima. And now she's back and learning how to make sake. It looks like she's having fun. Oh, she's always having fun. So we're going to go to Fukushima. There's so many breweries I didn't really realize. close to the station. We're going to Aizu Wakamatsu and Minami Aizu and Koreyama. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to go to Kitakata, which would have been amazing also. But we're doing a three-day trip. So we'll see. Do you know the Nakodori area? That's also very easy to get to if you go transfer from Koreyama onto the...

34:50Chris Hughes:There's like a local line which goes all the way up through Nakadori, which is one of the three areas of Fukushima. It's kind of in the middle. And there are about five breweries along that route, all kind of walking distance from the station. So you've got Nihon Matsu, you've got Daishi. We are going to Daishi, I think. Okay, so you are going that way. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, just too many good breweries, too little time, basically. But we'll see how many we can cover. And you have to spend some time in the castle park as well. Yeah, if we have time. Nihon Matsu Castle, which is not a castle anymore, it's just a ruins, but the park is quite nice.

35:32Chris Hughes:You get a nice view from above of all of Nihon Matsu and Nagarola area. Yeah, Fukushima has a lot of history, a lot of culture, so I'm very excited about this trip. And that's it for this episode of Sake On Air. Please take a moment to review and rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're enjoying this show. Feel free to send your questions and comments to questions at sakeonair.com or sakeonair on Instagram and on Facebook. You can also find our shows and more on our YouTube channel. We'll be back with more sake on air in just two weeks. so until then kanpai Sake On Air is made possible with the generous support of the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association and is broadcast from the Japan Sake & Shochu Information Center in downtown Tokyo it is produced by Export Japan and our team is Shuso Imada, Justin Potts, Arlene Lyons Cindy Bissig, Chris Hughes Chris Pellegrini, John Gottner Marie Nagata, Miho Ota Rebecca Wilson-Lai, Sebastian and me, Frank Walter.