Although this particular holiday season may prove to be somewhat of an exception for some – much in the way that many of us assumed 2020 to be an exception – for many people around the world the year winding down and a new year ramping up tends to be a long-awaited opportunity to gather and spend a bit more time with family, friends and colleagues. A natural extension of this is, for many, also a welcome opportunity to open a few bottles of something special that they’ve been hanging on to, or put just a bit more thought into what to open for whom and for what occasion. In doing so, it’s a great opportunity to extend yourself just a tad – within safe and healthy means, of course – in order to sip some more variety than you may be accustomed to when tied to more of a routine throughout the rest of the year.

As such, in addition to the range of holiday classics, we here at Sake On Air see this as a wonderful season of opportunity, not only to sample some fantastic new sake and shochu, but to proactively share these stellar beverages with friends and family and establish some all new holiday classics of your own.

So this week, Justin rang up each and every member of the team to find out what their sake and shochu routines and go-to drinks and drinking styles are for the season, as well as find out if they have any special drink plans or suggestions for the weeks ahead. Naturally, depending upon where it is you call home is going to determine your access to different styles of shochu and sake, so your mileage with some of the team’s suggestions might vary, but we thought it would be a fun opportunity to share a bit of our holiday season with all of our listeners, even if only in voice and in spirit.

02:20 — John Gauntner & Chris Pellegrini
13:44 — Marie Nagata & Chris Hughes
22:40 — Cindy Bissig & Sebastien Lemoine
48:43 — Rebekah Wilson-Lye & Shuso Imada

Thanks for tuning in this week. Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or whatever service you rely upon for your podcasting needs. Contact us at [email protected] with any thoughts about the show, and feel free to follow us on  Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Everything from Sake Future Summit 2020, as well as a number of other recordings, are all archived over on our YouTube channel, as well.

We’d like to wish all of our listeners, followers, fans and supporters both new and old a very happy and healthy holiday season, however it is you may choose to spend it and wherever it is you may be tuning in from. We’ll be back with one more episode to close out the year in a couple of weeks, but until then, a very happy holidays and a festive kampai to all of you from the team here at Sake On Air.

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 Tokyo. The show is a co-production between Export Japan and Potts.K Productions, with audio production by Frank Walter. Our theme, “Younger Today Than Tomorrow” was composed by forSomethingNew for Sake On Air.