Sake Update – SAKE DAY Donation, Urakasumi Turns 300, Isshobin Month Totals

So this is a pretty fun section to write this month, as it’s filled with awesome sake successes! Where to start? 

• The Director of SAKE DAY Mei Ho and I would like to share with you the total donation that we sent to the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California on your behalf. SAKE DAY 2024 was a record setting year, and it was our honor to donate $60,000 to the Center, that not only helps us conduct SAKE DAY, but also are the beneficiaries of all of the ticket proceeds. Mei and I joke around that when you attend SAKE DAY you are “tasting for a purpose” and this year there were 60,000 purposes that went directly to the Center, which they used in many capacities. The relationship between you the amazing SAKE DAY guest, True Sake, and the Center is something that is so powerful and historical that this coming SAKE DAY 2025 (The 20th Anniversary) delegations from Japan are attending to watch how we perform, so they can replicate SAKE DAY in Japan in following years. (Personally, this fulfills a promise that I made when I was nominated as the First Sake Samurai that one day I would make sake so popular in the West that young Japanese drinkers would reclaim sake as their own with enthusiasm and gusto). Check our JCCCNC's SAKE DAY page here.

• File this under the “whoops” category, but I only realized or it only sunk in now that 2024 was the 300th Anniversary of Uraksumi Shuzo in Miyagi Prefecture.  – President Koichi Saura is not only my brother, but is also my sake hero, as he has helped guide me through the history of sake for the last two decades. I am very proud of True Sake’s 20+ years as a partner with this 300 year old extremely famous brewery, and we look forward to the future together. Please check out the Beau-Zone Layer Sake Section this month in this Newsletter below, and follow this link to the Urakasumi website to learn more about their 300th Anniversary.

• And I know that you all have been waiting for the results of the second annual ISSHOBIN MONTH, which was last November. In total True Sake sold 201 “Isshobin” 1.8L bottles of sake for the entire month. (5th Best Seller was Atago no Matsu, 4th Dewazakura Green Ridge, 3rd Tenbu Junmai Ginjo, 2nd Suigei Tokubetsu Junmai, and the #1 Best Selling Isshobin was BORN Gold Junmai Daiginjo.) That is pretty cool! But hey, when awesome sake is 20% off in large format bottles that are already priced very well then it’s totally awesome. ISSHOBIN MONTH is a win-win for everybody as the customers get 60 fluid ounces of liquid love for 20% off, the distributors and importers move this segment, and the brewers get to see their global customers enjoying the large sake format that is not only historically cool, but is a very good value. Next year we need to really work on the sake bars and restaurants to partake in ISSHOBIN MONTH so that you can get this great value and big bottle flavor at your favorite watering hole for a discount! November is ISSHOBIN MONTH – Tell Everybody!!