Japan Distilled

In the 25th episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman take a closer look at the history and modern enjoyment of the original hard seltzer - the Japanese chuhai.

In the 24th episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman take a deep dive into shimazake (island spirits), which refers to those shochu and awamori not made on one of the 4 main islands of Japan. At least that's our working definition.

In the 23rd episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman explore American shochu (made in the United States). American shochu is in its infancy, but there is a lot of creativity and experimentation.

In the 22nd episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman explore Japanese whisky service styles. While many whisky lovers prefer their dram straight, Japan has a long history of whisky dilution. In fact, many premium Japanese whiskies are crafted with dilution in mind.

In the 21st episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman explore hot shochu (read "warm") service styles for the traditional Japanese spirits of honkaku shochu and ryukyu awamori. While other styles exist these days, (listen to episode 20 on cold shochu styles) shochu served warm is probably most traditional.

In the 20th episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman explore cool shochu (read "cold") service styles for the traditional Japanese spirits of honkaku shochu and ryukyu awamori. While other styles exist these days, cool shochu service is most common throughout most of Japan.

In the 19th episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman make brief mention of Japanese vodka.

In the 18th episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman turn their noses into the wonderful style that they've taken to calling aromatic shochu.

In the 17th episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman take a look at an environmentally and historically important, but uncommon style of shochu. That is kasutori shochu made from the sake lees, or the solids remaining after sake production.

In the 16th episode of the Japan Distilled podcast, your hosts Christopher Pellegrini and Stephen Lyman take a closer look at Japanese gin. While gin was first made in Japan over 200 years ago, it has really only taken root in the past few years.