Episode 130 Show Notes
Episode 130. Join us this week as John and Timothy go down the rabbit hole in search of what could be described as the most unique sake yeast out there! This takes us over 100 years back in time to the establishment of the first olive trees in Japan planted in the rural Sanuki region of Kagawa Prefecture which we learned went on to become the nation’s epicenter for olive oil production. To boost slumping sake sales, the Kagawa Sake Brewer’s association decided in 2016 to leverage their region’s famous fruit to create a new style of sake. And thus, Sanuki Olive Yeast was born. Finding the right strain of yeast took years of research, but finally, an alcohol tolerant yeast propagated from olive leaves and fruit was established. Would you roll the dice and try a sake made from olive yeast? And does it actually taste like olives?? We promise you’ll be surprised! We sure were! #SakeRevolution
Skip to: 00:19 Show Opening
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy
Skip to: 03:39 Sanuki Olive Yeast
“Full mind, full body filled with Sanuki olive yeast”
https://sanuki-olive-yeast.jp/en
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/sanuki.sake/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/sanukisake/
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKEzPPmZHQOOPu92QNy0Tjw
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/sanukisake
“Inspired by a unique idea born in the Sanuki region, we have successfully created the world’s first sake produced from olive yeast. We want those who find humor in novelty to experience the true pleasure of drinking sake with this surprising twist on the everyday. ”
Skip to: 13:36 Sake Tasting : Kawatsuru Olive Junmai Ginjo
Kawatsuru Olive Junmai Ginjo
Alcohol: 14.0%
Brand: Kawatsuru (川鶴)
Brewery: Kawatsuru Shuzo
Classification: Junmai Ginjo
Prefecture: Kagawa
Rice Type: Sanuki Yoimai
Seimaibuai: 55%
Importer/Distributor: Vine Connections (USA)
Yeast: Sanuki Olive Yeast
Skip to: 29:18 Show Closing
This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!
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Episode 130 Transcript
John Puma: 0:21
Hello everybody and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America’s First Sake podcast and I am your host, John Puma. I’m also the, uh, administrator over at the Internet Sake Discord, as well as the moderator at Reddits r slash sake community.
Timothy Sullivan: 0:41
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. Hey John, how you doing?
John Puma: 1:01
Hi, Tim. How are you?
Timothy Sullivan: 1:03
I’m doing good.
John Puma: 1:04
That’s great. it’s December. It’s starting to feel like December. Maybe a, maybe, maybe a little late, but it’s definitely starting to feel like December. Here in New York, it looks like December. Here in New York, there’s Christmas lights everywhere. The tree is up. It’s, it’s kind of nice. Yeah. What do you think? You’re, you, are you, are you a, a holiday festive guy.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:23
Oh, definitely. Yeah. I love the holidays.
John Puma: 1:26
Hmm. Now, now do you do, do you do like the ugly holiday sweater thing?
Timothy Sullivan: 1:31
That would be a no.
John Puma: 1:33
You know? Oh, come on. That’s the fun. That’s so much fun. I do that.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:37
I believe it.
John Puma: 1:39
And it’s, it, honestly, I didn’t start doing it. People started buying them for me and I was like, I’m gonna roll with this and I’m gonna wear them. And they’re fun. But, uh, but yeah, it’s nice. what is in store for us today?
Timothy Sullivan: 1:52
Yeah. Well, I picked up this really unique sake that led me down a complete rabbit hole. I thought I knew a lot about sake,
John Puma: 2:03
You
Timothy Sullivan: 2:04
I thought I knew a lot about sake, and then I discovered this whole corner I had never heard of. No idea. So,
John Puma: 2:12
You heard it here first. Folks, Tim Sullivan thought he knew a lot about sake until today,
Timothy Sullivan: 2:19
But this one stumped me. But I did do some research and went down the rabbit hole and learned a little bit about this whole situation. And this takes us to a specialty yeast. Now we’ve talked about yeast before on the show
John Puma: 2:34
Yeah, we talked about specialties before the show.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:38
Yeah, like what, what have we had? We had, uh,
John Puma: 2:41
We had, well there was the whole, the whole ama pki thing where, um, where they specialize in harvesting yeast from, uh, flowers, from
Timothy Sullivan: 2:50
my God, we had the whole garden in there
John Puma: 2:52
Yes.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:53
we?
John Puma: 2:53
Yes. We did Yes, we did.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:57
so many flowers. So flower yeast is one, and there’s other types of specialty yeast.
John Puma: 3:04
Yeast
Timothy Sullivan: 3:04
ambient house yeast, like literally falling off the, the earthen walls at the brewery. And today we’re gonna talk about another super specialized kind of yeast
John Puma: 3:15
Mm-hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:16
and I think if you guessed for six months, you, you would never come across this one I, I wouldn’t have
John Puma: 3:23
In, in all honesty, if I didn’t have the bottle sitting in front of me and you had me guess, I would never, I would be sitting here for like, the, the episode would be four hours long, and it would just be me saying, how about this? And you’re like, no Evergreens, no
Timothy Sullivan: 3:39
Yes. Yeah. let’s end the suspense, the cliffhanger, and tell people what we are going to be drinking. So we are gonna be drinking a sake made with Yeast that’s propagated off of olives.
John Puma: 3:56
Huh
Timothy Sullivan: 3:57
Huh?
John Puma: 4:00
That my first reaction was, huh?
Timothy Sullivan: 4:03
Now I have a sneaking suspicion. You’re not an olive guy in general.
John Puma: 4:10
hm. Um, Tim, I loathe olives. With a with a, with a fiery passion. Uh, I just, I don’t like the, I don’t like the flavor. I don’t like the texture. I don’t like the aroma. I don’t like anything about olives. I don’t, I don’t get martinis because olives
Timothy Sullivan: 4:33
Well, someone invented a martini for someone like you. It’s called a a with a twist. You get it with, with some
John Puma: 4:40
with a twist and just don’t ha they don’t have to have the skewered olives in it. That’s excellent. I will do that.
Timothy Sullivan: 4:45
That’s a news flash for you. Good
John Puma: 4:48
Excellent.
Timothy Sullivan: 4:49
I love olives, so I can carry any olive loving energy for this episode on my shoulders because I think they’re amazing. I love them on pizza. I love them on a charcuterie board. They’re salty and briny, and I think they’re super yummy. So, maybe this will, this will be my home court advantage for this episode.
John Puma: 5:13
Excellent. Excellent. so olive yeast. Tell me what’s going on
Timothy Sullivan: 5:18
did you even know that Japan made olive oil its own olive oil? I didn’t know this
John Puma: 5:25
a as an Italian American, I’m. uh, Suspicious. You know, cuz we we’re supposed to have the market cornered on that stuff.
Timothy Sullivan: 5:32
Yes. Well,, around 1908 or so, about 115 years ago, uh, they decided to try to start growing olive trees in Japan, and they picked a kind of remote place. It’s Kagawa Prefecture. Now this is a small out of the way Prefecture. It’s on Shikoku Island, which is the smallest of the four main islands. And we’ve talked about Kochi on the show before. Kochi Prefecture. So this is uh, uh, north of that region and it faces the Seto Inland Sea.
John Puma: 6:12
It’s right next to Ehime, right?
Timothy Sullivan: 6:14
I think that’s right.
John Puma: 6:16
Yeah. Okay. I, and I think I know exactly where you’re talking
Timothy Sullivan: 6:18
Yes. So if you look at Shikoku Island, it’s kind of on the north and the eastern side. That area is where we’re talking about, and apparently the. environment and the, climate is similar to Mediterranean vibes. So they said, why don’t we try to grow some olives here? And in a few years, they started to grow trees and got their first harvest, and then this became the epicenter of the Japanese olive oil industry. So I think 99% of all olive oil made in Japan comes from Kagawa, Prefecture.
John Puma: 6:57
That is fascinating. Uh, I would never have guessed this.
Timothy Sullivan: 7:00
I had never heard of that either.
John Puma: 7:02
Uh, in fact, when you said like this region that is, that was, you know, had the, the temperature of the ter, I thought it was gonna be like Okinawa or something like that, you know, kind of often in the water or nice and humid, you know, uh, so very surprised to hear that it is, uh, in fact, uh, Kagawa Prefecture,
Timothy Sullivan: 7:19
Yeah. So they started growing olives there, started making olive oil, and so many places in Japan have their regional product. We’ve talked about this a lot in the past, right?
John Puma: 7:30
Yeah. Yeah. They’re often very proud of the regional stuff,
Timothy Sullivan: 7:34
yeah, so it’s really fascinating and they started to grow olives there, produce olive oil. This became really famous, and then I discovered something in 2011. They created the most expensive and rare wagyu in the world apparently
John Puma: 7:56
I use already pretty expensive. Tim
Timothy Sullivan: 7:58
So there’s an island off the coast of Kagawa, part of Kagawa called Shodoshima Island. And this is one of the main regions where a lot of the olive oil comes from. And they also have wagyu cattle on this island. And in 2011, there was a farmer who didn’t like seeing all the waste from the olive oil being produced. So he started feeding the squished olives. After they go through the mill to make the olive oil, he started feeding his leftover olive bits to his Wagyu, and apparently it makes delicious beef. So several places I’ve read online, when I was searching for the information about this olive oil, this thing about wagyu kept coming up and I’m like, what’s this? So this is a very famous offshoot of this olive oil production, and now it’s some of the most expensive and rare wagyu is this olive-fed wagyu Beef
John Puma: 8:56
And obviously we’ve got some of that to taste today too.
Timothy Sullivan: 8:59
don’t. I heard about your hatred of olives, so I sent the wagyu back to Japan.
John Puma: 9:04
no, no. I like the, I like the beef, Tim
Timothy Sullivan: 9:08
I’m just kidding. No, unfortunately we don’t have the rarest wagyu available. Uh,
John Puma: 9:15
I think we would need another Patreon tier if we wanted to make that happen.
Timothy Sullivan: 9:19
And then, so that brings us up to 2011. And then in, uh, 2016, the Sake Brewers Association of Kagawa got together and they were really lamenting the fact that. The percentage of people drinking sake was really going down, and that’s been a well-known fact for a long time. But they said maybe they can make something with their local products that can revive interest in sake. And since Kagawa, basically, I learned recently equals olives, they hit on this idea to make sake from yeast that’s cultivated off of olive. Plants, olive trees.
John Puma: 10:04
So they’re getting a lot out of these olive trees. Now they’ve got olives. I imagine they just use them for, you know, olive eating for people who are into eating olives and putting ’em on pizza, perhaps. you’ve got the olive oil that they’re making. You got the feed that they’re using for this Wagyu beef and you’ve got them also producing, sake. Yeast off of this. Huh?
Timothy Sullivan: 10:27
Yeah, and there’s a couple other things too. I saw that they make cosmetics out of the, the olive oil and they also carve the olive wood and they make like spatulas and cutting boards and things like that.
John Puma: 10:39
Wow. I mean, it’s funny you’ve heard of like use every part of the animal, but they’re using every part of the plant,
Timothy Sullivan: 10:43
yes, exactly. So the, the. The Sake Brewers Association threw down the gauntlet and they said, okay, we want to make a successful, delicious sake from Olive yeast since we’re all about olives here in Kagawa. So they, um, they asked the Perfectional Industry Technology Center to help them out, and in 2016, they began collecting yeast samples they collected from flowers on the olive tree. They collected from the fruit, the little olives itself from the leaves, and they did a few years of development and they hit a snag.
John Puma: 11:28
uh,
Timothy Sullivan: 11:29
The yeast, they found yeast that would produce alcohol, but it was dying at around 15% alcohol. So when they brewed with it and they made a sake mash, the sake yeast would die at around 15% alcohol, which is too low. We need to get up higher than that when we make sake. In most cases, you want a really robust alcohol tolerant yeast. So they did, um, I think they did some trick where they tried to propagate the yeast in an alcohol medium from the get-go. Naturally selected for the alcohol tolerant yeast, and then they found two strains that made it up to 18% alcohol. And then they were ready to go.
John Puma: 12:13
not bad.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:14
Yeah, they did some genetic testing to make sure it was the right strain of yeast and then they recruited four breweries in Kagawa to begin making sake. And the first round of this was released in 2020 and I think there’s only six breweries in Kagawa, so they got over A pretty big majority of the breweries are on this olive project.
John Puma: 12:42
Nice. I’m glad they got a decent sample set. Uh, uh, well that’s interesting. And so this is a relatively new to market product and, and we’re, getting it in the US already in 2022.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:58
Yeah, so there’s only one of these olive sakes that’s exported to the states, and I think, I haven’t seen it before, I think this year. So I think it’s relatively new. Right.
John Puma: 13:08
Yeah, I think it’s pretty new here.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:10
Yeah. So, that catches us up.
John Puma: 13:14
Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:15
of olive oil in Kagawa Prefecture. Who? Who knew We would be talking about this today,
John Puma: 13:21
I did not.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:22
I did not either. so John, do you want to give us a little introduction to the sake that we’re gonna be tasting? We can talk a little bit about this, one of these six breweries here that’s helping us out today.
John Puma: 13:36
I would love to. So this is the, uh, Kawatsuru Olive. We’re going simple on the name. Tim, Kawatsuru Olive. And this is a Junmai Ginjo. Uh, the alcohol is down at 14%. Uh, the rice is, is something that’s interesting. I don’t think I’ve heard of this rice before. Sanuki yoi Mai. I don’t know if you’re familiar. I’ve, I’m, I, this is the first time I’m encountering it. Uh, the rice polishing ratio is 55%, so it’s firmly in that Junmai Ginjo territory. and the brewery is, uh, Kawatsuru Shuzo and they, have exported other products to the US in the past and still do, and they were founded in 1891. So, um, you know, they’re somehow, uh, somehow a sake brewery that is, younger than the United States. I didn’t, I didn’t know that was possible.
Timothy Sullivan: 14:33
Yeah. And one of the key words you mentioned, it’s part of the name of the rice is Sanuki. So Sanuki is one of the Sub-regions of Kagawa Prefecture, and it is really ground zero for the olive growth and olive production. So this is actually called Sanuki Olive yeast. So it’s this region of Kagawa Prefecture in particular is associated with the, olive yeast.
John Puma: 15:02
So the olive yeast is coming from Sanuki and the rice, so they’re going all in on Sanuki.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:07
Yes. Yeah. And there is a website which we will link in the show notes, Sanuki-Olive-yeast.jp So they have built a whole website with, and they have an English version and a Japanese version. They have a Twitter, a Facebook and Instagram and a YouTube. And they have launched like a major marketing campaign in Japan promoting the Sanuki olive yeast idea. And they have a catchphrase.
John Puma: 15:43
oh, I, I want to hear it. What is the catchphrase?
Timothy Sullivan: 15:45
Okay, this is plastered all over their website.
John Puma: 15:47
Alright, I’m ready. It’s gotta be very catchy.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:49
Okay. Quote, full mind, full body filled with Sanuki olive yeast,
John Puma: 15:58
Hmm. I don’t know if I wanna fill my body with sunki olive yeast, necessarily. If I were into the olives, maybe I would be into, and, you know, if, perhaps the Wagyu is filled with sanuki olive yeast too. I’m down with that.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:13
Yes. I think their heart’s in the right place here.
John Puma: 16:16
it is definitely, perhaps something was lost in translation.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:21
Yes. So the text of the Sanuki Olive yeast website goes on to explain that they want to communicate the nature. The flavors and the humor of the people of the Sanuki region through this sake, through this yeast. And they’ve given it to these four breweries to try to make sake. And again, as I said before, this was first released in 2020, so this is a whole new thing. And, they are not skimping on the promotional materials here, so there’s lots to dig into. If you want more information than we can provide in a 30 minute podcast on Sanuki yeast
John Puma: 17:05
Yeah. I, I’ve gotta tell you, I I wish somebody would produce a sake that, that relayed my humor. That would be great.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:13
Oh, I don’t know. Would that, would that be a, A sweet or a sour sake. John Puma
John Puma: 17:18
Salty. Very Salty. Very salty
Timothy Sullivan: 17:23
All right. I believe it.
John Puma: 17:24
Yes. Uh, anyway, I’m excited to try this Now, before we do anything else, have you tasted this sake before in any situation?
Timothy Sullivan: 17:32
No, I have never tasted the sake before.
John Puma: 17:35
Neither have I, so I am very excited. You know, I, I like when we get these like live, um, reactions, so it’s
Timothy Sullivan: 17:44
Yes. Are you ready to fill your mind and your body with Sanuki olive yeast?
John Puma: 17:50
There’s only one way to find out.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:52
All right, let’s get this open. All right, so before we take a smell here, Just want to describe the label a little bit. So there is basically kind of like a watercolor illustration of an olive branch with some beautiful leaves and a few ripening olives on It says Kawatsuru on it and very prominently says olive on the bottom right.
John Puma: 18:29
It definitely does this. This label reminds me a lot of wine.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:33
Hmm. Oh, that is a very good point. I agree with that.
John Puma: 18:37
That’s the first thing I think of when I look at the label. The second thing is perhaps olive oil, but the first thing is definitely wine. Um, it does not make me think sake, which is very interesting. It’s, they’re trying to go, um, and branch out. I think that’s important to do sometimes when you’re making an interesting product, you want to get people who aren’t your contemporary sake drinkers. And does it get somebody’s attention that doesn’t usually drink sake?
Timothy Sullivan: 18:59
For sure. Yeah, exactly. If you handed this bottle to someone and said, what’s in here? Well, there’s an illustration of the olive and it says olive on it. I would think it would be olive oil. It kind of looks like a artisan olive oil bottle, but yeah, but it’s not craft Japanese sake, as it says. And looking at it in the wine glass, it looks like a Chardonnay. It has a white wine color to it. For me.
John Puma: 19:22
It does. It really does. That’s an excellent point.
Timothy Sullivan: 19:25
Yeah. All right. So interesting label, interesting color. Let’s give it a smell. Okay. Now I know the burning question on everyone’s mind is, does it smell like olives, Does it taste like olives? Well, we’ll tackle the first question first. Does it smell like olives? I don’t think so. Not at all.
John Puma: 19:45
I am relieved to say it does not
Timothy Sullivan: 19:47
Yeah.
John Puma: 19:49
Hmm. What, what does it smell like? It’s, it’s interesting. I get a little bit of, um, a little bit of an ethanol, but I also get like, um, something almost like, almost herbal, I want to say Maybe it’ll, uh, cut grass kind of thing.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:08
Hmm. Well I do have a sheet here from the distributor. Should I list off a few of the aroma profiles that they’ve, that they’ve called out for this?
John Puma: 20:16
I am very curious as to what they, what they put down.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:20
Alright. They say Here, muskmelon, white flowers, green pear, with a hint of grass and salinity. So you nailed it. You nailed the grass there.
John Puma: 20:32
there’s a very faintly, floral,
Timothy Sullivan: 20:35
Hmm.
John Puma: 20:36
tiny bit like it’s mother’s day and you’re in the other room.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:41
Hmm.
John Puma: 20:43
But it’s not like walking past bed bath me on, it’s, it’s very subtle.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:46
right, the floral profile that I’m picking up on is like a white Lilly,
John Puma: 20:53
A little bit like, a little bit like perfumed in that way. Yes, yes. But, but, but I’m, it’s very faint. It’s very subtle. Yes. that’s not beating you over the head
Timothy Sullivan: 21:02
Hmm. the aroma’s also like a little bit melon. but not fresh cut. Tropical melon, it’s more like the, the syrup off of, uh, melon in a fruit salad. it, it smells concentrated and a little bit rich.
John Puma: 21:26
Maybe, yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:27
Hmm
John Puma: 21:28
a honey do
Timothy Sullivan: 21:29
hmm.
John Puma: 21:31
not, definitely not like cantaloupe or anything like that. Hmm. Alright. I think, uh, I think we’re ready for a taste.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:38
Yeah. Let’s give it
John Puma: 21:39
It’s like the most, the most aroma analysis we’ve done on a sake in months.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:47
Hmm. Okay. It does not taste like olives.
John Puma: 21:50
No. No, it does not. It’s, It doesn’t taste like any sake had before. I don’t think this is very unique,
Timothy Sullivan: 21:59
Yes.
John Puma: 22:00
But it does not taste like olives either, as you pointed out.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:03
It has a, it has a rich texture.
John Puma: 22:06
Hmm. Yeah. This is
Timothy Sullivan: 22:08
Hmm.
John Puma: 22:08
fascinating.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:10
And sweet versus dry. I think it lands just a touch on the sweeter side. We don’t have an SMV number for this one, but there’s a viscosity to the palate. There’s a thickness here, and it reads just a hint on the sweet side for me.
John Puma: 22:24
I agree a tiny bit on the sweet side. There’s a, what is this? It’s so interesting. This is, I, I’m fascinated by this. This is like
Timothy Sullivan: 22:34
it is really, really interesting.
John Puma: 22:37
So you mentioned grass and salinity
Timothy Sullivan: 22:41
Yeah.
John Puma: 22:42
the tasting notes and. It almost tastes a little salty.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:48
Hmm.
John Puma: 22:49
and I, I was trying to figure out like what it, like there’s a note in there that I’ve never had in a sake before, and I think it’s the salinity. Like I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that before.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:00
Hm.
John Puma: 23:00
And it’s not unwelcome. It goes with the sake pretty well. I’m very curious to see what kind of food this would, this would pair with. I feel like it would probably be fairly, formidable, but not like, not like Yamahai territory, but like, I think it would go pretty well with some interesting stuff. Well, more Western style, I think.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:16
Olives are often introduced into cuisine to bring that saltiness in there.
John Puma: 23:22
Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:23
I wonder if that is coming through or if our minds are just playing tricks on us. But, uh, that little bit of salinity, a little bit of saltiness or maybe a little oceanic breeze happening
John Puma: 23:35
Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:35
comes from the, the olive yeast part of it. Could be, could be.
John Puma: 23:41
Could be. So the distributor also has some food pairing ideas here. and they say they try this with, salad with carrot, ginger dressing, which that, that kind of typical, uh, Japanese salad dressing, coconut crab curry or spring pea and mint gaspacho. the crab curry. Sounds like it would go. I, I, that sounds phenomenal with this. Like, that sounds really good with this sake, I think, and I can, I can easily imagine it with that, that ginger dressing as well. I think that flavor that the ginger brings will play well with the salinity and, and the flavors that are going on with the sake I think.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:25
One thing that ties those two together, like the ginger dressing and the crab curry. Both of those things tend to have a little bit of a bite to them, like they can be just a hint, spicy, not, not like chili spice, but just
John Puma: 24:38
No. Like
Timothy Sullivan: 24:38
have a little bite. ginger spice.
John Puma: 24:41
Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:42
I’m spooky. Spice.
John Puma: 24:44
Spook,
Timothy Sullivan: 24:46
no scary spice.
John Puma: 24:47
spice. Not scary. So this, this would be purely Ginger spice
Timothy Sullivan: 24:52
So ginger spice and, uh, curry spice, just a little heat, a little warmth, and then the sweetness and the richness. The melon-y Richness here can really coat that and. The saltiness balances it all out. It’s really sounds delicious to me. I also mentioned at the top of the episode that I love a charcuterie board with olives so if I had my charcuterie board with some cheese, some prosciutto, maybe a few black olives on there, that would go really well with this, I think that would be great.
John Puma: 25:30
This would be a really good anti pasta pairing sake.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:33
for me, it would.
John Puma: 25:34
All right.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:37
Yeah, and I’m, I have to be honest with you, I was a little apprehensive about this whole olive thing going in,
John Puma: 25:45
you were
Timothy Sullivan: 25:46
I know I was secretly apprehensive. You were openly apprehensive, and this is really lovely to sip on. It’s very enjoyable, really like this
John Puma: 25:58
It’s nice and that I think that that combination of the melon and the, and the salt is so weird and interesting and it’s, it works more than it should on paper to me. Like, you know, when I, when I think about those two ideas together, I’m like, well, I would never put salt on my melon, but now I’m like, should I put salt on some melon? Like this is
Timothy Sullivan: 26:23
well have, have you ever had prosciutto wrapped melon?
John Puma: 26:28
No, I
Timothy Sullivan: 26:28
it’s kind of that, oh, it’s kind of that same idea. You take, you take super thinly, sliced salty prosciutto, which is heaven on earth, and then you take some really sweet juicy melon cubes and then you, or, or slices, and then you wrap the prosciutto around and you eat them together. So it’s that same thing you’re talking about where you get the juiciness from some melon and a little salty umami layered over that. It’s, it’s really good.
John Puma: 26:56
Wow. I might be, I might be discovering a new flavor profile
Timothy Sullivan: 27:00
yes, yes. So the vibes are definitely there kind of prosciutto and melon vibes, for sure.
John Puma: 27:08
Hmm. Very nice. So, yeah, this was, this was, I wanna say that like, you know, when we have a lot of these little, uh, these unusual sakes with unusual ingredients, sometimes we get a little apprehensive, sometimes we get a little nervous. Sometimes they don’t work out the way we want ’em to. I wanna say, this one’s pretty successful.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:26
Yeah. And the thing I enjoyed the most, besides drinking the sake with you, was learning about this whole region of Japan and this whole local specialty. I’ve honestly never heard of. 15 years of like studying Japan and learning about the different regions. I’d never heard of Sanuki olives or the wagyu olive, beef or kagawa’s olive oil. I’ve never heard of any of this, so now I’m fascinated and, uh, next time I’m in that neck of the woods, I’m definitely gonna go check this out.
John Puma: 28:04
Hmm, but But you’ve never been to Kagawa, right?
Timothy Sullivan: 28:06
I’ve never been to Kagawa. I’ve been to Kochi. You’ve been to Kochi as well. So we’ve both been to shikoku but we’ve not been to the northern part of the island. And, looking on the Sanuki Olive yeast website, they have some beautiful photos of the olive groves and the Seto Inland Sea. And it looks absolutely beautiful. So next time I go, I’m gonna get ready to fill my mind and my body with sakuni Olive Yeast
John Puma: 28:39
at least the olive.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:40
or the Olive or the wagyu for
John Puma: 28:43
by the way. Well, you know, I think that that it’s it by the Transitive property. Well, that was a lot of fun. That was nice, Tim.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:52
Yeah. We, yeah, we, uh, dove deep into another interesting yeast and when we have another, Interesting yeast. We’re gonna, uh, continue this series and kick the can down the road. Uh, but for now, I just want to say thank you, John, for tasting and being brave, brave soldier,
John Puma: 29:15
Hey, you know, that’s what I’m here for
Timothy Sullivan: 29:18
Yeah. And, uh, thanks for tasting today. And I also want to thank our listeners so much for tuning in. We really do hope that you’re enjoying Sake Revolution. If you’d like to show your support for our show, one really great way to help us out is to join our lovely community on Patreon. We’re a listener supported show, and all the support we receive from our patrons allows us to host, edit, and produce a podcast for you each and every week.
John Puma: 29:42
And did you know there was other ways to support us? You can tell your friends, but I’m sure you are already telling your friends. But something you can do that you may not have thought of is leaving a review about us on Apple Podcast or your podcast platform of choice. This really helps other people discover our show. It’s a really, one, one review is a way to get, uh, is one review is worth telling 10 friends. So please
Timothy Sullivan: 30:11
Have you done the math on that
John Puma: 30:12
Totally, yes. It’s, it is flawless, uh, So please by all means, get out there and, and get a review up on, uh, your podcast platform of choice. It really does help people discover our show.
Timothy Sullivan: 30:27
And be sure to visit our website, SakeRevolution.com. There you can see our wonderful show notes we prepare each week, and we also have a written transcript of each and every episode.
John Puma: 30:37
Mm-hmm. I hope you guys still have some sake left as we’re gonna ask you to raise your glass. Remember to keep drinking sake and kanpai