Episode 171 Show Notes
Episode 171. This week we go back to school…again! Timothy’s new role as the Director of Education at the Sake Studies Center at Brooklyn Kura is the focus of today’s episode. The Sake Studies Center is the new sake school on the block, offering education, tastings and brewery tours for professionals and sake-curious consumers alike at our state-of-the-art facility at Industry City in Brooklyn. It’s also a sake community center where other sake educators can bring their classes and special events. As the only sake school in the U.S. attached to a working sake brewery, it really is the best place to “learn about sake where sake is made!” We hope you’ll join us for a seminar or tasting soon. Listen in for all the details! #SakeRevolution
Skip to: 00:19 Show Opening
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy
Skip to: 02:37 Sake Studies Center at Brooklyn Kura
About The Sake Studies Center at Brooklyn Kura
We believe that education is the key to making the enjoyment and understanding of sake more mainstream. With that in mind, we are proud to welcome you to the Sake Studies Center at Brooklyn Kura, the first sake school in the country attached to a working sake brewery. Led by our Director of Education Timothy Sullivan, we offer a wide range of fun and interactive sake tastings and education programming with something for everyone, from sake beginners to industry professionals. In addition to our own in-person and online courses, we are also opening our classroom and community to host sake educators from around the world. Booking for all our sake pairings, seminars and tasting events is available on our website. We hope you’ll join us to “learn about sake where sake is made!”
Website: SakeStudiesCenter.com
Course Schedule: SakeStudiesCenter.com/courses
Instagram: Instagram.com/sakestudiescenter
Brooklyn Kura: BrooklynKura.com
Address:
34 34th Street
Industry City Building 6
Inner Courtyard
Brooklyn, NY 11232
Skip to: 21:01 Sake Tasting: Brooklyn Kura Near & Far Junmai Ginjo
Brooklyn Kura Near & Far Junmai Ginjo
Alcohol: 16.0%
Brand: Brooklyn Kura
Brewery: Brooklyn Kura
Classification: Junmai Ginjo, Nama Chozo
Importer/Distributor: Skurnik
Prefecture: Brooklyn
Rice Type: Yamadanishiki (USA)
Seimaibuai: 60%
SMV: -5.7
Skip to: 31:31 Show Closing
This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!
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Episode 171 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. I’m from the Sake Notes. I’m also from the internet Sake Discord and Reddit’s R/ Sake community.
Timothy Sullivan: 0:37
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: 0:54
Hello there, Tim. How are you today?
Timothy Sullivan: 0:56
John, how’s it going?
John Puma: 0:58
It’s going well, it’s going pretty well. Um, I have a confession to make. I
Timothy Sullivan: 1:03
love true confessions.
John Puma: 1:05
I have yet to begin my sake revolution resolution for this year, 20 and 24. I know we talked, I talked a good game,
Timothy Sullivan: 1:16
sure did.
John Puma: 1:17
but I haven’t done anything about it yet.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:20
Well, remind our listeners at home what your resolution was for this year.
John Puma: 1:24
my resolution was to get some formal sake education. most of my education, I am self taught, I guess you’d say. And you know, I’ve done it by reading books, by tasting things, by going places, by doing things. I haven’t had the thing where you sit down and actually learn the thing. And I find that in a lot of places in your life, you do learn a lot from hands on. experience. But you do have holes in your wisdom when you don’t get proper education. Uh, you know, there’s a lot of concepts that I understand, but I don’t necessarily know the names of those concepts and how and why I know the thing. I don’t know the why. And so the idea is I want to learn all those things and have Some kind of certification that I can put on my wall or, uh, or, or put in the show notes when I finally do it.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:18
Well, you know, I know a guy
John Puma: 2:20
You don’t, do you? I thought you might. After all, what do you, what do we say here? Uh, you’re a sake educator, sake samurai and a sake educator? Yes, and the founder of the Urban Sake website. Do you do, is it, do you have any other, anything else that you, um, that you run or
Timothy Sullivan: 2:37
well, I’m going to need to update our intro because, uh, yeah, there’s some, uh, shameless self promotion about to happen. but I’ve been working on a big project since last November. I’ve mentioned it here and there on the podcast, but I thought today we might devote some time to talking about Something I’ve been working on for the past few months, which is the Sake Studies Center at Brooklyn Kura. And this is a sake education school that we’ve established at Brooklyn Kura, which is New York State’s first sake brewery. They just had a big expansion. They increased the size of their production facility. They increased the size of their taproom. And I was brought in. Last November to start running classes in the Study Center. So if you indulge me today, JP, I wanted to talk a little bit about the course offerings we have there and what the Study Center is all about, because I think it’s an amazing resource for people who want to learn about sake.
John Puma: 3:41
Alright, so is this going to be like one of those things where you go to the timeshare and they sit you down and you’re going to try and sell me on it?
Timothy Sullivan: 3:48
Sit through my presentation and you’ll get a,
John Puma: 3:51
this is actually, something I think is interesting and I I have been to the space where the sake study center is, but I have not been present during a sake study center event. So, um, this is kind of nice to be able to Chat about it and, uh, you know, get a little knowledge, get a little information about this. and then, uh, I think also, Tim, we’re, we’re going to be tasting some sake as well, right? Um, where, where is this sake going to be coming from?
Timothy Sullivan: 4:16
yeah, well, I brought in a Brooklyn Kura sake for us to taste today. I thought it was only appropriate
John Puma: 4:23
I thought so too. the best thing about this brooklyn Kura has a subscription service called Kura Kin and I have been a member since day one I think they I want to say they launched this in 2020. And so the ability to have sake delivered to your home was Suddenly, very, very appealing, because you really couldn’t go out too much. And so once a month they ship a certain, uh, usually two bottles to your home. Typically one of the bottles is the, is one of their normal quote unquote, we’re going to say normal, uh, sake is their blue door or their number 14, their, their, their flagship sakes. And then the other one is. Something a little different right something a little sometimes something a little weird sometimes something a little seasonal And that’s uh, that’s like where it gets to be a lot of fun And the sake we’re going to be tasting today is one of the one of those interesting weird ones I’m excited to get around to it, but we we’ve got to earn that tim. So I need to learn about learning. So teach me about teaching. Really?
Timothy Sullivan: 5:26
I want to mention that we did an episode last year called Back to School, where we talked about all the education offerings that were available in the States. And that was before the Sake Studies Center opened. So I think it’s good for us to revisit. That’s one of our most popular episodes, by the way, based on downloads. So I think there’s a demand out there for education. And I think it’s appropriate that we kind of refresh that and talk about. This new offering at Brooklyn Kura and the types of classes that we have there, the events we have there, and who might be interested in coming. So the first thing I’ll say is that the Sake Studies Center is open to everybody. We have a Portfolio of classes that we offer for consumers. These are usually 90 minutes long. They involve a tasting and a brewery tour. And then we also offer courses that are intended for professionals. So these are usually one day classes where we do training for restaurant staff and things like that. So we do some professional training, but mostly we focus on getting consumers comfortable with tasting sake.
John Puma: 6:36
Okay. Because yeah, I, I think people should understand that learning about sake is, is like a two-way thing. It’s, it’s beneficial for people who are tasting sake to, to learn about it, um, and to learn about tasting sake and that experience, kinda like people going to wine tasting classes all the time. Uh, and then you’ve got the other side of it where you’re kind of. learning how to introduce people to sake. Is that, is that the idea basically?
Timothy Sullivan: 7:00
Absolutely. We’ve got an intro to sake course, which is our foundational course. We offer that most often, and that’s, you know, a 90 minute class where we do all the sake basics. We taste four sakes, we have a few little bites for food pairing, and then we do a brewery tour. So it’s a crash course on the basics. I call it everything you need to be dangerous with a sake menu. And, you know,
John Puma: 7:26
I like that. That’s pretty good.
Timothy Sullivan: 7:28
Yeah, we just want to give people enough confidence to know the different classifications and understand what the ingredients are, have walked through a brewery, tasted a variety of styles, and they can take that knowledge. And then when they’re in a restaurant next time, staring at a sake menu, or they’re in the liquor store looking at the shelf with all the sakes on it, they’ll know some of those terms and they’ll be able to make a more informed decision when they buy sake next time. So that’s really the goal of that 101 class.
John Puma: 7:59
So let’s say, you know, you’ve, you’ve done your 101 class and you’re, excited, you’re, you’re interested. What, what’s, what’s next? Not
Timothy Sullivan: 8:08
but one of our, do you know where I’m going with this?
John Puma: 8:11
yet. I’m very curious. Mm
Timothy Sullivan: 8:14
One of our most popular food pairing classes is our sake and cheese
John Puma: 8:20
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s definitely not for me.
Timothy Sullivan: 8:25
You and I’ve been talking about a sake and cheese episode for Sake Revolution for a long time, which hasn’t happened
John Puma: 8:30
No, I am a major hurdle to making that happen.
Timothy Sullivan: 8:36
for those scratching their heads, John Puma is a cheese. Hater? Is that fair to say?
John Puma: 8:42
Hater means, hater sounds like I’ve got some kind of vendetta or I have something against cheese. I don’t have anything against cheese personally. I just don’t enjoy eating it. Or smelling it or
Timothy Sullivan: 8:55
Or looking at
John Puma: 8:56
at it really. It’s I just, all right, fine. I don’t like cheese.
Timothy Sullivan: 8:59
Okay. Well, even though this class isn’t for you in particular, it’s been very popular at the Sake Study Center. We take five sakes and we pair them with five different types of cheese. And one thing I want to make clear is that We introduce other sakes, not just Brooklyn Kura sake. So Brooklyn Kura is always in the mix in these classes, but we have a lot of sakes brought in from Japan, and you can taste a variety of sake. Some people think it’s at Brooklyn Kura, so it’s every class is only Brooklyn Kura sake, but that’s not true. This sake and cheese course, we, we pick five different sakes, different styles, and we pair them with different cheeses, and it is a lot of fun.
John Puma: 9:42
I’ll take your word for it.
Timothy Sullivan: 9:44
Yeah, you’ll have to, you’ll have to take my word for that one. I will say that when I was cleaning up the classroom last time, I picked up a napkin and there was, Five crumpled packets of lactate under there. So someone attending the class was chomping down on lactate between every bite of cheese.
John Puma: 10:07
I mean, let me tell you that if I were to take that class, I would need to do that. That’s for sure. I cannot, uh, cannot handle the lactose. Unfortunately.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:17
let’s move on from sake and cheese. How about sake and desserts? How does that
John Puma: 10:21
That sounds like fun. I like dessert. I like sake. So yeah. Uh, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about that.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:30
remember Eat Your Sake? Do you remember that episode we did?
John Puma: 10:33
Yeah, of course. That was, uh, that was fun. We got to, uh, have some ice cream, which by the way, uh, for anybody concerned at home, interestingly enough, ice cream doesn’t bother me in the least.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:44
okay,
John Puma: 10:46
I don’t, I don’t make the rules. I don’t know why it happens that way, but you know, this is the way it is
Timothy Sullivan: 10:51
well, that’s, that’s very fortunate. I would feel sad for you if you were denied cheese and ice cream, so what we did in the Eat Your Sake episode was we actually took an eight year aged Kijoshu and we poured it over the ice cream as a sauce, as a topping. And that is one of the courses of the sake and desserts class that we do at the study center. Did you enjoy that pairing?
John Puma: 11:15
Uh, I sure did. Uh, it, it sounds to me like you guys just have a lot of fun,
Timothy Sullivan: 11:21
Yes,
John Puma: 11:22
That’s pretty cool. the question I have for, and this is a little self-serving, um, what I, with John Puma for my resolution, am I taking the 1 0 1 class or do I need to scoot into like one of the, um, one of the more business oriented classes? Mm
Timothy Sullivan: 11:40
I think that your resolution was focused on getting a certificate. And currently at the study center, we only offer certificates for the full day professional class.
John Puma: 11:51
Mm, you gotta earn it. That’s how it is.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:54
You got to earn it. You got to put in the
John Puma: 11:57
Gotta put in the time. If you, uh, if you, if, yes, exactly. You have to put in the time. So, yeah, that’s interesting. You know, that may, may be a thing we have to look into. How’s it gonna go? Full day, huh?
Timothy Sullivan: 12:07
Yeah. I can tell you about that course. It’s the called the sake server certification.
John Puma: 12:12
Sake server certification. And I guess I will be learning how to serve sake. Mm
Timothy Sullivan: 12:16
Yes. It’s designed specifically for people who work in restaurants or for people who sell sake in a retail store. So this is kind of an underserved community. I think in a lot of the educational programs that are out there, we focus a one day course specifically on training people. in the sake basics, um, sake communication and sales techniques for introducing and selling sake. And then we do a whole module on serving, pouring, etiquette and stuff like that.
John Puma: 12:47
that sounds lovely. That does sound like something I would benefit from. You’ve seen me pour sake, Tim. It’s ugly.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:55
No comment.
John Puma: 12:58
You made some snide remarks at Thanksgiving dinner when I was pouring you
Timothy Sullivan: 13:03
I did? What did I say?
John Puma: 13:06
Nothing overt, nothing too mean, but you gave me a little bit of a, you can approve on this, kind of
Timothy Sullivan: 13:11
Did I, did I give you the samurai side eye?
John Puma: 13:14
Uh, maybe a touch, just a little bit. And I was like, Oh man, I gotta, I gotta up my game. Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:24
Well, uh, there is an exam for that, John.
John Puma: 13:27
Oh, I think that what I’m envisioning involves an exam. So this is
Timothy Sullivan: 13:31
Yeah. Yeah. So when you, when you take the sake server certification, you come to Brooklyn Kura. We also offer it online for people who are not in the New York City area. It’s, I think it’s better to come in person if you’re nearby or if you’re going to be in New York because you can do the brewery tour live and in person. Whereas the online version, I walk around with my iPhone and I show you the brewery, but it’s just not the same as being there in
John Puma: 13:58
I would, I would agree with you on that one. I think that, uh, you know, TV is never as good as being in that person.
Timothy Sullivan: 14:04
Yeah. But, uh, when you, when you complete the course, whether you’ve taken it online or in person, uh, at the end of the course, I send you a link and you have two weeks to do an online quiz, an online exam. It’s one hour, it’s 100 questions and you have to get, it’s multiple choice and you have to get 75 percent correct to pass. And then you get a certificate in the mail.
John Puma: 14:27
Okay. cool. maybe I need to look into that.
Timothy Sullivan: 14:29
Yeah.
John Puma: 14:30
Good relevant question. What’s this all cost?
Timothy Sullivan: 14:34
Oh, yeah. So the, the intro to sake, of course, is the least expensive and that is around 75. And then the cheese pairing course, the desserts course, those are 99. And then the sake server certification is currently 150.
John Puma: 14:57
Okay. That’s all sounds reasonable. I imagine you’ll be sipping a bunch of sake as well That’s that’s part of you know
Timothy Sullivan: 15:05
yeah, there’s, uh, sake and nibbles with every course and every course we offer, every single one includes a brewery tour,
John Puma: 15:15
Okay Mm
Timothy Sullivan: 15:16
an add on, value add on. You can walk through the brewery, you can see the sites, Smell the smells. and, you
John Puma: 15:25
Are these tours ever done, uh, during brewing or is it, uh, generally they clear out first?
Timothy Sullivan: 15:31
Brewing is usually concentrated in the morning time, like 9, 10, 11. So sometimes for the sake server certification, we can catch the brewers in action.
John Puma: 15:41
Nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:42
The consumer courses are either, they’re usually, like an evening on a Wednesday or a Friday, or we have them on the afternoon on a Saturday or Sunday.
John Puma: 15:52
Well, that makes sense.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:53
Great thing is that even if you don’t see the brewers in action at that moment, there’s the, I’m not joking about smelling the smells, like when you go into the pressing room and there’s the giant yabuta, they’re pressing now in there and It could be running overnight and you’re going to smell this intense fruity aroma coming off the press. And it’s really intoxicating and beautiful and just makes you fall in love with sake all over again. So it’s a true experiential, tour. So, and we love to have people taste a little bit of koji or sip some moromi from a batch that’s, currently bubbling away in the tank. So our, our tagline in this, I came up with this myself. Do you want to hear the marketing genius tagline? So the tagline is, learn about sake where sake is made.
John Puma: 16:44
Hey, that is, that is accurate. That’s what you’re doing. Sake is definitely made on site and you’re learning.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:51
Yes, you’re learning. I just think that having the sake school the site of a working sake brewery is unique in a our country. It’s the only school that is located at a sake brewery. So we can give you the in depth education and you can tour the brewery and taste all the steps along the way through the production process. So that’s, that’s super unique. And that’s what gets me really excited.
John Puma: 17:18
That’s pretty cool and for you this must be particularly exciting because you’ve been You know into sake education for a very long time Tim And you’ve got your own place now, you know, you’re going to kind of run these these events Design them if you’re even if you are you generally teaching most of the classes or even all of them.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:42
Right now I’m teaching all the classes. We’ve only been up and running since November of 2023, but our goal is to have. A number of teachers teaching classes, and we’re creating our own curriculum, but it’s important for me to mention here as well that we invite other educators to come to our classroom and teach as well. So one example is we have Michael Tremblay, who’s been on our podcast before, and he teaches this sake scholar certification. Which is a very advanced course about terroir and sake regionality. It’s a three day class, really intense. And he’s coming to Brooklyn Kura in October to teach at the Sake Study Center. So not only do we do our own classes, most of which I’m teaching right now, but we also invite other educators to come. And we’ve also had the Sake School of America come in and they’ve taught the WSET level three. in our classroom. And that’s been great to have other teachers come in as well. And the advantage for them is that they can do that brewery tour. And when they talk about koji making in their materials, we can go up to the koji room and, you know, taste some koji and see what it looks like. So it’s a win win situation for everybody. And our goal is to just expand the opportunities for education all around, all around.
John Puma: 19:08
Excellent. That sounds pretty cool. just to let everybody know at home, uh, you may, you may think that if you are in the New York area, you may consider, Industry City where. This is located to be, it’s a bit of a trip, but, and I say this without exaggeration, I feel like every day there’s more stuff to do around there, in industry city. you know, there’s plenty of shopping, there’s amazing restaurants, there are small distilleries in the, in the area too. And I think a beer brewery as well, you can really make a day out of it and see a lot of different things and experience a lot of stuff.
Timothy Sullivan: 19:41
That’s such a great point, John. Industry City, where Brooklyn Kura is located, is a destination in and of itself. So when people, when people come in to do like the sake server training and they’re there all day, they get a one hour lunch break and they can go to Japan Village. They can go to the food court. And there’s all types of things to explore for lunch. And then when class is over, there’s distilleries, there’s beer breweries, uh, there’s a tap room at Brooklyn Kura. You can, have a drink after class and just enjoy yourself. So it’s a real destination and we’re so happy to be a part of the community at Industry City and it is every year it’s growing bigger and more dynamic.
John Puma: 20:22
awesome. So, maybe it’s time we, we cracked open this sake and talked a little bit about this latest offering from, Kura Kin.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:32
Yes. So Kura Kin, again, as you said before, is the. Subscription service. John, do you get it monthly or every two months? How often do you get it
John Puma: 20:39
monthly. Um, I, I, like I said before, I really like getting the, special bottles like, like this, for example, and seeing like what they’re up to. I think that’s a lot of fun. it feels like we’re shilling a little bit here, but I really do authentically, like this service. I, I, I wish there were more, craft breweries that were doing something like this, uh, hint, hint, hint.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:01
Yeah. Kura Kin is amazing. And one of the things that is really special about it, as you mentioned, is that you get these limited release bottles, which is what we’re going to taste today. It’s not available. If you go to your local liquor Kura, these are limited edition bottles that you can get in the tap room. If you visit the tap room in person, or if you Sign up for the subscription service. All right. So John, why don’t you introduce us to the delicious sake we’re about to taste?
John Puma: 21:31
Sure. Uh, so this one is a, uh, Nama Chozo Junmai Ginjo. Most of the additional bottles that come through are nama Chozo or have been historically.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:42
Do you want to remind us what namachozo?
John Puma: 21:44
Namachozo means that it has been pasteurized, but once,
Timothy Sullivan: 21:48
Correct.
John Puma: 21:49
the sake is all Yamada Nishiki, and it’s milled down to 60%, uh, the ABV is 16%. The sake meter value, that measure of dry to sweet, is minus 5. 7, so it’s a touch on the sweet side. But, the acidity is 2. 6, Tim. You know what that means. Balance. Balance. At least that’s what I’m hoping for. I’ve actually never tasted this one. I haven’t opened it yet. Um, and for the record, I have bottle number 182. These are numbered. What’s yours? Ooh, okay, not too far. They’re
Timothy Sullivan: 22:22
What’s, what’s this, uh, what’s this special edition called?
John Puma: 22:25
Oh yeah, I never, I never mentioned that. Oh it is called Brooklyn Kura near and far Now the name Tim I think I believe the name is is a is a pun about the transition between their original brewery and their new facility now was this made at the new facility or the old facility? Would you happen to know that?
Timothy Sullivan: 22:45
I do know that for sure. This Sake was made at the old facility, so the small batch facility, and we moved from 68 34th street down to 34 34th street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. So near and far, we felt like during the transition, we would go back and forth. And, uh, so that’s where the name near and far comes from for this limited edition Junmai Ginjo.
John Puma: 23:16
excellent. Excellent. All right. Well, let’s crack it open and get it in the glass. You can see what one of the last batches to come out of that brewery is gonna taste like. At Sake Revolution, we generally encourage people to make use of the wine glasses they have at home, because you probably already have wine glasses at home. So, They’re real easy to sip out of. They capture the aroma of sake exceptionally well. Um, and again, you’ve already got them. All right, Tim, let’s get the nose going. What do we have here? Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:03
Well, I have a little note here from Brooklyn Kura that says this has notes of golden apple and hints of melon.
John Puma: 24:12
All right.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:14
I think I picked up more on the apple aromatics than melon per se.
John Puma: 24:19
I definitely don’t pick up on the melon too much. So yes, I’m
Timothy Sullivan: 24:21
Yeah.
John Puma: 24:22
you. It’s got a really pleasant
Timothy Sullivan: 24:25
Hmm.
John Puma: 24:27
It would have taken a while for me to arrive at Golden Apple, though. Hmm. I like that. It’s kind of, it’s almost a little, like the nose is almost a little jammy. Just a ton, you know, not like, I know that when we talk about jammies, like woohoo, but you know, this is a very light one. Light
Timothy Sullivan: 24:45
Yeah.
John Puma: 24:45
a little bit.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:47
Yeah, I pick up on notes of strawberry, and this is going to be very random, but you know when you are trimming strawberries, and you cut off all the green bits on the top, and you pile them up in a little bowl?
John Puma: 25:02
them off?
Timothy Sullivan: 25:02
off the green bits on the top of
John Puma: 25:04
I just, I just, bite them off. I just bite. Right? But no, it’s actually not true. I just, um, I pluck them off and I eat everything, including the stem, but I pluck off the green bits.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:17
Okay, let’s go. Envision this, jP.
John Puma: 25:20
I know, I know, I know, people who do it that way. I married to somebody who does it that way. Okay.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:31
and I need to prepare the strawberry. So I’m cutting off the green bits and I’ve got a bowl of those green stems. Okay.
John Puma: 25:39
Got it.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:40
to your nose and and smell the strawberry leaves and stems, it kind of smells like
John Puma: 25:46
Okay. All right. I’m with you.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:49
So there’s a little bit of fruitiness, but I think the golden apple and. Strawberry
John Puma: 25:56
the strawberry is really front of mind now for me. I’m going to be really disappointed if this doesn’t taste like strawberries.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:04
Let’s give it a taste.
John Puma: 26:05
All right, let’s, let’s see what it actually does taste like.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:12
Okay, so your note about jamminess comes across more in the mouth, right? it
John Puma: 26:20
It’s nice. Um, this is fun. This is a fun sake.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:25
does have an apple crisp taste to it.
John Puma: 26:29
I will say that it’s a little warm in my apartment and we do turn off the air for these recordings. And so this has been sitting for a little bit as we’ve been recording. And I think it’s approaching room tempi. And I think that’s making the jamminess come out a little bit more. And I like it. I think it’s doing it favors. It’s really nice. we’ve, we’ve talked a little bit about how, you know, you don’t have to really warm up a sake necessarily. You can just, you know, give it a few degrees. and this really comes across as something that to me, at least is really benefiting from just a few degrees, North of my usual kind of, uh, 40, 42 degrees that I usually have sake. What do you think?
Timothy Sullivan: 27:10
Yeah, mine is relatively well chilled, so I, I think it, it tastes great at that temperature as well. And the more this is resting on my palate, I’m getting, we talked about golden apple, but also green apple, like that is finally solidifying in my mind. It’s like, ah, it’s like green apple, Granny Smith, apple flavors. That’s coming through really,
John Puma: 27:32
Granny Smith. Mmm. That’s some good stuff.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:37
Yeah, it’s it, but it does have a little bit of a jammy texture to it, meaning that it’s not bone dry. It’s got a hint of richness. This is only once pasteurized and it’s all Yamada Nishiki. So that can help bring out those fruit flavors because it supplies a lot of starch to the, to the moromi mash. So, uh, yeah, really well crafted. I think this is a tinge sweeter than most their standard sakes.
John Puma: 28:06
so I will say that I only know of a couple of other sake’s where Brooklyn Kura has done a full, full Yamada Nishiki, and I think that usually when they do, it comes out pretty dry, and I like that they went the other direction with this one, and let it get a little sweet, and tried something different.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:26
Yeah, so this is, an example of the type of sake you would be able to enjoy at the Sake Studies Center. If we have limited releases like this I often fold them into the sakes that we taste in class. So we try to keep things interesting and unique and really focus on the pairings or make sure that the sakes we taste are very relevant to the topic or what we’re trying to get across in the class.
John Puma: 28:53
mmm, nice. All right. So, Tim, we’ve, uh, we’ve talked about education. We’ve sipped some delicious sake. where can, uh, people who are curious about taking one of these courses or perhaps tasting some of the sake, where can they do that?
Timothy Sullivan: 29:09
the website is, uh, Sake studies center.com.
John Puma: 29:14
hmm. Mm
Timothy Sullivan: 29:15
we also have an Instagram at sake studies center. And you can also visit the Brooklyn Kura website and connect through. Uh, but if you want to visit us directly, sake studies center.com, and there’s a courses page and we have a full list of all the courses we’re offering. we have the sake and. Cheese course, the introduction to sake. We have the sake server course, coming up soon. We also have, uh, sake and desserts. And one other course that is going to be hitting the calendar very soon is a sparkling
John Puma: 29:52
Ooh, that’s going to be interesting.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:55
Yeah, it’s a survey of five different types of sparkling sake and a little pairing to go with each one. So I think in the summer when it gets a little warmer, some ice cold sparkling sake would be really good.
John Puma: 30:09
That sounds like a good time.
Timothy Sullivan: 30:11
Yeah.
John Puma: 30:12
Cool.
Timothy Sullivan: 30:13
Well, I welcome every one of our sake revolution listeners to check out the Sake Study Center. Thanks for indulging me today with a little bit of self promotion. And I’m so, so happy
John Puma: 30:26
I like that you’re, I like that you’re being straightforward about it. Like,
Timothy Sullivan: 30:28
yeah, yes,
John Puma: 30:29
self promotion,
Timothy Sullivan: 30:31
it is. But I think, you know, I think honestly, our listeners would probably be interested in what’s happening at the Sake Study Center.
John Puma: 30:39
right?
Timothy Sullivan: 30:41
from the Sake Revolution audience comes to the Study Center. Please let us know when you sign up. There’s a little form when you sign up and you can put a message in there. Let us know if you’re a Sake Revolution listener because we’d love to connect with you when you come into class.
John Puma: 30:56
Oh, so if I do it, I have to say, yes, I am a listener. guess.
Timothy Sullivan: 31:02
Yes. Yes. You have to say you’re a sake revolution listener.
John Puma: 31:05
noted. noted.
Timothy Sullivan: 31:07
so John, am I going to see you in class?
John Puma: 31:08
Yeah, let’s see, I mean, I’ll, I’ll class. I don’t know which class yet. Uh, you know, I, I, I’ll figure something out.
Timothy Sullivan: 31:17
Okay. We’re halfway through the year. You’ve got, you’ve got about six months or so to figure it out.
John Puma: 31:22
halfway?
Timothy Sullivan: 31:23
Almost.
John Puma: 31:24
Oh my God. Oh, I wasn’t ready for that. All right. Well, hey, all right. Good to know.
Timothy Sullivan: 31:31
All right. Well, John, this was so much fun. Thanks for letting me introduce the Sake Studies Center and thanks for tasting a Brooklyn Kura Sake. I think this one is really delicious and I think this bottle is going to disappear pretty soon.
John Puma: 31:43
They usually do
Timothy Sullivan: 31:44
I usually do, right? A thank you as well to all our listeners and a special shout out, hello, and extra special thank you to our patrons. Thank you so much for contributing to our podcast. Without you, Sake Revolution would not be possible. So we’re so grateful. If any of our listeners would like to learn more about supporting us as a patron, please visit Patreon.com/SakeRevolution.
John Puma: 32:10
yes, and also if you have a moment, please take it and Review our show over at Apple podcasts or your podcast platform of choice It really helps get the word out about the show and you know People hear about us a little bit more quickly when they look up sake stuff and they say America’s first time Oh, look at that. And and hopefully they give us a listen. That’s that’s That’s the goal. That’s the, that’s the dream. Uh, so yeah, please take a few minutes and do that if you can. So on that note, please grab your glass. Remember to keep drinking sake and Kanpai! All right.