Andy and Jim go all in on a single brewery this time, looking at Akita Prefecture’s Aramasa Shuzo. Known as one of the most desirable and hard-to-get labels around, we wonder what exactly makes it that way? The answer may well lie in an obsessive focus on detail, from brewery cleaning to label design. Scrub your kioke, tie up the shimenawa, and fill your cup with a true maboroshi. Kanpai!

Vocab for this episode

Kioke 木桶 - Wooden tanks for fermentation etc. Aramasa uses all wooden tanks.

Shimenawa しめ縄 - A woven straw rope decorated with white paper charms, associated with sacred spaces in the Shinto faith. Used on the tanks at Aramasa.

Maboroshi 幻 - Literally a “phantom,” figuratively it’s something that is elusive.

Kame 亀 - A turtle. 

Recommendations:

Andy - Nirukame

Jim - Cosmos

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Also, check out Andy’s website at: https://www.originsake.com/ 

And buy Jim’s book, Discovering Yamaguchi Sake wherever you order your books (print and ebook available)!

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