Episode 178 Show Notes
Episode 178. In this episode join John and Timothy as they interview Keith Norum. Keith is a well known figure in the sake industry and he has represented the Masumi brand of sake since 2005. Keith tells us his story of getting to Japan and finding his way to the world of sake. What’s it like working at a traditional Japanese sake brewery? Keith gives us a peek behind the noren! Together we all taste one of the most popular Masumi sakes in the market outside Japan – Masumi Shiro Junmai Ginjo – a light and breezy delight! Join us and listen in as we chat with our good buddy in Nagano! #SakeRevolution
Skip to: 00:19 Show Opening
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy
Skip to: 02:00 Interview: Keith Norum
Keith’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keithnorum/
Masumi’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/masumi_sake_atw/
UrbanSake.com blog post when Timothy met Keith for hte first time: https://www.urbansake.com/masumi-evening-at-sakagura/
Skip to: 18:10 Sake Introduction and Tasting: Masumi “Shiro” Junmai Ginjo
Masumi “Shiro” Junmai Ginjo
Brewery: Miyasaka Jozo
Alcohol: 12.0%
Classification: Junmai Ginjo
Seimaibuai: 55%
Prefecture: Nagano
Rice Type: Miyamanishiki, Yamadanishiki
SMV: -3.0
Brand: Masumi (真澄)
Importer/Distributor: World Sake Imports (USA)
Yeast: Proprietary Masumi 7
Acidity: 1.5
View on UrbanSake.com: https://www.urbansake.com/product/masumi-shiro-junmai-ginjo/
Skip to: 31:33 Show Closing
This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!
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Episode 178 Transcript
John Puma: 0:21
Hello everybody and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America’s first sake podcast I am one of your hosts John Puma. I’m from the Sake Notes Also the administrator over at the internet sake Discord and Reddit’s r Slash sake community
Timothy Sullivan: 0:39
And I’m your host, Timothy Sullivan. I’m a sake samurai. I’m the director of education at the Sake Studies Center, 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: 0:56
Well, hello, Tim.
Timothy Sullivan: 0:58
Hello, John. I’m so excited.
John Puma: 1:00
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve noticed, We are in the midst of our series that has yet to be named, where we talk to people who have had, uh, experience working at Japanese sake breweries. Now, Tim, who is this man that is in our zoom?
Timothy Sullivan: 1:16
I am so excited to welcome our friend Keith Norum. He’s the Director of International Sales at Masumi Sake Brewery from Nagano Prefecture. Now, John, you and I have featured Masumi and we’ve talked about Nagano several times on the podcast. And when we decided to start a series where we interview people who’ve worked at Japanese sake breweries. Keith’s name popped right to the top of my list.
John Puma: 1:44
He might be like the second or third person we mentioned. I think
Timothy Sullivan: 1:47
Keith,
Keith Norum: 1:47
I allowed to laugh now?
John Puma: 1:49
you are totally allowed to laugh now.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:51
Keith, we are so excited to welcome you to Sake Revolution and, uh, welcome. We’re so happy to have you here.
Keith Norum: 2:00
Well, thank you, Timothy. Good to see you. John, what a nice surprise and what a pleasure and an honor to, to podcast with you guys. I’m really excited and thank you for, for asking me. Um, I’m sure there are a lot of very interesting sake stories out there and I’m not one of them. I’m one of the more boring. One of the boring stories, but at least you get through those and you can go on to more, more scintillating, uh, content.
John Puma: 2:26
Oh my goodness. I don’t know. What kind of show
Keith Norum: 2:28
But I’m, but I’m, I’m happy, I’m happy to fill the air with some stories and that sort of thing.
John Puma: 2:33
Wonderful. We’re very glad to have you.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:36
before you fill the air with stories, Keith, I have to fill the air with one of my stories. I want to go back in time to the first time I ever met you, Keith Norum, I looked it up. I went to the deepest, darkest archives of urban sake, and I found the first time that I encountered you. It was at Sakagura restaurant here in New York on May 15th, 2006. Uh, this was less than, this was less
John Puma: 3:07
I gotta say on May 15th,
Timothy Sullivan: 3:10
yes.
John Puma: 3:11
I had, had my first drink of sake about one month before that.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:15
Yeah. And I had had my first drink of sake about one year before
John Puma: 3:18
Yeah.,
Timothy Sullivan: 3:18
Keith was doing a Masumi night at Sakagura restaurant, and you had, uh, Nasutoji. Yes.
Keith Norum: 3:27
Sakagura and May, I was thinking that might’ve been the first time that Nasu-toji and I visited New York city. Was that right? That was the first time for him.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:36
Yes. And I remember saying goodbye to you, shaking your hand, and saying to you, gosh, I, how do you get to do what you’re doing? Like, this, your job of, Traveling and introducing sake just from that point in my sake journey sounded like the coolest thing in the whole world. And here we are, all these years later, and I just wanted to let you know that I think of that moment regularly and, you are such an inspiration and, uh, it was just such, such a fond memory and it was fun to reread that blog post today. I’ll put a link to it in the show
John Puma: 4:15
Oh, that’s
Keith Norum: 4:16
Oh, really? Okay. That was before Snapchat, so things don’t disappear in the air,
Timothy Sullivan: 4:22
do not disappear on Urban Sake.
John Puma: 4:26
Ah, the age of blogs. I remember those days fondly.
Keith Norum: 4:30
Timothy, that’s so kind of you to say that and to remember that. I also remember meeting you there, I just didn’t remember the year. It’s funny how the pandemic has messed up pretty much everybody’s recollection of years.
John Puma: 4:45
Mm hmm.
Keith Norum: 4:46
I just, I, I can never place anything properly anymore, but I also remember, meeting you and I remember you mentioning that you’re doing a blog about sake, which I was fascinated to hear about. and so I felt like These guys are really into this. they’re not just messing around and sort of a fun night with some strange alcohol. So I was really impressed from the very beginning.
John Puma: 5:13
that’s pretty cool. I didn’t realize you guys, uh, went back that far. I met Keith at the end of a Joy of Sake event with very fuzzy memory because it was the end of a Joy of Sake
Keith Norum: 5:22
Oh yeah,
John Puma: 5:23
But I, I think think that my, my wife, Myshell had met you earlier in the night. Or near the end of it and was like you have she came over to me. She’s like you gotta meet Keith Came over i’m like who’s Keith And she’s like this is Keith and you’re telling you introduce yourself and I was like, oh, I love Masumi. This is great
Keith Norum: 5:40
Good on Myshell typically, she’s on it and goes, okay, well, if I don’t get John over here, he’s going to be totally blotto and it won’t happen. So she got you on the leash before that could happen. That’s good.
John Puma: 5:55
Yeah, she’s good like that
Keith Norum: 5:57
oh.
Timothy Sullivan: 5:58
according to my extensive research, Keith, you You joined Miyasaka Jozo Miyasaka Brewery, makers of Masumi, full time in June of 2005 as the head of overseas operation. Uh, can you give us a quick, uh, summary of how you wound up in Japan and how you connected with, um, Masumi?
Keith Norum: 6:23
That’s a tough order. Uh, quick, quick is the hard part. Okay. But, Well, first, how I ended up in Japan. I actually came to Japan in 1990. it was still bubble time in
John Puma: 6:38
Yeah.
Keith Norum: 6:39
And I had, stepped out of graduate school. and decided not to pursue the academic career that I was in graduate school for, and, uh, I had a really, really important reason to go to Japan instead. Partly, work. Japan was booming and so there were, plenty of opportunities to find something to do there. And I was also married to a Japanese woman, wonderful woman, Michiko. We were married in the States and, I felt it was time to turn the tables. So, there were two Ws, there was work and there was a woman involved with my decision to move to Japan in 1990.
John Puma: 7:19
Hmm.
Keith Norum: 7:21
very shortly after we moved, we moved to Shizuoka, because that’s where her family’s from. And, we were looking around for work here and there, both of us, and I decided to pick up the phone because I remembered from my school years, uh, this company called Epson, which was making a lot of inkjet printers, and it was right at the time when, like, the Macintosh desktops, computers, and all of these things were really starting to come into the market, and so everybody needed a printer. And I happened to know that they were a Japanese company. Not a lot of people knew that. So I picked up the phone, called them, didn’t know anybody. And I think it was partly fate and partly just pure luck. The person who could speak English to me, who came on the line, had graduated a year before me from the same university,
Timothy Sullivan: 8:15
Oh,
Keith Norum: 8:16
had been, had been hired by Epson to start finding non Japanese people to work in Japan for them.
John Puma: 8:23
That is serendipity. Okay. I didn’t
Keith Norum: 8:29
know. I just picked up the phone. And before I knew it, I had moved from Shizuoka to Suwa in Nagano because that is the, global headquarters of the Seiko Epson Corporation. I say Seiko because Seiko watch company actually had a big hand in creating the Epson printer company. And they merged into a single corporation in the 1980s. So. Before I knew it, I was in heaven, mountain heaven, Suwa, working at a giant company, and I was on the five year plan, which I threw out the window about three years later, and
John Puma: 9:04
so hang on. What is the five year plan?
Keith Norum: 9:06
well, a five year contract, and then you go home
John Puma: 9:08
Oh, okay. So you’re just that it’s a one and done kind of thing.
Keith Norum: 9:12
And, I very quickly realized that, uh, uh, no, this, I don’t think I’m gonna be going home. and so I stayed.
John Puma: 9:21
Hmm.
Keith Norum: 9:22
brought me to Japan, and then it brought me to Suwa. And, uh, years ensued. And during those years, I met The Miyasaka family, just as friends, just as people in the neighborhood were fascinating and very warm and open, wonderful family. That’s where I encountered the Sake of Suwa at first, was through the Masumi branded Miyasaka family. Um, little did I know that he had ulterior motives in asking me to come to barbecues.
John Puma: 9:53
Aha.
Keith Norum: 9:55
So after, after 11 years I decided to leave Epson and we started a small company to, outsource. a human resources function from Epson. So we had our own little business and that’s when the Miyasaka family, actually the current president, Naotaka, knocked immediately on the door and said, Hey, you guys are free now. Can you help us?
Timothy Sullivan: 10:17
Hmm
Keith Norum: 10:18
so that was in 2001 to
John Puma: 10:21
2002 Hmm.
Keith Norum: 10:22
And we said, sure, it’d be great. And in about four years, we realized that having a small business can be very up and down. So. Having my wife Machiko, take that and me working full time for Masumi made sense for both companies. In 2005, as you mentioned, Timothy, I made the jump directly into Masumi as their overseas operations or sales person. So that’s how I ended up with Masumi. That wasn’t quick, but I guess it was quick enough.
John Puma: 10:52
It was efficient, I think. Thank you for sharing. Now, I think that our second question is probably going to be a little bit simpler, and it’s one that we ask of all of our guests. so, uh, the short version would be like, how are the, how did Saké happen for you? When was the aha? When was the, uh, like, Oh, this is something special kind of moment for you.
Keith Norum: 11:09
The very first time I encountered sake is something I remember because I was in West Virginia at the time. I was working for a daily newspaper in a place called Elkins, uh, and this was in the 80s and there wasn’t much in the way of Japanese food in Elkins, West Virginia in the 80s.
John Puma: 11:27
I’m wondering where the sake came from. That’s,
Keith Norum: 11:36
And. We decided, oh, look, they have sake, what the hell? And so we ordered a carafe, and it came out, I kid you not, it had a Chinese, very clearly a Chinese dressed woman on the picture, on the bottle. And it had an umbrella stuck in the top!
Timothy Sullivan: 11:54
hmm.
Keith Norum: 11:56
And
John Puma: 11:56
eighties Chinese restaurant right there.
Keith Norum: 11:58
oh, wow! And it was Forgettable sake, to be honest. I don’t know what it was. They didn’t even mention the brand. I don’t think that they knew the brand. And so that was a typical eighties encounter with sake in rural America.
John Puma: 12:13
Yes.
Keith Norum: 12:15
Years, years after that, honestly, the first time sake really became a thing for me was shortly after I moved to Japan. It was in Shizuoka, and we were with family and, you know, eating and all this kind of thing, and they brought out, Kaiun from Doi Shuzo, and it was so good. It was just so fresh and clear, and it just, I took a double take right there at the table, like, because I was, like, expecting another, you know, umbrella in a bottle or something, and this stuff was just. Really nice. And I went, gee, I better have another look at that. And it wasn’t so long after that, that, uh, we moved to Suwa. And, just like any big corporate, organization, they have a lot of, uh, drinking parties after work that are obligatory, so it’s kind of like work. And at some point in the evening, they would trot out either or both chilled sake and warm sake. Almost always, it was a collection of the local sakes. It was some from maybe Colton and maybe Kodu and Masumi and honking. So it was always a mix of local sake. It was mostly, uh, standard level futsushu, and it was really good. It was just nothing like I thought sake could be. So after that, while I was, I was hooked in into it and I was curious about it. But I must say, I was not, I didn’t become some kind of sake maniac. I did not suddenly do a huge deep dive into the sake pool. I was just there. It was part of your daily life. And there were plenty of other things that occupied me. So, I wasn’t, I wasn’t sort of transformed into some kind of sake evangelist overnight. It wasn’t like that.
Timothy Sullivan: 14:03
Well, you’ve been working with Masumi Brewery since 2005, and we’d love to get your perspective on working for a Japanese sake brewery as a non Japanese person. You’ve been with the same brewery for a long time now, and we’d love to hear some of the Uh, the challenges or some of the things that have really surprised you in a positive way about working for a Japanese sake brewery as a non Japanese person. What are some of your thoughts on that?
Keith Norum: 14:35
Okay, here we go. I’m going to watch the time on this one. But no, no, really, honestly, because I’d already been in Japan quite a while before actually joining or working with, you know, Miyasaka Brewing Company. Um, I didn’t have the kind of real big culture shock that a lot of people do when they move to Japan. And just start jumping straight into, uh, an industry like sake, uh, Timothy, you could probably speak more about that kind of thing than me, given your experience with Hakkaisan and all that. So, I didn’t experience that kind of culture shock. The beginning with Masumi was very positive and very pleasant. we had already been friends. We were karaoke friends. We’d go to Thai restaurants together. Whoop it up because they had a karaoke room in the back and stuff. So that part of it was, was, was really enjoyable. Um, and also very positive. The shift from kind of dealing with big corporations in the tech area, like Epson and Canon and so on, to working with a sake brewery, one of the most unexpected, pleasant things was the company was so open about what they do with other makers.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:48
Hmm.
Keith Norum: 15:48
didn’t have a lot of secrets, and in the tech industry, it’s like everything’s a secret, and there’s an NDA for everything, and, and you just, but, uh, the Miyasakas had lots of other brewers who were their friends, and they had personal family relationships, and, and they were sharing all this really important information, technical information about what they do, and problems that they’d solved, and so on, and it was just, uh, such a breath of fresh air that people were so open and so supportive of each other. So I think that was one thing that hit me quick, and it’s always stayed with me. It’s one of the wonderful things about this industry.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:26
I ask you one really quick question, um, before we move on? Did you, when you started working at the brewery, did you do any production training or did you always have more of an office, um, sales marketing job?
Keith Norum: 16:42
Good question, and it was always in the office. I had training in the sense of, well, it’s best if you know how this works, so it was training in the sense of, so that I can explain things better, but there was never a point where they said, uh, you know, we’re a little short in manpower, can you come over and help us, carry rice around or, or do something? It was never that kind of situation where, we had to. I was needed in the brewery to help actually produce the sake. and that’s fine. I mean, I knew that I wasn’t going to be in that kind of capacity anyway. so I never felt left out of that. And, again, some of the things were some of the people that I brought in were just there for a day, but there were opportunities with other producers. For example, a beer maker from Norway. No, no. And he spent a month. In there. we had a winemaker from Denmark, and she spent almost the same, it was about three weeks, because she wanted to learn for her own professional use, the techniques of fermentation. And so, at times I really was allowed to stay in there every day for months at a time. So, that was great too.
John Puma: 18:00
Great. Cool. I think it is time that we stop dancing around the issue and start talking about and sipping some of the delicious sake
Keith Norum: 18:08
okay.
John Puma: 18:10
So, uh, Timothy, what have we got today?
Timothy Sullivan: 18:14
Well, we asked Keith which sake from the Masumi lineup he would like to taste with us and feature in this episode, and we landed on the Masumi Shiro Junmai Ginjo. Uh, very dedicated listeners of Sake Revolution will know that. We featured this sake back in December of 2023 in episode 161, which was our, brand profile of Masumi. So we’ve tasted this before on the show, but we are so excited to taste it with Keith together. Uh, Keith, would it be all right if I rattled off the stats for this sake for our listeners?
Keith Norum: 18:56
Please do.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:57
Alright, so again, this is from Miyasaka Jozo in Nagano, brand name Masumi. One of the key features of this sake is its lower alcohol content, about 12 percent alcohol, and the rice polishing ratio is 55 percent remaining, and this features Miyamanishiki and Yamadanishiki. Our SMV is minus three. And this features the world renowned Kyokai No. 7 Yeast, which is also tied to Masumi. And an acidity of 1. 5. So there you have it.
Keith Norum: 19:36
All righty. Thank you, Timothy. And I’m so glad you rattled it off because there’s always minor changes
John Puma: 19:42
Ooh,
Keith Norum: 19:43
so you mentioned Kyokai number seven. Yes,
Timothy Sullivan: 19:47
Oh, yes, I
John Puma: 19:48
he did.
Keith Norum: 19:50
actually, uh, Masumi now does not use the Kyokai. Kyokai means, uh, society, brewing society or brewing association. We, over the course of the last 10 years, have been working very hard to step away from buying the No. 7 yeast, Kyokai No. 7, from the Brewing Society. For the longest time, even though that yeast was first discovered and identified at Masumi, Masumi had been buying it back, just like everybody else.
John Puma: 20:21
Mm
Timothy Sullivan: 20:21
hmm.
Keith Norum: 20:23
you know, I think it was 2018, we finally made the switch to our own versions of the No. 7 yeast family. we invested heavily in yeast development, uh, laboratory and researchers, and so now we have our own proprietary Masumi No. 7,
John Puma: 20:40
Well, then
Keith Norum: 20:41
so what we do is, we wanted to keep the No. 7 name, so we just changed the association to Masumi, and there you go.
John Puma: 20:50
All right. So we’ve got it in the glass.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:55
It’s very, very gentle, light aroma for sure. Yeah.
John Puma: 21:01
And that’s one of the things I always like about Masumi stuff is that the aroma is always very distinctive. I there’s a, there’s a little bit of like when I, have something from Masumi in my glass. I can usually, I’m like, unless this is a, this is a familiar aroma to me. Um, and it’s got a little, it’s a little bit of a signature to me in my mind, which I think is like really interesting is I don’t think there’s a lot of sake that has that.
Keith Norum: 21:23
Thank you for mentioning familiarity john I that’s something people often talk about it as a feeling of comfort. There’s, there’s something comfortable about the aroma and the overall taste profile. Absolutely. And I think that’s, that’s true. It’s, it’s something that people become very comfortable and familiar with. It’s something that makes them feel at home. I should mention that the milder type of aromas, are part of the characteristics of the No. 7 yeast. No. 7 can be produced in a way, when you use No. 7, of course your production methods can do a lot for aroma. So there are certain makers who use No. 7 from the association, Society No. 7, who do some incredibly aromatic things with it. But, as far as its base, if you’re just going to use it without doing anything particularly, uh, fancy with your technique, you’re going to get mild aromas. you’re going to find a kind of array that covers some of the bright spots in some other yeast, but not at the volume or intensity of those yeast. For example, number 9 and number 18 are really good at very bright, intense fruits, but they’re, they are some of the fruit characteristics you get are white fruits like pears and apples. You find those in number 7 as well, but they don’t come out at you with the intensity or the brightness that you find in those yeasts Number seven also produces the aromas that are more rounded and very soft banana. And, you know, the aromas of banana are very warm and comforting. not sharp, not bright. And so you get this interesting balance between some of the aromatic spectrum that you see in other sakes.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:08
Hmm. All Let’s give it a taste.
John Puma: 23:10
All right.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:11
It’s so lovely. It’s very soft, gentle, but there’s notes of like apple peel and, green apple on the palate that are really charming, really lovely. but one of the main focuses of this particular sake is to take a lighter approach. Is that right? Keith?
Keith Norum: 23:29
That’s right. In fact, I think the very first time we met, Already, this kind of sake from Masumi was in New York, and I think we might have even tasted it that evening at Sakagura.
John Puma: 23:41
Hmm.
Keith Norum: 23:42
At the time, it didn’t have this name, it wasn’t called Shiro. It was, it was part of a second brand, a family private reserve brand called Miyasaka. And it was in there, and it was called Miyasaka Yawaraka Junmai. and the English name on the back of all the Masumi bottles you have is Really cool English title for them, and it’s sake matinee,
John Puma: 24:05
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:07
Yes.
Keith Norum: 24:08
and the point was, it’s, it’s 12 percent alcohol and obviously it’s going to come off lighter. It’s going to come off in a different way than a lot of sake is doing the first point to doing a sake at 12 percent was from a chef in Japan who was complaining to a president that he does a lot of lunchtime corporate dinners with people from all over the world. And his, he’s a Japanese chef, he does beautiful Japanese food, and people ordering, you know, Sauvignon Blanc and, and Chablis and stuff because they’re afraid that the sake is going to get everybody drunk and then they can’t have their afternoon plan.
John Puma: 24:46
That, that is a completely reasonable concern for an afternoon of drinking when you’re having something that’s like, you know, 16, 15 percent alcohol. Absolutely.
Keith Norum: 24:55
so so that’s where it started but very quickly. We realized partly the market made us realize that it’s not just something for lunchtime. It’s a sake that was waiting to be had that a lot of people outside of Japan especially who haven’t encountered much sake do feel the alcohol very forward. In sake, they can have a really bold red wine that’s about 15% alcohol and a sake, which is usually 15, and they’ll always feel the alcohol stronger than sake. So giving them an option of having it at 12 so that they’re not put off or distracted by the feeling of alcohol and they can actually feel the sake more. Broadly, it was something that helped them get into the sake house and start exploring. So it turned out to be just a wonderful sake in that application.
John Puma: 25:50
So it sounds like you’re describing it almost like a gateway sake.
Keith Norum: 25:54
Yeah, exactly. And in fact, just in terms of our export share, we’re right now at about 15, 1. 5 percent of our total sales per year are export sales, meaning not in Japan. So 15%. So most of the products that we export, if you compare the percentage of sales of that product, it’s around the same. So maybe 20 percent of a product is sold overseas and the rest is in Japan, typically. This product that we’re having, Shiro, 50 percent is overseas and 50 percent is in Japan. It is that much of a special product for overseas. Be careful. We did not make it for the overseas market. We made it because some guy in Tokyo said, come on, can’t you do me a sake that’s a little lower? Uh, but the result was that. So that’s, I think says it all really.
John Puma: 26:50
That’s awesome. That’s really cool.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:52
So, when we were setting up this interview, Keith, we asked you from the entire Masumi portfolio, which sake you’d like to feature and want to taste with us, and you chose this, uh, Shiro, this lower alcohol sake that you’ve been describing so eloquently. Why did you choose this out of the Masumi portfolio to taste with us today and introduce to our listeners?
Keith Norum: 27:16
Good question. And the, the obvious answer is you guys said it has to be a sake that’s available in America,
Timothy Sullivan: 27:25
True.
Keith Norum: 27:25
it has to be a sake that people can sort of reliably find if they’re in certain urban parts of the country. And partly it’s the story that I told about it, the fact that it’s been in the market as a 12 percent alcohol Jumai ginjo for a very long time, and that its popularity is clear. I felt this was the best one to help people actually go out and try it right away, but they’ll probably be able to find it. It’s also the one that I mentioned, comfort and home. This is often the sake that ends up being in our refrigerator because We’re just at home. I’m not, I’m not gonna do a giant tasting of sake every night. I’m having dinner and I want a sake that’s not going to knock me off my chair, but it’s going to go with the food and my wife and I are going to enjoy our conversation and our meal. And this is the one that ends up being the one in the refrigerator a lot. That’s why.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:22
Now, if people want to learn more about your work or learn more about. Masumi, where can people go online and, uh, discover more?
Keith Norum: 28:33
Well, one is just, if you just Google Masumi Sake, then pretty quickly, you’ll get to our English website and, although I know websites are kind of passe and everybody’s into the SNS thing and all that, honestly, just, just as a base, go to the website and it’s fairly deep. It goes through a lot of things, obviously talks about our products, talks about the history of the company. It also talks about how sake is made. In quite some detail. So it’s there as a resource and you can just, you know, nibble at that as you go along. We do have a couple of Instagram presences. There’s a, the main one, which is just Masumi. If you put Masumi sake or something in, you’ll get the Japanese one. I must say, though, just as a, as a parting note, I am, uh, now a sort of special situation employee, uh, because I’m over 60 years old, and I’ve been turned into what’s called the Shogutaku, uh, that means that I’m a Shogutaku. Yes, so Shokutaku, and it’s a special situation for older companies in Japan often do this, so I turned 60, and they retire you, and then they rehire you. So I’m a retired, rehired employee, and I’m doing about what I did before, but
John Puma: 29:50
Okay.
Keith Norum: 29:51
it’s just, yep, it’s one of those things. And we do have finally a new guy who’s helping and he’s going to be working more and more in international sales based in suwa. He’s not a Japanese guy, he’s from Hong Kong originally, but he spent most of his educational years through high school and And college in London,
John Puma: 30:11
Mm hmm.
Keith Norum: 30:11
uh, his name is Hugo Chan, and he is going to be doing more and more with the, for example, the Instagram and this kind of thing, as well as just the typical international sales work that, that we do. So you’ll be seeing a lot of him and you’ll probably see more Instagram. Thanks to him.
John Puma: 30:29
I, I had the pleasure of meeting Hugo, uh, earlier this year. Joy of sake. happy to meet him. Yeah.
Keith Norum: 30:33
So,
Timothy Sullivan: 30:34
That’s wonderful. And Keith, you’re also, I’ve seen a lot of really amazing YouTube videos featuring you talking about the brand and the sake, so there’s a YouTube channel as well, isn’t there?
Keith Norum: 30:44
that’s right. Thank you for reminding me. The reason I forgot was we did that during the pandemic. We had a video company that did those YouTube things for a
John Puma: 30:52
Oh, wow. Okay.
Keith Norum: 30:54
And, there were a lot of fun. Thanks to the video company that would come in and set it all up and do them and honestly there were a lot of fun for me too but unfortunately that relationship had a sort of ending point too. And so for the last several years we just. At least I haven’t been directly involved much with the YouTube thing. I would like to get back into it in some way or another, but it just hasn’t happened recently.
Timothy Sullivan: 31:16
it was such a pleasure to talk to you and have you on the show today. Uh, thank you so much for joining us, Keith. I
Keith Norum: 31:24
No, it was a great pleasure and honor. Thank you guys for asking me on. And, uh, I’m sure that this conversation will continue as we go along.
Timothy Sullivan: 31:33
hope so. We can’t wait to have you back again. All right. Well, in addition to Keith, I also want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in for each and every episode and a special hello and shout out to all of our Patrons For those of you who would like to support Sake Revolution, we do have a Patreon, and we appreciate our patrons so much. They make Sake Revolution possible. If you’d like to learn more about supporting us on Patreon, visit Patreon.com/SakeRevolution.
John Puma: 32:05
Uh, and if you were inspired earlier when Keith corrected us on the yeast to use in the sake, and you have other corrections, maybe did we mess something up? Is there something that you need to tell us? Is there a way we can make this show better? We want to hear from you. We want you to reach out to us, the email address for that. And if you thought websites were old email, you can email us at [email protected]. You can also just get at us on Instagram, Okay. at SakeRevolutionPod. We will thank you for your, your kind words and we’ll get back to you. Uh, now with that said, everybody please raise your glass. Remember to keep drinking sake and
Timothy Sullivan: 32:44
Kanpai!