Welcome to Issue #133 of SIN.
The majority of breweries have now well and truly wound down production for the season. Many brewers will finally be able to return to their home and a life of some normalcy and humane sleeping patterns, while others will still be cleaning up, monitoring stock and maturation of sake that is yet to be bottled and also some general “trying to look busy when the boss comes” activities.
As with every year, once the brewing season is done it means the real fun is about to begin, as we head into the events season! For those that are lucky enough to be in Japan, there will be an abundance of sake festivals, prefectural-themed tasting events, brewery open-house parties and assorted shenanigans held across the country, which will keep us entertained and educated over the next few months, so start marking your calendars.
Kicking off the events season is one of Tokyo’s most anticipated events. Craft Sake Week will be on again from April 18 to 29 featuring many of Japan’s best known and highly regarded breweries featuring a different theme each day such as, “Sake Legends”, “Terroir”, “Juicy & Fresh” and of course, the always-popular “Team Juyondai”.
If you’re in the area, get along!
And now for the news…
Move Over Natsuko
Japan- Japan’s insanely diverse library of manga comics has launched a new series featuring a sake-based storyline. Titled, Sakagura Kamoshikon is a series of manga stories by author Joneiru Sugawara published in the Kurage Punch magazine.
The comedy-drama story revolves around a character named Genki Matsuda, an unemployed moocher looking for a career woman who can offer him a life of “relaxation” as a househusband.
Genki regularly attends a number of matchmaking parties to find a woman whose career he can “support” with little success, until he eventually meets a woman named Ryo Ayuhara. Ryo seems quite committed to the idea of getting married and after talking to her Genki discovers she is also quite knowledgeable about sake. Not being a big drinker, Genki struggles to keep up with Ryo’s drinking pace and eventually gets inebriated and somehow ends up proposing to Ryo in his drunken stupor.
Genki awakes from his drunken stupor to find himself not only betrothed to Ryo, but also earmarked by her family as the next kuramoto to take over her family’s sake brewery.
Through the manga’s story and illustration, Sugawara aims to convey an authentic representation of the ambience of a sake brewery while offering a story that is also enjoyable for non-sake drinkers. So far the manga has received positive critical and consumer reviews with the story already being considered for a live-action TV production.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Sake Industry News to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
