Episode 125 Show Notes
Episode 125. Believe it or not, the holiday season is sneaking up on us again! And while you may be finalizing your halloween costume, we are thinking ahead to enjoying sake this December. What better way to do this than with the world’s only Sake Advent Calendar! Created for the second year in a row by sake retailer Namazake Paul, the calendar has been upgraded and improved by importing a number of new cup sakes and redesigning the packaging and presentation. Lucky recipients of the Sake Advent Calendar can compare their tasting notes of all the mystery sakes on a dedicated facebook group. The calendar also comes with a tasting notebook and adorable cover art featuring a sake-loving polar bear named “shiro kuma”. Without a doubt, this is the perfect gift for yourself or for the sake fan in your life! #sakerevolution
Skip to: 00:19 Hosts Welcome and Introduction
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy
Skip to: 01:42 Sake Advent Calendar
Get the Sake Advent Calendar!
The only Sake Advent Calendar is back for 2022!
The Namazake Paul Advent Calendar features twenty-three 180ml collectable cups of sake plus one full-size bottle for Christmas Eve. That’s over four liters of sake, all hand-chosen by Namazake Paul. Many of them have never imported before!
The beautiful box art by Kayla Swanson embodies the Japanese concept of “kawaii,” meaning adorable or cute. You will love displaying it as a holiday decoration.
Most cups are glass with painted art — reusable for water cups, picnics or cut flowers. The box also includes an accompanying handbook written by Namazake Paul to learn the background on each sake, plus key terminology and a place to record tasting notes. Everyone will get the same sake on each day so they can compare with friends or join the online discussion. Shipping throughout November.
Every major style of sake is represented, including Futsu-shu, Honjozo, Junmai, Ginjo, Daiginjo, Namachozo, Yamahai, Kimoto and Nigori.
The Namazake Paul Advent Calendar is the perfect gift for the Sake geek, friend wanting to get into Sake or, frankly, just treat yourself!
Only 500 calendars available. Act fast.
Purchase here:
https://www.namazakepaul.com/product/2022-sake-advent-calendar/565
Skip to: 17:06 Sake Tasting: Ninja Wakaebisu Junmai
Ninja Wakaebisu Junmai
Brewery: Wakaebisu Shuzo
Classification: Junmai
Prefecture: MIE
ABV: 15-16%
SMV: +8
Acid Degree: 1.7
Rice Polished: 60%
Type of Rice: Nojoho
Skip to: 21:30 Sake Tasting: Daisekkei Junmai Ginjo Cup
Daisekkei Junmai Ginjo Cup
Brewery: Daisekkei Shuzo
Classification: Junmai Ginjo
Polishing ratio 55%
Alcohol 15%
Sake meter value: +2
Nagano Prefecture
Acidity 1.6
Skip to: 30:20 Show Closing
This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!
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Episode 125 Transcript
John Puma: 0:22
Hello everybody, and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America’s First Sake podcast and I am one of your hosts. My name is John Puma From the Sake Notes, also the administrator over at the Internet Sake Discord and the lead mod over at Reddit’s r slash sake community.
Timothy Sullivan: 0:42
And I’m your host, Timothy Sullivan. I’m a Sake Samurai. I’m a sake educator, as well as the founder of the Urban Sake website. And every week John and I will be here tasting and chatting about all things sake. And doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand.
John Puma: 1:00
Oh, well, hello Tim. How are you?
Timothy Sullivan: 1:02
I’m doing good. How are you?
John Puma: 1:03
Uh, you know, uh, getting by, getting by Autumn is cruising and the holidays are perilously close.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:11
Yes, I think any moment now I’m gonna start hearing Christmas music in the Dwayne Reed, the Walgreens
John Puma: 1:18
There’s, right now, right now, somewhere, someone is setting up a temporary pop-up Christmas door. You know it, you know it’s happening.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:26
And when I think of Christmas, I only think of one thing,
John Puma: 1:30
and what might that be?
Timothy Sullivan: 1:32
This is sake Advent Calendar.
John Puma: 1:34
Ah, yes. Our favorite advent calendar.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:38
That’s right.
John Puma: 1:40
my only Advent calendar
Timothy Sullivan: 1:42
The only advent calendar that really matters. And today we’ve brought in a special guest, the creator, the founder of the world’s only Sake Advent calendar. Let’s welcome to the show, our friend, Namazake Paul. Hey Paul. How you doing?
Namazake Paul: 1:57
I’m great. So happy to be here. Thank you all so much for having me. I’ve been a fan of the show for a long, long time. So I’m incredibly excited that you had me on because last year you talked about me without me knowing and it was really fun. But this time I actually, so.
John Puma: 2:17
Well, you know, we figured it would be a fun surprise for you to find out that we, uh, we were really excited about your calendar and decided to talk about it on the show. But to be completely honest, we didn’t know how excited we were going to be until we got it. And so that’s kind of how it led to us talking about it after the fact. But, uh, but we’re making good making up for it now and having you on to talk about it while people can still order.
Namazake Paul: 2:39
Yeah. Well thank you very much. I appreciate it and I will do a little bit of reveals as well today, which will, I think will make you even more excited about it.
John Puma: 2:48
Oh,
Timothy Sullivan: 2:48
Fantastic. Now everyone knows that you are the inventor and distributor of the sake Advent calendar, which we’ll talk a lot more about today. But for our listeners who have not encountered Namazake Paul before, can you give us a little background on yourself, how you got into sake, where you are in the country, and a little background.
Namazake Paul: 3:07
so I’m from Portland, Oregon. I’ve been here for over 15 years, and sake, has been a big part of Portland for a long time. Of course, we have Sake One Brewery. We’ve got a number of great restaurants. we owe a lot to Marcus Pakiser in Portland as well for building the the sake community. And I really got introduced at an Izakaya that’s, that’s no longer in Portland, but introduced me to great sake like Wataribune, and Narutotai. And, uh, so I’ve had a love of sake for, for 10, uh, almost 15 years now, but when a friend of mine was opening a kaiseki restaurant, he needed some help with beverage menu and I have a background in wine and so I helped him out and I tried to push wine during the kaiseki, experience and people really wanted sake. So I learned up on sake and I got my WSET certification and really went down a deep hole with sake and. When the restaurant was going through some changes, it was a good time for me to say, You know, I enjoy sake and I enjoy selling sake, but I don’t love working in a restaurant. So that was a chance for me to really start a retail business. That really took off at the beginning of the pandemic. You know, people just wanted something new in the pandemic. They wanted a new experience, and sake was it. Because they were used to having a curated experience, maybe at a bar or you know, trying new wines or something like that. And they were looking for just something new and sake really fit that. And so the pandemic was, was really good to me, quite frankly, and was able to help me build a, a sake business that focuses on seasonal sakes that are either unpasteurized, namazake, or maybe single pasteurized such as Hiyaoroshi or fall sake. So I’ve been able to, to really build the business around those seasonal sakes.
John Puma: 5:07
Uh, and this has led you to the Advent calendar.
Namazake Paul: 5:11
Yeah, so the Advent Calendar is kinda a kinda a funny thing, you know, last year, I think about October 1st, maybe, maybe about right now, I said to myself, There’s advent calendars popping up everywhere. And I saw one that was actually from Tiffany’s, where you had a wooden box and I think it was $60,000 or something absurd, where you got a piece of jewelry every day. And I said, Well, why isn’t there a sake advent calendar? And I said, Well, And I just thought, well, why not? Right? What I quickly learned was that there are reasons why there isn’t a sake calendar, and one of them is There aren’t 23 high quality cups in the country. And so last year I apologized to, to some of you that got three different ozeki cups or maybe some Morimoto cups or some chika cups or things that. They’re, they’re fine when, when needed, but I would not say that they are, uh, premium sake.
John Puma: 6:08
Yeah.
Namazake Paul: 6:09
Uh, so that was one of the first things I learned was that, was that, that I needed to do some work in order to make this thing happen. so I worked very closely with Japan Prestige which is a great importer to get a number of high quality sake. So we have things in there that. Ginjo and Daiginjo, and even three Yamahai and two Kimoto. So really fun stuff.
John Puma: 6:35
Excellent.
Timothy Sullivan: 6:35
So, the advent calendar that you did for last year, which we reviewed on the show, that was definitely a version 1.0. Your first try out the gate,
Namazake Paul: 6:45
sure. I mean, you, you know, you called it a beta, and I think that’s exactly what it was. I didn’t have boxes. You know, I had this beautiful cover art that I put over the top of it, but for many of them, I actually took a case, a 30 cup case of sake. I unloaded it. And then reloaded it back up, mixed up with other, other sakes. So when some people got a box, they actually got an Ozeki box that had just other sakes in it, and then this art over the top. And because of that some things broke. I had to replace some things. you know, some of them I actually had, had a perforation tool and I was like, hand perforating doors into things. Uh, but I learned. I learned that it was really important to have a sturdy box, and so this year I started eight months in advance and made a custom made box. So I worked with a local cardboard manufacturer that has made a custom box that molded around the standard 180 milliliter cup size that has foam underneath, so the cups actually fit directly into it.
John Puma: 7:55
Nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 7:57
that’s fabulous. So you’re focusing on the one cup size. Which we’ve, Yeah, we’ve had one cups on the show before, John. It’s like the, the glass cup where you peel off the top and you can sip right out of it. And that’s gonna be the basis for most of the compartments in your advent calendar. Is that right?
Namazake Paul: 8:16
That’s right. There’s 23 of the compartments that have these 180 milliliter cups in there. And then of course on December 24th, there’s one full size bottle. so sometimes I, I liken the one cups to about a beer. you know, they’re a little bit higher alcohol, a little bit smaller size in fact, The one cup was designed to compete with with single serving beer in cans. So it’s something that you know, people are worried like, Is this too much sake? I say, Well, think about it as as a beer a day. And maybe you share that with a friend or a partner and maybe there’s one, one cup that you, you get behind for a couple days and then maybe have a couple of cups.
John Puma: 8:58
You got some friends over,
Namazake Paul: 8:59
I have some friends over. Yeah, it’s a fun way I
John Puma: 9:01
you could do the week on Friday,
Namazake Paul: 9:02
Totally, Totally. And, and, and what was really important to me is that we got a range of sakes. So many times with one Cups, you’re dealing with a honjozo, and maybe you get a Junmai that’s like 12 or 13% and it’s pretty watered down and it’s like, well, this is fine. With my train bento, but it’s not exactly something that’s a premium, you know, something that, that I would want to, drink on a regular basis or put my name on. So that was part of the, the deal about trying to get really high quality things that, that can show people a range. Because I wanted people that are new to sake, to be able to experience well, here’s what a real ginjo tastes like. And to do something in a, little bit easier to to manage 180 milliliters.
Timothy Sullivan: 9:51
Awesome. John, I remember when we got the beta version of the advent calendar last year. One thing that was a plus Tops that we loved was the artwork you had on the outside of the box. And to remind people, it is a winter wonderland scene with woodland creatures. All beautifully rendered, artists rendering of these cute little. Woodland creatures, all drinking sake. Some of them are passed out. There might be a passed out polar bear and that was just that. Just hit it out of the park. So you’ve used the same artist For this next version of the advent calendar, what can you tell us about the cover art for your box?
Namazake Paul: 10:37
Yeah, so we did some kind of crowdsourcing last year. and I got a lot of feedback on a number of different things, and one of them was on the artwork. And so we floated some of the possible designs to to people that had bought last year and got feedback on different things. And what we found was that the design last year really did hit home. That’s just the scene and sort of the story it told and all the different characters. Really, really people just, just loved. So Kayla Swanson is the name of the artist that helped me with this and I mean, I couldn’t draw a stick figure if I saved my life. So she was really, really helpful with all of those types of things. And, and we really kind of wanted to tell the story of this polar bear. And so we have the polar bear drinking from a a, a choko. We have the polar bear with his buddy the seal, and we have the polar bear. Maybe he’s got his head in a barrel of sake as well. So he a little bit of a, sort of a Winnie the Pooh type character that, that kind of gets into trouble here and there, uh along the way. But the art is really important because the art just really makes it fun and it very much fits the kawaii theme of the, of the box, which I don’t know if everybody’s listened to that episode, but you should look for the kawaii episode. This, this very much fits in that style.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:00
Yeah, and we’re gonna have some preview photos of your current Advent calendar. So if people want to go to SakeRevolution.com and check out the show notes for this episode, they can see the really cool cover art that you’ve done for this next version of the Advent calendar.
Namazake Paul: 12:17
I had some professional photos done because it’s so hard to convey how big this thing is. Dave Seldon, who worked was with 33 books and he worked with me on, on the tasting booklet. When he saw it for the first time, he was blown away by the size of it. And he had been a partner of this project for eight months and he still said this thing is he enormous. It’s, there’s so much sake here. So I, I got some professional photos just to help people kind of understand the size of it.
John Puma: 12:46
Nice. Nice. uh, you, you did mention there really quickly, there’s also a tasting booklet in there So, so let’s quickly chat about that a little bit. So you, you were, you were kind enough to send us, uh, copies of the tasting booklet and if you guys at home ever seen like a sake tasting book before, um, you know, do you have your, your areas for notes, an area where you would fill in. Your information about the particular sake you’re having, tasting wheel temperature, all that kind of thing. But in this case, it’s filled out with each day’s. sake that, you know, each day sake that’s in the box with an is little map of Japan highlighting the Prefecture, where it’s from some, you know, some information about it. I, this is really well put together. I really like this a lot. That it’s, um, that it’s prepopulated and kind of gives the, person at home. A little context when they open up and they pull out their cup, it’s like, Ooh, what’s this one all about? What’s the story behind this one? And they can have the little guide to help them figure that out.
Namazake Paul: 13:44
You know, a couple things there. One of them is, I, I very much believe in what Tim says is that he wants sake to be fun and easy to understand because there’s so much opacity with sake. The labels, you know, most people can’t read them. the styles are obscure sometimes. It says Ginjo, but it doesn’t taste like ginjo. so I, I want things to be easy to understand, and so that was one way to do that. Also, as I said, I would try to gather a lot of feedback from people last year, and one of the things people asked for was that they wanted the same thing every day. As everybody else did, so that they could compare notes with their friends. So we are building a whole online community there. We’ll have a Facebook page that everybody can interact with. They can use hashtag sake calendar to see what everybody else is posting or how they’re pairing the different sakes. but then they wanted tasting notes and I said, Ah, I don’t wanna give you tasting notes. I think that’s giving away too much. But what if I just give you some background and that’s how I wound up with giving them things like the Prefecture and when the brewer was founded and what the name of the brewery is, cuz sometimes that’s different than the brand and the ABV and the acidity and the SMV and all those kinds of things. So I felt like, to me that was kind of a nice, uh, middle ground where I gave them background, but I didn’t do the work for them because I don’t wanna take away the fun of seeing what the cup looks like. and taking the notes. And if you don’t cheat, if you don’t flip ahead, you won’t know what tomorrow is.
John Puma: 15:15
Well, it’s bad news. Bad, bad news. Paul. I’ve already
Namazake Paul: 15:19
I’m sure you’ve already cheated Puma, but maybe, maybe folks at home with this warning won’t cheat when they get it. I don’t.
John Puma: 15:27
Well, in, in my defense, I didn’t have the sake. I needed something to entertain me. And then you, that book
Namazake Paul: 15:34
That’s wonderful.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:34
Yeah, but this, this notebook is really great because it gives you a kind of an anchor point when you’re opening up the calendar every day. You can get out the notebook and take your notes, and if you’re doing it with. Spouse or a loved one at home every night and sharing the cup, it just sounds fabulous. Like the notebook was a great idea and it gives you all the information that you could just look up on Google and that’s all pre-printed for you. But then, like you said, your notes, your impressions of it, you’re free to explore that on your own. No one’s telling you how it tastes or what you should think of it. So I think that’s really great.
Namazake Paul: 16:12
Well, thank you. And then one kind other fun thing is that because the calendar is so big, you might wind up recycling the, the box, but you can keep this book and you can use it to help inform future purchases as well as you can keep it for next year and have a little collection of them.
John Puma: 16:28
Awesome. but in addition to sending us the booklet, Paul, you were also kind, have to send us some sake, which we really do appreciate. So we’ve got two of the cups from this year’s Advent calendar, and these are sakes that I won’t gonna say,
Timothy Sullivan: 16:44
we won’t say which days.
John Puma: 16:46
We will not say which days, but we will say there are two cups that I don’t know about you, Tim, but I don’t think I’ve ever had these sakes as a one cup in
Timothy Sullivan: 16:54
Right? Yeah,
John Puma: 16:55
that’s exciting
Namazake Paul: 16:56
It is. It is and And there’s actually 14 different cups that you’ve never had before in this calendar, and I can promise you that. So yeah.
John Puma: 17:04
That is very exciting.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:06
Yeah, so the first sake cup we’re going to taste out of the advent calendar is the Ninja waka ebisu and this is a Junmai sake. It’s from Wakaebisu Shuzo out of Mie Prefecture, about 15 and a half percent alcohol. The Acidities 1.7, the rice type is Nohjoho. Which I’ve not heard of before. No. Jo Ho polished to 60% remaining, and this is marked as a kind of an extra dry sake. It’s SMV plus eight.
John Puma: 17:42
Oh wow.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:43
All right. Should we open this one up?
John Puma: 17:45
Yes. Let’s do that.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:46
Okay.
Namazake Paul: 17:48
One of the things I like about the word Karakuchi is that it’s one of the only words that never lies. If a sake says Karakuchi it is Karakuchi can’t have a sweet karakuchi. It just doesn’t happen. So I, I think it’s fun to, to show people that style and, and this will be dry.
John Puma: 18:09
Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:11
Well, this, uh, Ninja Karakuchi makes me think of our friend of the pod, Chris Johnson, the sake ninja. If you’re listening, Chris, this one’s for you, All right, let’s give it a taste. that has some rice flavor to it. Like sake rice over the Palate.
Namazake Paul: 18:34
Really enjoy the richness of it at the beginning. As you say, Tim, it’s got a lot of rice character, a lot of, uh, almost table rice character, if you
Timothy Sullivan: 18:42
Yes, yes.
Namazake Paul: 18:43
and thick, uh, Uh, you know, sort of food friendly thickness, and then the dryness just sort of builds momentum and you’re just sort of imagining this, this like dry train rolling down the hill and just gaining momentum. And, I love that about, about dry sakes, that they aren’t necessarily dry from start to finish. It’s that the finish is dry. And that makes them really fun to pair with foods because they’re going to, um, evolve with salty or oily characteristic.
John Puma: 19:14
Yeah. We’re not kidding about the, about the thickness and how like kind of full body this is. This is. It, it is a bit cloying in the mouth even though the flavor is dry and crisp at the end. It’s a very interesting combination of these characteristics and it makes it a fun sake to sip on.
Namazake Paul: 19:31
Definitely, and, and it’s something that I, is one of those neat things that you only get in sake. If you try a wine that’s thick, it’s because it’s sweet and has residual sugar, right? Whereas here you have a, a thickness and a richness, but it’s dry.
Timothy Sullivan: 19:49
Now there may be people at home listening to us saying like, Oh, I don’t like super dry or rice sakes. Maybe the advent calendar isn’t for me, but I want to remind people, this is about exploring the vast options that sake can offer you. Right? Like there’s gonna be such a wide variety of styles that that’s one thing that attracted me to sake in the first place is when I realized there is a flavor for everyone. There really is.
Namazake Paul: 20:19
And that’s part of the fun. You know, it, I, I think about sort of like three different demographics of people and one demographic are people that are getting into sake and wanna learn about sake. And I wanted to have good representations of every style that would hold up on its own as something that I would drink any day as a full bottle of sake so that a new person could get that right. And then of course there’s a demographic of the card carrying sake geek, right? and they have to get a calendar or they have to return their sake geek card, Right. And then I learned that there’s actually another demographic which I didn’t really understand or know prior to doing an advent calendar is that there are avid calendar people and they will have five or six or seven Advent calendars. They have a chocolate kind, a classic one from Trader Joe’s. They have one with dog treats. They have a tea a day, they have a beer a day, and, and now of course they’re gonna have a Namazake Paul Advent calendar as well.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:20
Awesome. So we’re not stopping at one day. We’ve got two days worth of sake here. So, um, John, do you want to introduce us to the stats for the second cup? We’re gonna bet trying
John Puma: 21:30
I, I am excited to introduce this one. So this is the, uh, Daisekki Junmai Ginjo cup. So Junmai Ginjo cup. That’s a little unusual. so that’s already exciting. this is again, a Junmai Ginjo. It’s using unspecified rice that’s been produced in Nagano Prefecture which is where, Daisekki is. Uh, this rice has been polished down to 55% of its original size. The alcohol percentage is 15 and the sake meter value is plus four. So, uh, just a touch on the dry side, not like that plus eight of our previous sake.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:08
All right, I’m gonna open the cup.
John Puma: 22:10
Yeah. All right. We’ve got the
Timothy Sullivan: 22:12
All right, and this is just fun. Drinking out of one cups is is a lot of fun in and of itself.
John Puma: 22:19
Yes, it is.
Namazake Paul: 22:20
And then you’ve got, you’ve got a cup. You know what’s kind of fun is you could take this to a picnic or whatever and bring a full bottle and a couple of cups, and then your cups become your place to pour your full bottle. Or you can put flowers in ’em, or votives or whatever you like.
John Puma: 22:34
Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:35
All right, let’s give it a sip. This is the Daisekki. Junmai. Ginjo. Hmm. Now this is a lot cleaner out the gate. It tastes a little bit lighter in body. It still is, uh, a touch on the dry side, but not as overtly dry as the Wakaebisu. So, but it’s just overall lighter, very clean, Gentle.
Namazake Paul: 23:02
This is one of the reasons why I really like, uh, Nagano sake. I feel like they have some of the elegance of Niigata with a little bit more sweetness and mineral and a little bit more Ginjo Ka, if you will. And I think this really, this really does that nicely.
John Puma: 23:20
Yeah. there’s a touch of that ginjo. It’s not not bowling you over. and I think that when you’re making a one cup, you’re not gonna make something with high aromatics. It’s gonna be a bit of a fruit bomb. It’s gonna be something that’s a little bit more suited. For the One Cup style. Uh, and I think this is taking like Daisekki’s general style of, of making Junmai Ginjo and adopting it for, for a one cup. you can definitely like get their house style from there.
Namazake Paul: 23:46
Yeah, I really like how the, the Ginjo shows up late almost. it’s, uh, it’s not sort of on the nose, as you say, John. It’s, it’s really five, six seconds in, You get the sort of lingering ginjo flavors,
John Puma: 23:59
Yeah. Very nice
Namazake Paul: 24:01
and this is one where I really wanted to. I really wanted this brewery in specific because my first experience with them was last February. I had their Namazake and their Tokubetsu Junmai, which was slightly effervescent and just blew me away. It was one of my absolute favorite sakes of the year, and then there’s their Natsu, was fantastic as well. Um, and by that time I had already committed I, we have to get a cup from this brewery and so I’m so glad it, it performs.
John Puma: 24:32
Yeah, they kind of came out of nowhere for me at least. I’d never heard of them before. And then suddenly they brought in this, you know, this nama and, and then this this natsu and it’s like, wow, these guys are making fantastic stuff. And so I’m glad that you were able to get a cup from them as well and kind of keep that, keep that train.
Namazake Paul: 24:48
Yeah, and I feel like Nagano is kind of having a little moment here too. You know, for a long time it was just sort of Masumi that was the flag bearer in the US anyway, and I’ve, I’ve tasted a number of sake lately from Nagano that I’m really excited about.
John Puma: 25:01
Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:02
I would’ve loved to been a fly on the wall at the Daisekki staff meeting the week that your order came in. Like there’s some crazy American guy who wants 500 cups from us. What’s going on,
Namazake Paul: 25:15
I got, I have, I got all the reactions for sure. I definitely got one brewery wanted to send me gifts and so they sent with the, with a sake, they sent stickers. And there may be a surprise in, in some people’s boxes of some, some sake stickers that, the breweries insisted make it in.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:35
Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. Well, these are both such a good sneak peek into what we’re gonna get, in the advent calendar, a nice dry one, a really super clean ginjo one, and there’s a whole bunch of other days. it’s a mini miracle that you got all these cups coordinated, don’t you think?
Namazake Paul: 25:58
Well, thank you. I, I worked really hard on it. It took, it took me eight months and as I say it, uh, I had to work very closely with, with a number of different importers to make sure that we had this wide range of styles. And it wasn’t just 23 days of Honjozo
John Puma: 26:12
yeah we just sipped on two cups and there are 21 more to go And
Timothy Sullivan: 26:18
Yes.
Namazake Paul: 26:18
a full, and a full size bottle for, for christmas
John Puma: 26:21
and size ball.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:21
Oh, Christmas Eve.
John Puma: 26:23
Christmas Eve. Exactly. Uh, so, um, how do our listeners order the advent calendar, Paul?
Namazake Paul: 26:30
Perfect. So NamazakePaul.com. it’ll be the first item on the list there. And you get the calendar, of course, that we’ve been talking about with the 23 different cups and one big cup, the tasting booklet. And then I actually had a custom shipping box made. That has the bear, uh, character, uh, shiro Kuma. he is stencil onto the, uh, the outside of the shipping box. So when it arrives, you’ll know it arrived. it is a 23 pound box of sake.
John Puma: 27:00
Oh
Timothy Sullivan: 27:00
my gosh.
John Puma: 27:02
Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, whatever,
Namazake Paul: 27:05
indeed. indeed. yeah. So NamzakePaul.com and normally I’ve got lots of, Individual bottles on the website. But given the enormity of this project I’ve just cut it down to, to doing, uh, packs and the, um, the advent calendar because I wanna make sure I get everybody’s advent calendar in time so they can join in the, conversation online and compare notes.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:29
Awesome. So this is up for sale now. People can order and get one for yourself. Get one for your friends, get one for your family.
Namazake Paul: 27:38
Definitely they make great gifts. In fact, I’ve had a number of people order them as, uh, business gifts.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:44
Oh,
Namazake Paul: 27:45
so that’s kind of fun because you can send it to a business and then they can just put it in the break room and, you know, hopefully people behave. But
John Puma: 27:51
I don’t think they’re gonna wait for the, uh, for the days for that one. I think it’s just gonna be people just, pouncing on that case
Namazake Paul: 27:58
December 1st, I might get a bunch of orders from offices.
John Puma: 28:02
You never know. You never know.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:05
Well, I have pre-ordered mine already because I cannot turn in my sake Otaku card. I’m holding that tight, so, uh, mine is pre-ordered. How about you, John?
John Puma: 28:13
Um, I have not pre-ordered yet, but I will, I’m good for it. Paul knows I sometimes wait for the last minute on things.
Namazake Paul: 28:22
We’ll get your order in soon, John, because i, I, gotta, I gotta hand make all these and I gotta get about in
John Puma: 28:26
for it. well this was a lot of fun. Nice to have Finally. Have you on the show, Paul, It’s been, uh, it’s been nice getting to chat about this project. This is Labor of Love.
Namazake Paul: 28:41
Definitely, definitely. I appreciate it. And I, as I say, I’m the fan of the show from day one, so it’s, it’s really an honor to be on the show.
John Puma: 28:50
and I wish we would’ve touched on this a little bit earlier, but I do think that like there’s a, a budding interest in one cups in the us. We’re seeing more of them here. And I imagine that with with this influx here that might push it even further. And I think that there are an excellent way to experience sake. This advent counter is a great way to experience a wide variety, which is, Just a fun way to get into sake
Namazake Paul: 29:13
Absolutely.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:16
Yeah, so you’re gonna make a lot of sake nerds around the country. You’re gonna make their Christmas dreams come true. So thank you for that.
Namazake Paul: 29:24
Definitely, I’ve definitely got some orders from spouses that said, I’m, I’m buying this for my spouse, so don’t tell them about it. And, and it’s like, I don’t know how you’re gonna keep a 22 pound box of sake secret, but we’ll, we’ll try our best
John Puma: 29:36
I hope. I hope this will fit in my fridge.
Namazake Paul: 29:38
It will, That’s actually really fun is that I made the height of it, uh, low enough that it should fit into a, um, into a standard fridge,
John Puma: 29:46
Excellent. Excellent. That’s, that’s the news I wanted to hear.
Namazake Paul: 29:49
but it’s not required. They’re, they are all pasteurized. So you could display it on your mantle if you want, and maybe just take out that day sake in the morning and put it in the fridge to chill it down. If you’d prefer to do that, you can certainly do
John Puma: 30:01
you go. pasteurized sake from Namazake Paul
Timothy Sullivan: 30:04
Yeah, I like that. Like in the morning you can open up the door, take out the cup, look it up, and then put it in the fridge. And when you get home from work, it’s nice and chilled and you’re ready to go for, for your, uh, evening sake
John Puma: 30:16
Your evening Tipple,
Namazake Paul: 30:17
Mm-hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 30:20
Well, Namazake Paul, thank you so much for joining us. I am really looking forward to my Advent calendar and we hope, any listeners out there who are interested in as well in getting this calendar for themselves, visit NamazakePaul.com. You can also visit our show notes, of course anytime at SakeRevolution.com. We’ll have the cover art and we’ll have all the information on ordering the Sake advent calendar for yourself. John, great to taste with you fun to have some one cup sakes again, and I want to thank all of our listeners for joining us today. Special shout out special. Hello and special thank you to our patrons as well. If you’re interested in supporting the Sake Revolution podcast, you can visit patreon.com/SakeRevolution to learn more.
John Puma: 31:10
And if you have burning sake questions. We have set up an email address that you can send them to it’s [email protected]. So until next time, raise your one cups. Everybody remember to keep drinking sake and Kanpai