August 16, 2023 • 56 mins
Ready to dive into an intriguing world of sake brewing? Today, we have a conversation with Todd Bellomy, founder and head brewer of Farthest Star Sake, who will unravel the complex process of brewing Sake. From linguistics to sword making to brewing, Todd's journey is anything but ordinary. He will share intricate details of the sake brewing techniques involving a special microorganism, Koji, and a double parallel fermentation process.
As our conversation flows, Todd reveals his unique experience with Japanese brewing, the thought behind the Farthest Star logo, and his predictions for the sake industry. He takes us into the fascinating world of sake flavors, discussing the distinctive flavors that can be created. Not stopping at that, Todd explains the significant role his family plays in the brewery and their plans for expansion. We find out more about his swordmaking days in Japan, his interest in food and beverage, and how it all led him to start his own sake brewery.
In the concluding segment, we get to touch on the challenges the brewery faces as they plan to expand to different states and the potential advertising opportunities in winter sports. Todd shares a remarkable story about a high school friend turned cousin, and the social media presence of Farthest Star Sake. Join us as we journey into the world of sake brewing with Todd, a true master of his craft. This promises to be an intriguing, fun-filled, and informative episode you wouldn't want to miss.
https://www.fartheststarsake.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott (00:00):
My next guest is Todd Bellomy, the founder and head
brewer of Farthest Star Sake inMedfield, massachusetts, which
is New England's only sakebrewery.
Enamored by Japanese culture,todd went to the University of
Massachusetts Amherst to studyJapanese linguistics, but before
starting his journey in the UScraft beer industry, he
apprenticed in Japan as a swordmaker.
I met Todd while we both workedat the Boston Beer Company, but
(00:20):
after almost 10 years thereTodd got the itch and decided
his heart was in the sake world.
He began brewing for the nowclosed dovetail sake in Boston
before turning all of hisattention to his own creations
and founding Farthest Star Sake.
With fewer than 50 sake brewersin the US, Farthest Star Sake
is now on the forefront of thesake industry in the US.
Todd Bellamy welcome to CarneySaves the World.
(00:40):
Oh, thanks for having me how youdoing man Good to see you.
Todd (00:43):
Yeah, good to see you too.
Yeah, I'm doing okay.
I took a day off and, as asmall business owner, that means
I've been working since 9.30 inthe morning and now it's time
to do a pocket.
Scott (00:54):
What's your normal day like?
Todd (00:55):
Yeah, I'm actually not a morning guy at all.
Most of the brewing industrytends to be very morning.
Heavy Beer brewers like to goin at 5 or 6 in the morning and
get the system going.
I've never been a morning guy.
Typical day for me is kind ofget out of the house by 9.30 and
get to the brewery at 10.
And then it all depends on whatwe got to do for that day.
(01:17):
So if we're brewing, there's alot of washing and steaming rice
and doing brewing tests, and ifwe're selling, it's take a
quick counting of what's goingon and jump in the van and go
hit as many accounts as you can.
Scott (01:30):
Now, how many accounts are you in?
Todd (01:31):
We're in about 110 accounts, mostly in
Massachusetts and we have a tinynumber of accounts in Rhode
Island, but trying to grow thatas quick as we can.
Scott (01:41):
Wow, 110.
That's fantastic, Good for you.
So for those folks out theremyself sort of included, I kind
of have a peripheral knowledgeof sake brewing, but would you
briefly go through how theprocess starts, all the way
through the finish of it?
Todd (01:54):
Yeah, that's a pretty common complaint slash question
that we get Coming from the beerworld.
Sake is new to almost everybodywho encounters it and because
of that fact we've made somevery wise choices in setting up
our business.
But sake is an alcoholicbeverage originated in Japan, is
made from rice.
(02:15):
Many of those out there whoknow how to make alcohol know
that you have to have a sugarsource and yeast will eat the
sugar and make alcohol andcarbon dioxide and a lot of
chemicals that we all perceiveas flavors and aromas.
To accomplish that in the sakeworld we actually use a second
microorganism in addition toyeast, which is called Koji.
(02:35):
It is the nationalmicroorganism of Japan and is
used to make soy sauce and misoand a lot of Japanese food
products that everyone hasalready had.
So we use a very specific kindof Koji for brewing.
We inoculate it before we canbrew on about 20% of all of our
(02:56):
rice, which takes a separatethree day process, and on the
second day we have to workaround the clock, which means
taking naps in the brewery andthat kind of thing, because we
can't leave it alone Becauseit'll just create too much heat
and kill itself.
So we constantly manage it andmix it as part of the process.
So after we do that prettylaborious three day process, we
(03:17):
can now mix Koji, inoculatedrice and regular steamed rice
with water and yeast in a tank.
And what happens is this reallysuper interesting thing called
double parallel fermentation,which, as far as I can tell, is
fairly unique in the brewingworld.
So the Koji breaks the starchesand the rice down as a sugar
(03:37):
and the yeast eats the sugar andmakes all the stuff we love
like alcohol and flavors.
But that happens simultaneouslyin the same tank at the same
time.
So it's the balance of those twoprocesses that makes good sake.
So if your Koji is reallyhealthy but your yeast isn't,
you create too much food and youhave a giant tank of sugar
water that any errant microbesin the environment would love to
(04:00):
jump into.
And then, on the flip side, ifyou have bad Koji but healthy
yeast, what happens is that theyeast runs out of food because
the Koji can't keep up with thefermentation and then you get a
condition called autolysis whereyeast cells will starve to
death and die and it createshorrible flavors in your sake.
So it's the balance of thosetwo processes that makes good
(04:21):
sake.
So that's what we do, and then,in a very unusual, turn in also
in the brewing industry.
When we are finished and thesake is complete, all of the
stuff is still in the tank.
One of the most importantthings we do is after it's
finished.
We have to press the entirebatch through a very big filter
press to get the finished sakeout.
Scott (04:39):
Kind of like wine on the pressing side.
Todd (04:41):
Yeah, how they remove skins and stuff after
fermentation, yeah.
So beer brewing, yeah, and alot of other alcohol traditions
remove all the physical materialfirst and you just have sugary
liquid.
We're making the sugar theentire time, so we can't.
There's no day where you'relike I'm done brewing and all
the sugars in there, we're justmaking it the entire time we're
(05:02):
brewing.
Scott (05:02):
It'll be nice to have to stay overnight.
Todd (05:04):
So just for the Koji broth .
So one night I have a setup inthe warehouse where I have a
cotton and air mattress and thatkind of thing.
I used to just sleep on a cotthat someone gave me and then I
realized one night that I'm 50and I should probably up my game
a little bit.
So I got the largest cot Icould find and a really nice air
(05:25):
mattress.
So, yeah, I usually sleep for Idon't know 90 minutes or two
hours and then wake up, go inthe Koji room, mix the Koji,
because we're not only trying tomanage heat but we're trying to
dry it out slowly over time.
So you can mix it, it'll managethe heat and also slough off
unwanted moisture.
And then I usually go back tosleep for 90 minutes or so and
(05:45):
then get up and do it all overagain.
Scott (05:47):
Oh my God, that's crazy.
Todd (05:48):
It's a long day.
Scott (05:49):
Yeah, I can imagine.
So how long is the entireprocess to bottling?
Todd (05:53):
Soke is about six to eight weeks, grained in glass as we
like to say.
So from the second I scoop riceout to steam it, to make Koji
to your drink.
And sake is about six to eightweeks.
Scott (06:04):
Okay, yeah, so it's been a standard beer, but roughly the
same.
So, from the rice standpoint,for the spent rice, is that a
term that's used?
Yeah?
Todd (06:13):
it's called katsu and that's the stuff we press out of
the sake.
So it's spent bits of rice thatdidn't get fermented.
Kōji yeast obviously all thatmaterial mixed together.
Scott (06:24):
What do you do with that?
That's all set.
Todd (06:25):
So we do a couple of things.
It's pretty valuable in Japan.
There are only a few peoplehere who know what to do with it
, but in Japan it's used to makedifferent confections.
It's used for pickling andcuring of meats.
You can do a bunch of stuffwith it, and one of the biggest
industries in Japan that useskatsu is the cosmetics industry.
So some very, very exclusive,expensive cosmetics use sake
(06:49):
katsu as the base of themedicine because it has a lot of
active enzymes and beneficialvitamins and minerals in it.
There's nothing like that herethat we can find, so we do give
some of it away to chefs ormostly Japanese people who live
in the area who want it forcooking.
Wow, nice.
The rest of it.
We are starting to work with asmall distiller because you can
(07:13):
re-ferment it by mixing it withwater and then distill it into a
beverage called shōchu, whichis super esoteric in the US, but
it certainly the cosmeticindustry is not going to really
get me excited, but making morealcohol is pretty interesting to
me, so I'm working with them tosee if we can have that as an
avenue for it.
Scott (07:34):
You could just turn it into drywall it actually looks
like wet drywall.
Todd (07:38):
It's like sheets of almost like plaster or something like
that.
We have a very effective sakepress so we get a lot of the
sake out of it.
Some of the older style pressesleave more sake in it, so it
tends to look like sort of stiffricotta cheese, but for us it's
very clean sheets all the way.
Scott (07:57):
So what's the first account to have your sake in?
Todd (08:00):
So you had mentioned that was the brewer at Dovetail Sake,
which was Massachusetts firstsake brewery that the owner
closed down in 2018.
I actually just went back tothe people who were really great
customers of ours at Dovetail,people who obviously
demonstrated that not only wouldthey take the chance on local
(08:21):
sake, but actually execute itfairly well and sell a lot of it
.
So I just pulled up that samelist of people and sent it to
them, and most of them jumped onboard.
Scott (08:31):
So you built in sales calls yeah absolutely.
Todd (08:33):
I had spent years generating Dovetail's business
and all of their accounts, so itwas a pretty easy step to just
go back to those same people.
Many of them, almost all ofthem, I had known since before
Dovetail and when I worked inthe beer industry, so I've had a
long relationship with a lot ofthose accounts and they
continue to knock it out of thepark.
Scott (08:52):
So you've had a steady progression towards where you
are.
I remember you did some collabswith Cambridge Brewing Company
for a sake beer hybrid, but Ialso remember you did one for
our Boston Beer Company homebrewcontest.
Todd (09:04):
Yeah, I was constantly trying to make like a sake beer
for the homebrew contest.
It never quite caught on.
It would have been cool to seea sake beer in the long shot
pack.
That was always a wish of mine.
But yeah, will Myers, who's thehead brewer still the head
brewer at Cambridge BrewingCompany sort of fell in love
with sake through me, I think.
We started hanging out and hestarted learning more about sake
(09:24):
and we would go to like sakefestivals in New York so we
could taste a lot more stuff.
And then just one day itoccurred to him you know we
should try to hybridize it.
I think if it was anotherbrewer or another kind of brewer
we would have went in a verydifferent avenue.
But Will's got this veryholistic kind of approach to
beer.
He likes to mash a lot of thescience together.
(09:44):
So instead of making a beer andmaking sake and blending the
two together, which is not veryexciting we decided to come up
with a way to actually hybridizethe two brewing processes.
Scott (09:54):
So they were done at the same time.
Todd (09:56):
Right, so together, yeah, so what we would do is make a
batch of sake and then use thatto basically ferment a tank of
beer wort.
But the sake was a littledifferent, the beer wort was a
little different, so it's a longfermentation.
We let it ferment for four orfive weeks cold temp, because
sake is a cold fermentation.
So not a lot of beer brewerswould have taken that kind of
leap and been like, hey, I'mgoing to tie up a tank for five
(10:18):
weeks.
So, yeah, it really worked out.
It was nerve wracking at times,especially with filtration or
trying to get all the physicalrice bits and all that out of
the tank post fermentation, butit really worked.
The beer is amazing.
We made it, I think, two orthree different times and it
also allowed us.
We gave a talk at the KraftBrewer's conference, I think in
2012, on sake beer hybridization, which was another really cool
(10:43):
experience.
Scott (10:43):
Wow, yeah, I have something to admit to you.
It's been at least 10, 15 yearsnow.
I don't know if I've ever toldyou this.
We did all the home brews, andall the home brews were brought
into cold storage.
I was working at the brewery onthe weekends giving tours, just
hanging out, and I remembergrabbing there's a six pack of
everybody's and I grabbed like abottle of everybody's and I
grabbed a bottle of yours.
It was fucking awesome and I'mnot going to lie, but I went
(11:08):
back like two or three moretimes.
Todd (11:09):
Yeah, all they need is one bottle to judge.
That's it.
Scott (11:13):
There was a six pack and I was like all right, I'm like
this stuff is amazing.
It was pretty high alcohol.
It was like 10, 11 maybe, oryeah, I think so A little higher
.
Todd (11:20):
Yeah.
Scott (11:20):
Yeah, it was phenomenal.
But then I was like, oh shit,what if they don't have enough
bottles?
Todd (11:24):
and I drank it all.
It worked out.
I never actually, I don't know.
I never heard anything aboutany of the judging on the long
shot content.
You know I don't.
I made a lot of different beersfor it, but I never knew of any
of the results.
Obviously, I never won, butsome really great beers did win.
Scott (11:39):
Yes, you definitely won an award in the the Carney home
brewing contest because I lovedit.
That is a pretty importanttopic, of course.
Yeah, so are there any sakebeer hybrids in the US, do you
know?
Todd (11:50):
Uh yeah, One of the problems with that question is
that there's no definition ofwhat constitutes a sake beer
hybrid Okay.
I would love to in the future,when I have more time, codify
some of that stuff.
Some brewers, for example,would just take a regular beer,
regular beer, and add a sakeyeast and then ferment it.
Okay, you know, is that reallya hybrid?
(12:11):
It's just kind of beer at thatpoint.
Sake yeast is a different typeof brewing yeast, but it's still
Saccharomyces cerviciae, whichis the classic beer brewing
yeast.
They tend to like very coldtemperatures and then longer
fermentation.
When I explain it to beerbrewers I often explain it that
sake yeast are kind of the flipside of a Belgian beer yeast.
(12:32):
So Belgian beer yeast, if youferment them at warmer
temperatures you get a lot offlavors and aromas that kick off
, yeah, and if you ferment themat colder temperatures it tends
to be more subdued and you get alot less stuff.
So with sake it's the flip side.
So if you ferment it warm andkind of quickly, you pretty much
just get alcohol without a lotof expression, and if you
(12:53):
ferment it low and slow, you geta lot of complexity and
fruitiness and all kinds offlavors across the spectrum.
Okay.
Scott (13:00):
What are some of the flavors that you're looking for
in some of the sake?
Todd (13:04):
Yeah, I mean I've had hundreds and hundreds of sake
over the years but I don't know.
There's a fairly wide range offlavor.
I would say overall is thatsake across the board tends to
be fruit.
There can be a wide range ofthat expression, from things
like pear and apple to peach.
There's tropical fruit flavors,sometimes in there Banana,
(13:28):
which is isoamyl acetate.
That seems to be prettyprevalent in some sake.
So there's a wide, wide rangeof fruit flavors.
Nas can all have to do withwater chemistry or the yeast you
choose or the recipe, okay.
But then you also get a prettywide range of earthy, earth
flavors, like green stuff, likecucumber or some sort of herbal
(13:49):
note, to sort of things likeblack pepper and earthiness, one
of the other componentsobviously.
So we talked about koji asbeing a main ingredient to sake.
Koji technically is a fungus,aspergillus or rizzi.
So you can in some sake get awide range of very pleasant
fungal-based flavor, chestnut orsort of earthiness, some kind
(14:12):
of mossiness.
Those are all appropriate too.
It just depends on the style.
Scott (14:16):
You know.
So to dig into the flavorsdeeper, can you add ingredients
to spice it up a little, or isfruit added?
You know I've seen some sakehas pushed the cucumber.
Is cucumber in it or is thatjust a byproduct of what you're
doing?
Todd (14:28):
I mean, obviously you have to read the label pretty
carefully.
Some of them are not writtenvery well.
Yeah, yeah but yeah, if it'sfrom Japan, chances aren't.
Doesn't have anything in it butrice and koji water.
Yes, that's it.
That's the standard.
That's the sake.
They do much lessexperimentation in Japan than we
do here.
There's, you know, a couplethousand year old tradition of
(14:48):
making sake.
Some of the brews are very old.
There's a lot of that culturewrapped up in the brewing.
You will occasionally see somefruit added, but always post
fermentation.
So yuzu is pretty common, whichis a Japanese wild lemon.
I've seen a mango sake fromJapan, strawberry, but these are
all super low quantities.
(15:11):
It's not a common thing Amongstthe brewers outside of Japan.
We are doing all kinds of funstuff.
For me, at least in my brewery,it's all post fermentation.
Okay, so I'm not throwingcucumbers in a fermentation.
Post fermentation, when thesake is finished, I will infuse
a keg with fresh cucumber, freshlime.
We've done over 60 flavors inthe last 14 months that we've
(15:35):
been open.
Wow, that's great, yeah.
So one of the things I reallymiss about the beer industry is
the cask ale thing that peopleused to do.
So they would put on a caskevery Thursday night and then it
would die during the weekendand then you'd have to wait till
next Thursday for a new cast togo on.
I was like that ephemeralnature of that kind of mid-90s
beer scene, yeah, so I chose todo that at our tap.
(15:57):
So we make usually two kegs ofa single flavor and then when
they're gone we replace it withsomething else.
And we've infused sake with anextremely wide array of
ingredients.
I mean different teas andcoffees, oh wow, all kinds of
different fruits.
We've made Peanut colada sake,pumpkin spice sake you can spice
.
Yeah, you know last.
Scott (16:18):
I mean, we are in suburban Massachusetts, so
You've got to do what you've gotto do right, which you've got
to do so.
Todd (16:24):
In October last year we put out a pumpkin spice sake and
you could get either cold orwarm.
People had a pretty favorablereaction to it, so this year
we're probably going to makethree times as much.
Scott (16:33):
Yeah, I mean it's foot cells and it's addiction that
middle America has.
Todd (16:38):
It is also this whole flavored sake thing.
We don't have any designs toput any of it in a bottle yet.
That's good, that's way downthe line, but it's a fun thing.
It gives me an outlet to kindof create new things in the tap
room with a lot less risk thanis involved in creating a whole
tank of something and having topackage it and sell in the
(16:59):
market and all that.
So it's been pretty great andreally fun sort of outlet.
Scott (17:03):
It's got to be a nice draw to your regulars.
You know, hey, every time Icome there, I know for a fact
I'm going to get a new style ofsake and it's going to be fun
every time, Right.
Todd (17:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
We've also made other Japanesestyles.
So not just flavored sake, butwe have a sparkling sake on
right now for the summer.
I've got some sort of moretraditional brewing methods that
I've made that I'm giving someage before we start selling them
in the fall.
So I also want to expand thatlist of sort of traditional
brewing methods to give people awindow into.
(17:34):
Hey, you know, sake has thishuge wide range to it without
adding any flavor, just rice.
Scott (17:40):
Yeah Well, you mentioned earlier about warm sake.
A lot of folks don't realizethat sake can be consumed cold,
warm or hot.
I believe too, right.
Todd (17:49):
Yeah, but that's a real education sticking point that
all of the sake brewers outsideJapan kind of deal with.
At least in the United Statesmost people have only had warm
sake at a sushi restaurant orhibachi place.
The problem with that is thesake that they're warming is
really really inexpensive, massproduced sake.
So it's almost like opening acraft brewery in a market where
(18:13):
no one has ever had anything butBudla.
It's really hard to say hey, ifyou were in Japan, a couple of
things you might want to realize.
Mostly warm sake is onlyconsumed when it's cold outside,
which is not really a hugeintellectual leap to get over.
And then the other thingbrewers will brew a sake
specifically to be warmed up.
(18:33):
So craft brewers will make asake that's like earthier or
bigger alcohol, riceier, and itcan stand up to warming it up
and not lose a lot of itscomplexity.
Some of these modern sake, likea lot of the sake we make, is
very fruity and ethereal.
If you warm that up, all ofthat is gone.
Scott (18:52):
Disappates on warmth.
Todd (18:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah damages the flavor and aroma quite
quickly.
So only sake that are reallymeant to be warmed up or really
old sake can be warmed up tomake them a little more
palatable.
And yes, the sake that peopleare serving warm should be
served warm, because surf coldit doesn't really taste like
that.
Scott (19:13):
It was funny.
I tried it warm and hot andcold.
There's definitely a differencein flavor profiles.
It was interesting how thatchanges the flavor profile.
If you leave a can of soda inyour car in August and you for a
couple hours you go back in andtake a sip, not realize it, it
doesn't taste differently, itjust tastes warm.
But sake will take on differentflavors as temperature change.
Todd (19:33):
Yeah, there's actually some sort of traditional ranges
30 degrees C, 40, 45, 50.
And so the sake will definitelychange all the way up.
Even sometimes 5 degrees C isenough to make a difference.
And then, traditionally,there's this really interesting
thing called kanza-mashi, whichis you warm it up to 70 and let
(19:54):
it cool to 50.
And it tastes different than ifyou just warmed it up to 50.
Scott (20:00):
That's interesting.
Yeah, it's kind of mind blowing.
You mentioned the sea, so wasit hard when you started brewing
to go from metric to Englishsystem?
Todd (20:08):
Yeah, it's not really that hard at all.
There's a breakthrough thatalmost every sake brewer in the
US must go through.
But once you learn so you'remeasuring rice and kilos and
you're measuring water in litersonce you learn that one liter
of water weighs a kilogram, andthen you're just like oh, so I'm
just using equal units.
(20:29):
And so when you start talkingto Japanese brewers, they all do
the same thing, obviously.
So they'll express, for example, they're like well, we use 140%
water in the recipe, so ifyou're using 1,000 kilos of rice
, it's 1,400 liters of water.
It's not that hard of a concept.
(20:49):
And so, because everything'sequal, so yeah, I would never
use Fahrenheit and all that.
Also the fact that if you're asake brewer, there's really only
one country that originatedsake brewing.
If you would like knowledge toimprove your sake, you have to
talk to Japanese brewers at somepoint or read Japanese source
materials or something, and it'sall in metric.
(21:10):
Why would you do anything?
Scott (21:11):
Yeah, it's just funny.
Like every time I saw a sea Iwas like oh shit, I start doing
the math in your head.
Todd (21:18):
Yeah, I've heard some people on podcasts say stuff
like that.
I've heard people say like oh,I'm using this many gallons and
I'm like you're just gonna, Iwould just bake competition
layers all day long, right, yeah, so I just.
You know the whole thing's inmetric.
Scott (21:33):
we don't even pretend that it's not Just keep it as it
is?
For anybody who hasn't checkedout your website, I strongly
encourage you to check it out,because it is one of the coolest
.
Do you have the coolest logo?
Thanks, and you have some ofthe coolest pages on it.
How did you come up with theFarthest Star logo?
I love your science fictionaspects on the pages.
Todd (21:53):
Yeah, thanks, I had the luxury.
I fought about the brand forkind of a long time While I was
writing the business plan.
I had kind of a placeholder forthe brand and I just kept
trying to figure out really whatthe expression that I really
wanted was.
I had a couple other thingsthat in the end did not work out
, but I just kept coming aroundto science fiction.
I'm a huge science fiction fan,science fan.
(22:15):
I read a lot of like scienceliterature and I watch a lot of
science fiction and read sciencefiction.
So I just kept coming around tothat and I really wanted the
company to be a true expressionof me, not creating a brand that
I think people want.
I think you're much better offjust creating a brand that you
really believe in.
That's kind of an expression ofyourself.
And then if people like it,they like it, they don't.
(22:36):
And so I kept coming around tothe science fiction aspect and
then I realized that there werea lot of aspects of some of my
favorite science fiction thatwas true to sake in America, the
fact that sake is both thiskind of ancient beverage but
it's like the next big thing.
It's right on the cusp of thefuture of what people are going
to be drinking, and so a lot ofscience fiction tends to be the
(22:59):
same way.
Also, I don't know if you knowwhat I mean.
So a lot of anthropologicalbackground to a lot of science
fiction like Star Wars, thingslike that.
And I kept coming around to thefact that sake is this
incredibly discoverable beverage.
It's almost like anaspirational brand sort of
beverage.
So people discover it.
They really want to be the onesto like, turn their friends
(23:19):
onto it, because nobody knowsabout it.
You know, I kept coming aroundto things like the hero's
journey and you know all thisother stuff that's embedded in a
lot of good science fiction.
So I tried to make the brandscience fiction and fun but also
aspirational in that way.
Wow.
Scott (23:33):
And also I mean the Japanese culture that has come
over to the United States.
A lot of that was, you know,started in science fiction, you
know with the Godzilla's and youknow awesome monster films, and
you know that really comesthrough with your page.
You feel like you're going backkind of in time, but it is
still going forward.
It's a really cool concept.
Where do you see the sakeindustry going, you know, in the
(23:53):
next five years in New Englandand then do you see it growing
in the US along that period aswell?
Todd (23:59):
Yeah, I mean, I think sake is definitely going to grow.
It's such a small part of themarket that it there's no way
it's not going to grow somepercentage.
There are some things that havebeen happening recently, like
in the last 12 months, in thesake industry that seem to
indicate some increased growth.
Things like there's a breweryin Brooklyn called Brooklyn Cura
.
They've signed a cooperativedeal with a large Japanese
(24:21):
brewery and so they're startingto cooperate.
They weren't bought out in thetraditional sense, but they are
starting to cooperate, use eachother's resources so that this
kind of large craft in Japan canlearn from what's going on in
the United States and then, onthe flip side, Brooklyn can
benefit from you know,distribution across the globe,
all that stuff and likeexpertise and equipment and
(24:43):
information.
It's a pretty cool cooperativeagreement that's never been seen
before.
Also, the first Japanese EastCoast brewery is going to open
in the fall.
Scott (24:53):
Oh really.
Todd (24:54):
Yep, there's a brand in Japan called Dasei and they're
from Yamaguchi prefecture inJapan and they decided to open
up a New York brewery.
So it's two hours north of thecity, okay, and it's in a
beautiful area of New York, onthe Hudson, and they've built a
pretty large brewery Wow.
And they're going to startrolling out a different brand
(25:15):
instead of Dossai.
It's called Dossai Blue andthey're going to start rolling
out sake out of that brewerypretty soon, wow.
So there's things like thatthat are happening.
You were starting to see somebreweries, some sake breweries,
finally start to get bigger andexpand.
A lot of smaller breweries areopening.
There's a lot of peopleplanning breweries.
I don't know if they'llactually get to the launch stage
, but there's certainly a lot ofpeople trying to plan it.
(25:37):
And so at least in New EnglandI mean, I'm the only sake
brewery in New England I knowthat we're going to grow.
So I think over the next fiveyears you're certainly going to
see our sake spread, so it's inevery state in New England.
And then, after we've reallycemented us as like a New
England brewery, then I think wewould just look at expansion
(25:58):
opportunities to go outside ofNew England.
There's been a lot of statesthat people have requested our
sake.
Oh really, yeah, yesterday Igot a nice message from Florida.
Someone who's like you shoulddistribute your stuff in Florida
.
You know?
Ohio, apparently, chicago,canada I mean, we're right.
Next, to.
Canada.
I think there's a lot ofinteresting expansion
opportunities way in the futurefor us.
Scott (26:20):
Then you get into the logistics and all that kind of
fun stuff and it's a whole otheranimal.
Todd (26:25):
Yeah, at that point, hopefully someone I hire will
get into the logistics, becauseit's not my forte.
Scott (26:31):
So you are self-distributing.
Todd (26:33):
Right now we're self-distributing.
I have two amazing employees.
One of them comes from theretail side of beer and so he
tends to do almost anythinghelps in the brewery, works the
tap room, deliveries some salesstuff just to help me execute
whatever I need to execute.
And then we actually just hireda brewer a couple of months ago
(26:56):
who has spent seven yearsworking at a famous brewery in
Japan and wanted to move back toNew England and wasn't sure
what he was going to do.
But hey, I'm the only sakebrewer in New England, so come
work with me.
Scott (27:09):
You got to take advantage of that one.
Todd (27:10):
Yeah, I mean, I never thought in my business plan I
never really outlined a thingwhere I would say, oh, I'm going
to hire someone who knows howto brew sake.
That never occurred to me.
I figured I would hiresalespeople and things like that
and I would focus on brewing.
But yeah, I mean, I'm not goingto take myself out of the
brewery anytime soon, buthopefully someday it'll allow me
(27:31):
to kind of spend a little moretime on sales, marketing,
branding, executing everythingelse that we need to execute and
rely on someone reallytrustworthy to kind of spearhead
the brewery.
Scott (27:42):
So there's three employees and 110 accounts.
It's in.
Todd (27:46):
Yeah, so me obviously don't pay myself or anything.
I'm a small business owner, soI work there full time and then
we have two employees on thepayroll and then my wife, who
has a regular Monday throughFriday job.
She actually tends to do a lotof sort of support things for us
social media.
She's really been crushing iton Instagram lately.
Scott (28:06):
Yes, she has and I follow .
Yeah, thank you very much.
Tell her I said hi.
Todd (28:10):
Thanks, I will.
Yeah, amy's been invaluabletaking some of that stuff off my
plate as we get busier.
So she's been doing some of thesocial media stuff and getting
private events and communicatingwith food vendors for our tap
room and things like that thatare like very time-intensive and
that I don't really have timeto do.
Scott (28:29):
You had mentioned on another podcast that your
daughter is now helping out ininteresting ways.
What's she doing?
Todd (28:34):
Yeah, so Lula, she's 13.
No way Is she really?
Yeah, she's 13.
I know it's shocking.
Scott (28:41):
Oh my God, I remember when she was born.
Todd (28:43):
Oh, I'm so old.
I know Shocking to all of us,but yeah, she's 13.
She occasionally comes in andcleans up the tap room with my
wife and then the big thing shedoes for us is we have black
shirts in the merch stand andshe actually takes a lot of
those home and reverse, tie-dyethem with bleach and makes these
(29:05):
cool sort of bleach tie-dyeversions of our shirt and
they're all unique, right?
Everyone comes out differently.
Scott (29:12):
That's awesome.
Todd (29:13):
And so we sell those in the merch stand, and actually
they outsell the black ones.
Scott (29:17):
Good for her.
That's fantastic, you know, putthe kids to work.
Todd (29:20):
Yeah, I think you know a family business is.
You know, it's not a thing Ireally thought about years and
years ago, but it's been prettyfun and rewarding.
It is a lot of work and itcreates a lot of stress, but
it's nice to know that you know,we all are pitching in and
doing what we can to just getthis thing off the ground.
Scott (29:38):
You and I kind of talked, like you know, off mic, about
some of the challenges that youknow for me putting this podcast
together, and you know therewas times I don't get to see my
daughter as much as I want to,and I'm sure you know,
especially if you're sleepingover at the brewery you're
obviously not seeing yourdaughter.
But this is a good way toconnect when you're not getting
that opportunity to be at homeas much.
She's there hanging out and,you know, so is Amy.
That's nice.
Todd (29:57):
Yeah, it's pretty cool and sometimes if I have a run
that's real busy and I haven'tbeen home a lot, they'll come to
the brewery and like bringdinner or something like that,
especially if I'm working at thetap or Thanksgiving at the
brewery.
Yeah, no, we close.
We're not monsters.
We close with Thanksgiving, butyeah, it's pretty cool.
They'll bring me dinnersometimes so we can see each
(30:18):
other.
Occasionally, amy will open thetaproom, like yesterday she
opened the taproom so that Lulaand I could go kayaking.
Scott (30:26):
Awesome.
Todd (30:26):
So, yeah, definitely trying to find that work life
bounce which you know, I know alot of entrepreneurs don't seem
to put that in the forefront asimportant, but I've had some
people that I admire a lot overthe last bunch of years in the
brewing space who are just likeyou need that work life bound.
Yeah, because it's you're notgoing to make it.
The brewing industry is not aget rich quick scheme, so
(30:51):
hopefully we're building alegacy business that's going to
last.
You know, outlast me certainly.
It's not the sort of it's notan app or something where we can
like flip it and make it downto money and so you're in it for
the long haul.
So if you don't have work lifebounce as at least a priority in
your top five with thepriorities, then I don't know if
you're going to make it 10, 20,30 years in.
Scott (31:12):
Yeah we've talked a lot about sake, but we also have to
talk about one of the coolestthings that you've done.
You were an apprentice swordmaker.
Can you tell everybody aboutthat?
Todd (31:21):
Yeah, absolutely Because it was awesome.
Yeah, it's definitely a spot,Definitely a spot that sticks
out of my resume quite a bit.
Scott (31:28):
Yeah.
Todd (31:28):
But but yeah, yeah, I I've always been sort of a maker.
I love to cook.
I worked in restaurants for along time as a cook.
But I love to cook, I love tobake, I love to make stuff in my
hands, generally create stuff.
When I was in college, I wasworking full time at a
restaurant trying to affordcollege, which you know for you
(31:48):
American listeners, obviouslythat's something that's pretty
important when you're going toschool is like how am I going to
pay for all this?
And so while I was working, Ijust got really frustrated with
not having enough time to doschoolwork versus work to make
money to afford the whole thing.
I had an opportunity to go toJapan, sort of a window.
I was studying martial arts.
I was always really interestedin martial arts and swords and
(32:11):
so I wrote a letter in Japanese.
A couple of friends of minehelped me clean it up and then,
sort of in the early days of theinternet, we printed out all
the letters and physicallymailed letters to Japan.
So I spent $250 on postage,which seemed like a lot at the
time yeah, it was a dollar perletter.
So I mailed a copy of theletter to 250 different sword
(32:34):
make and I got nine responses.
That's a great percentage, it'sa really good sense.
I got nine responses.
Seven of them said thanks forthe letter but no thanks.
And then one of them said, well, you should move to Japan and
get a job and get an apartment.
Then come see me.
And I was like, well, thatsounds real easy to do.
(32:55):
And then one guy was like, hey,listen, I'm in the middle of
nowhere.
You'll literally sleep in atool shed, you know whatever.
But if you want to come herefor a year or however long, I'll
put you up and let you live ina tool shed and do whatever.
And so that's what I ended updoing.
So I went to Japan very littlemoney in my pocket, which seems
reckless, and then spent a yearstudying sword maker, lived in a
(33:18):
tool shed, as advertised.
He wasn't screwing around.
No, it wasn't screwed, it wasnot a euphemism.
So I yeah, the flip-in toolshed, which was crazy in the
winter time.
Scott (33:29):
Oh.
Todd (33:30):
And I worked for him and I learned all about chopping
charcoal, about metallurgy,about, you know, working the
forge, a bunch of stuffBasically.
After about a year we startedtalking about you know what life
as a swordmaker would look like.
And I was a little older at thetime, I think after I had found
him, when I was 18, I mean, whoknows, I still could be a
swordmaker, yeah, but I was 28,you know, living in a tool shed
(33:53):
with like very little income, inthe middle of nowhere in Japan,
and so you know he startedthrowing stuff around like, well
, you'd stay here for like 10years and then, you know, take
all these exams and they couldbecome a swordmaker.
I just, the more I lived inJapan it was exposed to Japanese
culture directly, not throughbooks or TV shows or whatever
the more I just kept going backto sort of food and alcohol,
(34:17):
beverages and things like that.
Before I moved to Japan, I had alot of interest in home brewing
.
I worked in a restaurant,obviously cooking food, so I
just kept being kind of pulledaway and found myself thinking
more about food and beveragethan the swordmaker thing.
And then after about a year Idecided to just move somewhere
else in Japan and not study withhim anymore because he was a
(34:38):
countryside swordmaker.
It seemed really sort of anabuse of his trust to just take
up resources and money if Iwasn't serious on becoming an
actual swordmaker.
Scott (34:49):
Do you have any of your creations still?
Todd (34:51):
I do not.
I never got to the point wherewe may.
You know I wasn't making swordsby myself or anything.
It was more like I was wieldinga hammer and he was forging the
blade.
Yeah, also, let's understandthat, like, the blades are like
a brand new sword made by theguy that I studied with.
You know, you're looking at 15to 20 thousand dollars, american
, you serious, yeah, so I don'tthink there was any, any
(35:13):
illusion that.
I was going to be able to own asword that he made.
Scott (35:18):
Yeah, Not like you work for a year and you get one sword
and see you later.
Todd (35:22):
Yeah, no, that's not the kind of what happens.
So, who knows, if I make mysake millions, I certainly would
give them a.
I would give them a phone calland have a custom made sword
made 100%.
Scott (35:33):
Well, you could just be building attachment on Saburi
and have a little sword forging.
Todd (35:37):
section A little sword maker shop.
Yeah, yeah, but only.
I've since only stepped into aforge.
One other time, at my previousbrewery, I went to someone's
bachelor party and the bachelorparty was in, like in a
blacksmithing shop, a learninghow to make like a wrought iron,
like bottle opener, and it wasa pretty cool idea for a
bachelor party, yeah, and sothat was the only other time
(35:58):
I've ever picked up a hammer andother thing.
I was surprised that.
How sort of easy itself, youknow, given the fact that it's
been a very long time since Ilived in Japan and studied sword
making.
So, no, it's cool.
I occasionally miss it.
I wonder sometimes, I mean,like anyone would, what would it
have been like if I just stuckwith it?
And you know, certainly thatworld has changed just as much
(36:18):
as the beer industry or otherindustries I've sort of run
across but introduced to peoplewho make swords for the movie
industry and like all kinds ofstuff like that.
So who knows, you know, if Ihad set up a sword shop
somewhere in America, maybe Icould be doing sort of jobs like
that.
So I think about itoccasionally, but I'm pretty
happy you could add your ownreality show.
Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Idon't know, I don't know.
(36:41):
There is certainly a smithingreality shows like Forge and
Fire.
You've ever seen that?
It's a pretty great show.
Yeah, maybe I could have goneon there.
So far, there's no sake brewingreality shows.
Scott (36:54):
Wow, there you go.
Todd (36:54):
Somebody could hit me up.
Scott (36:56):
Was it the Magnolia Network?
Do you could have a show onwith Chippa Joanna?
Todd (37:00):
Oh, that's right, that's right.
Chippa Joanna could come makesake.
Roll those cameras.
Scott (37:05):
For the tap room.
You are open on the weekends.
Folks come in.
What can they expect when theycome into the tap room?
Todd (37:11):
We built our brewery from scratch so we didn't have it
some other space, we built theentire space.
So we gave thought to sort ofthe tap room integration with
the brewery.
So when you walk in we've gotabout a 1500 square foot tap
room and our bar sits in a 20foot shipping container inside
the warehouse Wow.
But then we left most of theeverything open so you can see
(37:34):
the brewery.
It's right there, there is asort of half wall bar that you
can sit at that looks straightinto the brewery, and then we
have a seating for about 70people and we constantly have
stuff going on at the tap room.
So we are open Friday, saturday, sunday.
We're in the suburbs and wetried being open other days, but
(37:55):
it doesn't really seem to workout for us.
Yeah, I think a beer brewerymight be able to be open a
couple more days, but for uswe're fairly niche On the
weekends.
We do really well.
Yeah, I don't think anyone'scoming to a sake brewery on a
Wednesday, yeah, so we have foodpop ups all the time.
We've had a bunch of classesthat I think we're going to pick
up some more in the fall.
(38:15):
We've had cheese class, likehow to pair cheese and sake.
We had bone side classes, sohow to clip little miniature
trees.
Wow nice Standup comedy iscoming back in the fall.
Scott (38:27):
Very cool.
Todd (38:28):
We have a really great group called Hubbub Comedy, and
they do pop ups at the tap roomand have about three to four
comics each night.
It's great, and so, yeah, we doa lot of the stuff that our
regular brewery would do Awesome.
Scott (38:40):
Definitely got to get home and check that out.
I'm trapped down here inWilmington with just the mass
sake that we were talking aboutand not getting any real
interesting flavors and craftsake from the US.
The ones we have are prettystandard.
Yeah, those are standard ones,kind of the Bud Lights of the
sake world.
Todd (38:56):
Yeah, there's some good sake down there.
It's just the problem is it'svery hard to find and unless you
know about sake, you don't sortof stumble across it, and so
that's something that I thinksmall breweries like mine have
going for them is.
We say, hey, you know, allwe're doing is sake.
I'm not trying to sell sake aslike part of a catalog of
beverages, that's all we have.
(39:17):
So we're doing tastings anddinners and education stuff.
You can come to the tap room.
All that outreach hopefullywill grow sake, but also it'll
just allow someone to have aplace to go.
Scott (39:28):
Yeah, you haven't been open that long so it's hard to
see any growth.
You know long term, but do youthink that the sake industry is
picking up any growth from thedecline in the beer industry?
Todd (39:39):
That's a good question.
I am not 100% sure we areseeing growth.
I've made some choices in theearly days of our business that
would allow us to kind of fit inwith other beverages.
The one thing I realized isthat no one really goes to a
store specifically to buy sake.
There are some sake onlyretailers in giant markets like
San Francisco and New York andLA.
Scott (40:01):
Seattle.
Todd (40:02):
If you're where I am, no one really buys sake
specifically.
That's not a trip to the store.
So for us we decided to go withsingle serve packaging, so all
of our bottles are seven ouncebottles.
It's a good, healthy singleserve.
You could also split it withsomeone as like a trial, and so
that keeps the price low, thecost of entry low, and I
(40:24):
understood that someone's goingto the liquor store and they're
buying a four pack IPA and someseltzer and a bottle of wine.
We have to be in a form factorwhere people are like oh, I'll
just take two of those and hookthem in the basket, and so the
single serve really helps us dothat.
I don't think the growth thatwe see is coming from the
decline of any beverage.
I don't think people arejumping to sake from something
(40:47):
else.
But we're providing a ton ofeducation, a ton of content, a
ton of opportunity for people togo.
Oh, hey, I've always wanted totry sake.
Oh, it's nine bucks a bottle,I'll just throw two of those in,
yeah.
Scott (40:58):
So what's the alcohol range for sake?
Todd (41:02):
Yeah, so for me, I like to play in the 15 to 18% range.
Scott (41:07):
Okay.
Todd (41:07):
There are some sake from Japan that are as low as I want
to say 12.
And then the highest one I knowfrom Japan is 21.
Scott (41:16):
Oh, really Okay.
Todd (41:17):
But there are some breweries, obviously in Japan,
that could pull it off.
And then there's some ultra lowalcohol sake that, frankly, I
don't really understand.
So there's some sake from Japanthat's carbonated and is only
5% or 6% alcohol.
I don't think it really tasteslike sake.
I think it, I don't know, itdoesn't really taste like sake.
So to me and so I like to playin that range it's a little
(41:40):
stronger than wine and becauseof that, you know, a full pour
of sake is for us in thetabernum is five ounce Okay.
So obviously we're not tryingto get anybody extremely
inebriated, but you know,basically it's certainly one of
the first education points thatwe have to cover with people who
come to the tabernum is thatyou know this little glass
(42:02):
should be savored and enjoyedand experienced.
It's not a shot, it's not awhatever.
Scott (42:07):
Yeah.
Todd (42:07):
Because a five ounce glass is the exact same as drinking a
full 5% alcohol beer.
Scott (42:12):
Yeah, so they just have to be cautious with it.
Todd (42:14):
Yeah, so we do five ounce full pours and then we have a
six ounce flight.
That's three, two ounce pours.
Scott (42:22):
It's awesome.
Todd (42:23):
I tried some other stuff in the past when I was
developing the business and youknow everything we have is on
draft.
I just I can't pour less thantwo ounces.
Scott (42:31):
Yeah.
Todd (42:32):
It's like really hard to physically pour less than two
ounces.
So yeah, I would need like apipe at or something.
So we thought three, two ouncepours is like a really nice
flight.
Three different and currentlyat the tabernum we have five
things on draft, so people havesome choices.
Scott (42:47):
It's awesome.
So you mentioned earlier thatyou're self-distributing.
Do you have any plans to expandthat distribution to companies
and allow them to take over thataspect, or are you still pretty
okay with self-distribution?
Todd (42:59):
We've been extremely happy with self-distribution, but as
a three-person shop, yeah, we'vedecided.
We've started working withdistributors.
We haven't signed on anyone yet, but we're looking over
agreements and talking todifferent distributors to see
who would be a good fit for ourbeverage.
(43:19):
One of the things about freshlocal sake, compared to mass
produced sake, is that our stuffrequires refrigeration all the
time, so you have to store itcold, you have to sell it to an
account like a restaurant orstore.
They have to keep it cold andsell it to the drinker cold, and
so that might be a barrier forsome distributors.
(43:40):
But yeah, we're currentlytalking to distributors for our
home state of Massachusetts andMaine, although I didn't know
this from working at Boston Beer.
But Maine is an extremelydifficult state to get your
out-of-state produced beveragedistributed in.
It's not impossible, is itreally?
Yeah, I was surprised.
It's not impossible, but someof the laws are very interesting
(44:02):
and some of the paperwork isvery challenging.
So we're going to focus onMassachusetts first so that we
can least go statewide in ourhome state.
I don't know anyone who hasn'tbeen to.
Massachusetts is an extremelywide state and so with two
people it's very hard to get,let's say, to western
Massachusetts and the Berkshires, and it's very hard to get to
(44:25):
things like the Cape of theislands, so I think a
distributor is going to have tohelp us with that.
So hopefully we'll get somemovement on that pretty soon and
then you'll see our stuff in alot more places.
Scott (44:36):
You mentioned you were in Rhode Island.
Any farther star sake.
In Patucket, Rhode Island, myhometown.
Todd (44:41):
We're mostly around Providence because of the
distributor we work with and so,yeah, I would love to expand to
a lot more of Rhode Island.
That's one of the challengingthings as a brewery owner
talking about going to placeslike Maine or Vermont, new
Hampshire, rhode Island,whatever.
I think first I really had tojust really look at those states
and try to understand what iteven looks like.
(45:04):
Connecticut is one of thosestates where I don't really
understand it very much, but Iunderstand it enough to know
that it's almost like threeseparate large markets.
You have Hartford, you have NewHaven, you have Greenwich and
Stanford.
I think those markets seem to.
It seems to me like theyprobably take a very different
approach to sell sake in all ofthree of those markets.
(45:26):
So I think that would be achallenging state to go into,
but I'm trying to understandevery state and where the
opportunities lie.
We're even talking todistributors in Vermont, new
Hampshire.
Don't think there's a largesake market up there, but
certainly there are sushirestaurants and noodle places
and adventurous chefs who wouldtake a chance on a locally made
(45:48):
sake.
Scott (45:49):
You didn't want to do any .
Elk hunting sake advertising.
Todd (45:54):
Yeah, I mean I've thought about.
I don't ski personally, but Ithink a warm sake ski promotion
in the winter would be kind ofnice or snowshoeing or some kind
of winter sport.
I come from like the deep woodsof rural Maine so we certainly
did a lot of snowmobiling.
It would make me extremelyhappy to do it's like a
(46:15):
snowmobiling sake commercial orsomething of that nature, just
to mesh the two sides of myexistence.
But yeah, I think there's a lotof opportunity.
I mean the other thing aboutNew England we just have really
marvelous food here.
You have all the inland stuff,the dairy, the cheese makers,
amazing locally grown meats andraised meats and stuff, and then
(46:37):
on the other side you have thishuge coastline with tons of
fresh seafood and you know thatkind of thing.
It's always been in my bucketlist.
I certainly want to do a sakelobster roll promotion next
summer.
Things like fried clams andsake are really great together.
So that'd be, awesome.
I'd like to see a lot more ofthat integration.
Scott (46:55):
I'm just waiting for the Farthest Star logo to be on the
Green Monster in Fenway.
Todd (46:59):
That would also be amazing .
Yeah, so we're in small bottles, which are obviously made of
glass.
But one thing I did think aboutin the future, I would love to
get in cans instead of bottles.
There's ecological reasons forthat.
Cans are much less fuelintensive to ship and things
like that.
But I would, I thought about,if we were in cans, it would be
(47:21):
really cool to be in Fenway orto be in the garden or to be at
like Tanglewood or someplacelike that where you could have a
can outside because it's notbreakable.
Scott (47:30):
You and I have mutual, not friends, but you are friends
with my cousin Ellen.
I have to give Ellen a shoutout to see if she's actually
listening.
Todd (47:37):
Yeah, I'm not sure, I'm not gonna.
I didn't look at your metricsyet so I'm not sure if she's
listening.
Yeah, so actually I have a goodfriend from high school, andy,
and he married your cousin.
And it was a very oddrevelation when we were working
at Boston Beer that he was like,oh yeah, I know this woman, she
knows Scott Carney, and I waslike, oh, that's really cool.
(47:58):
Oh yeah, they're cousins andI'm like, wait, that's just so
random and so far from where Iwent to high school.
It just seems in problem,pretty ridiculous.
Yeah, I've often run into somepeople that it just blows my
mind.
So a couple of days ago I wasdoing four hour tasting at
Volante Farms, which is like abig farm store in here in in
(48:19):
Metro West in Massachusetts, andthis guy walked by that I knew
from Tokyo Really.
So he lives in Tokyo, yeah, helives in, he's from
Massachusetts and we first metat UMass, but I only have ever
spent time with him in Japan.
And he just walked by me in astore so I got his attention,
poured socket for him, you know,talked to him for a bit and
(48:41):
then he's like, yeah, my dadlives nearby and a home visiting
, so he was literally just homefor like two weeks, wow From
Tokyo, and I just ran into himand tasting.
So that stuff happens to me allthe time, much to the annoyance
of my wife, but it happens allof them.
Scott (48:55):
Anybody show up at the brewery and know you, but didn't
realize that you were the owner.
Founder.
Todd (48:59):
No, we've never had that.
This has been such a herculeantask to open that anyone who
knows me or knows about me orwhatever has, knows that I'm
opening a brewery.
No, we have had some people youknow we've had.
I had a group of guys from highschool that came by.
Scott (49:16):
That's awesome.
Todd (49:17):
You know which?
I went to high school quite along time ago, so I had a group
of guys from high school.
I had some old collegeroommates.
stop by unannounced mind you, ohwow really, which was, yeah,
they were like heckling me.
I was in the brewery cleaningkegs and they were heckling me
from the taproom and I was likewho the hell are these guys who
are like heckling me in thebrewery?
And then, as I got closer, Irealized who it was.
(49:39):
But we haven't seen each otherin decades.
That's awesome, and so we'vehad some people like that, some
Boston beer alum who've come by.
Yeah, been pretty cool.
Scott (49:47):
Well, Todd, this has been fantastic catching up with you.
It's great to see you, man.
I'm really happy and proud ofall your accomplishments.
What is doing my due diligenceas podcast host?
I was Googling you and you'reall over the internet, and
that's a good thing, yeah.
Todd (50:00):
I'm trying, actually, somebody that you and I used to
work with, andrew Teeman.
He gave me some of the bestadvice I've ever been given.
I was going to start a blog,which is still up on the
internet BostonSakecom.
I don't post it anymore, but ithas a ton of info on sake, so I
just left it up there.
But he gave me some of the bestadvice ever about social media
(50:22):
and branding.
He just said, look, do the thingyou want to do and just
consistently put out content.
That's the same thing all thetime.
We're talking about sake, we'retalking about this, we're
talking about don't flip allover the place and try to grab
likes or views or attention bydoing other stuff.
That's not true to your coremission.
(50:43):
And so I've always just keptthat in mind with I just look,
I'm just a sake maker and so Imake sake and I talk about sake
and I just I love sake.
I want to grow the industryacross the whole thing.
I want Japanese people to sellmore, I want us to sell more,
and so, yeah, I've just beenconsistent as far as I can, and
so far, people are loving whatwe're doing.
Scott (51:04):
Where can everybody find you on social media?
Todd (51:07):
So everything is linked through our website,
farthestarsakecom, and certainlywe're very active on Instagram,
facebook, whatever I'm supposedto call Twitter now.
Scott (51:16):
Big X.
Todd (51:17):
X, that's right, and we also have an amazing link in bio
attached to all of our socialthings which is constantly
updated with food, pop-ups atthe brewery and events and
podcasts like this one will beon there, and so that's a good
place to start.
We have also just started aYouTube channel.
Really, I haven't linked it toanything yet, yeah, so I
(51:39):
realized that we're doing allthis like kind of visually
interesting stuff in the breweryand I thought I would try my
hand at some short videos justto give people another kind of
content.
And so we just startedFarthestarsake on YouTube and
I've started uploading somevideos to that as just a
different way to get people'sattention.
Scott (51:57):
Folks definitely check out Farthestarsake, All of the
social medias.
Stop by the brewery, check itout.
If you see it in your stores,grab a bottle, try it.
I have not got a chance to tryit, but I am looking forward to
it when I come home and I'm sureit's going to be fantastic.
Thank you again, Todd, forhanging out with us today.
It's been a pleasure to catchup with you.
Todd (52:15):
Yeah, my pleasure.
It's been awesome to catch upwith you as well.
I never realized that workingat the Boston Beer Company would
gain all of these friends, likeacross all this broad spectrum
of industry, so it's been realcool.
Scott (52:27):
It's been awesome.
All right, ben, take care andfolks go check out
Farthestarsake.
Todd (52:33):
I don't right now.
I personally have the skill tomake a 21% alcohol sake that
doesn't taste like jet fuel.
My next guest is Todd Bellomy, the founder and head
brewer of Farthest Star Sake inMedfield, massachusetts, which
is New England's only sakebrewery.
Enamored by Japanese culture,todd went to the University of
Massachusetts Amherst to studyJapanese linguistics, but before
starting his journey in the UScraft beer industry, he
apprenticed in Japan as a swordmaker.
I met Todd while we both workedat the Boston Beer Company, but
(00:20):
after almost 10 years thereTodd got the itch and decided
his heart was in the sake world.
He began brewing for the nowclosed dovetail sake in Boston
before turning all of hisattention to his own creations
and founding Farthest Star Sake.
With fewer than 50 sake brewersin the US, Farthest Star Sake
is now on the forefront of thesake industry in the US.
Todd Bellamy welcome to CarneySaves the World.
(00:40):
Oh, thanks for having me how youdoing man Good to see you.
Todd (00:43):
Yeah, good to see you too.
Yeah, I'm doing okay.
I took a day off and, as asmall business owner, that means
I've been working since 9.30 inthe morning and now it's time
to do a pocket.
Scott (00:54):
What's your normal day like?
Todd (00:55):
Yeah, I'm actually not a morning guy at all.
Most of the brewing industrytends to be very morning.
Heavy Beer brewers like to goin at 5 or 6 in the morning and
get the system going.
I've never been a morning guy.
Typical day for me is kind ofget out of the house by 9.30 and
get to the brewery at 10.
And then it all depends on whatwe got to do for that day.
(01:17):
So if we're brewing, there's alot of washing and steaming rice
and doing brewing tests, and ifwe're selling, it's take a
quick counting of what's goingon and jump in the van and go
hit as many accounts as you can.
Scott (01:30):
Now, how many accounts are you in?
Todd (01:31):
We're in about 110 accounts, mostly in
Massachusetts and we have a tinynumber of accounts in Rhode
Island, but trying to grow thatas quick as we can.
Scott (01:41):
Wow, 110.
That's fantastic, Good for you.
So for those folks out theremyself sort of included, I kind
of have a peripheral knowledgeof sake brewing, but would you
briefly go through how theprocess starts, all the way
through the finish of it?
Todd (01:54):
Yeah, that's a pretty common complaint slash question
that we get Coming from the beerworld.
Sake is new to almost everybodywho encounters it and because
of that fact we've made somevery wise choices in setting up
our business.
But sake is an alcoholicbeverage originated in Japan, is
made from rice.
(02:15):
Many of those out there whoknow how to make alcohol know
that you have to have a sugarsource and yeast will eat the
sugar and make alcohol andcarbon dioxide and a lot of
chemicals that we all perceiveas flavors and aromas.
To accomplish that in the sakeworld we actually use a second
microorganism in addition toyeast, which is called Koji.
(02:35):
It is the nationalmicroorganism of Japan and is
used to make soy sauce and misoand a lot of Japanese food
products that everyone hasalready had.
So we use a very specific kindof Koji for brewing.
We inoculate it before we canbrew on about 20% of all of our
(02:56):
rice, which takes a separatethree day process, and on the
second day we have to workaround the clock, which means
taking naps in the brewery andthat kind of thing, because we
can't leave it alone Becauseit'll just create too much heat
and kill itself.
So we constantly manage it andmix it as part of the process.
So after we do that prettylaborious three day process, we
(03:17):
can now mix Koji, inoculatedrice and regular steamed rice
with water and yeast in a tank.
And what happens is this reallysuper interesting thing called
double parallel fermentation,which, as far as I can tell, is
fairly unique in the brewingworld.
So the Koji breaks the starchesand the rice down as a sugar
(03:37):
and the yeast eats the sugar andmakes all the stuff we love
like alcohol and flavors.
But that happens simultaneouslyin the same tank at the same
time.
So it's the balance of those twoprocesses that makes good sake.
So if your Koji is reallyhealthy but your yeast isn't,
you create too much food and youhave a giant tank of sugar
water that any errant microbesin the environment would love to
(04:00):
jump into.
And then, on the flip side, ifyou have bad Koji but healthy
yeast, what happens is that theyeast runs out of food because
the Koji can't keep up with thefermentation and then you get a
condition called autolysis whereyeast cells will starve to
death and die and it createshorrible flavors in your sake.
So it's the balance of thosetwo processes that makes good
(04:21):
sake.
So that's what we do, and then,in a very unusual, turn in also
in the brewing industry.
When we are finished and thesake is complete, all of the
stuff is still in the tank.
One of the most importantthings we do is after it's
finished.
We have to press the entirebatch through a very big filter
press to get the finished sakeout.
Scott (04:39):
Kind of like wine on the pressing side.
Todd (04:41):
Yeah, how they remove skins and stuff after
fermentation, yeah.
So beer brewing, yeah, and alot of other alcohol traditions
remove all the physical materialfirst and you just have sugary
liquid.
We're making the sugar theentire time, so we can't.
There's no day where you'relike I'm done brewing and all
the sugars in there, we're justmaking it the entire time we're
(05:02):
brewing.
Scott (05:02):
It'll be nice to have to stay overnight.
Todd (05:04):
So just for the Koji broth .
So one night I have a setup inthe warehouse where I have a
cotton and air mattress and thatkind of thing.
I used to just sleep on a cotthat someone gave me and then I
realized one night that I'm 50and I should probably up my game
a little bit.
So I got the largest cot Icould find and a really nice air
(05:25):
mattress.
So, yeah, I usually sleep for Idon't know 90 minutes or two
hours and then wake up, go inthe Koji room, mix the Koji,
because we're not only trying tomanage heat but we're trying to
dry it out slowly over time.
So you can mix it, it'll managethe heat and also slough off
unwanted moisture.
And then I usually go back tosleep for 90 minutes or so and
(05:45):
then get up and do it all overagain.
Scott (05:47):
Oh my God, that's crazy.
Todd (05:48):
It's a long day.
Scott (05:49):
Yeah, I can imagine.
So how long is the entireprocess to bottling?
Todd (05:53):
Soke is about six to eight weeks, grained in glass as we
like to say.
So from the second I scoop riceout to steam it, to make Koji
to your drink.
And sake is about six to eightweeks.
Scott (06:04):
Okay, yeah, so it's been a standard beer, but roughly the
same.
So, from the rice standpoint,for the spent rice, is that a
term that's used?
Yeah?
Todd (06:13):
it's called katsu and that's the stuff we press out of
the sake.
So it's spent bits of rice thatdidn't get fermented.
Kōji yeast obviously all thatmaterial mixed together.
Scott (06:24):
What do you do with that?
That's all set.
Todd (06:25):
So we do a couple of things.
It's pretty valuable in Japan.
There are only a few peoplehere who know what to do with it
, but in Japan it's used to makedifferent confections.
It's used for pickling andcuring of meats.
You can do a bunch of stuffwith it, and one of the biggest
industries in Japan that useskatsu is the cosmetics industry.
So some very, very exclusive,expensive cosmetics use sake
(06:49):
katsu as the base of themedicine because it has a lot of
active enzymes and beneficialvitamins and minerals in it.
There's nothing like that herethat we can find, so we do give
some of it away to chefs ormostly Japanese people who live
in the area who want it forcooking.
Wow, nice.
The rest of it.
We are starting to work with asmall distiller because you can
(07:13):
re-ferment it by mixing it withwater and then distill it into a
beverage called shōchu, whichis super esoteric in the US, but
it certainly the cosmeticindustry is not going to really
get me excited, but making morealcohol is pretty interesting to
me, so I'm working with them tosee if we can have that as an
avenue for it.
Scott (07:34):
You could just turn it into drywall it actually looks
like wet drywall.
Todd (07:38):
It's like sheets of almost like plaster or something like
that.
We have a very effective sakepress so we get a lot of the
sake out of it.
Some of the older style pressesleave more sake in it, so it
tends to look like sort of stiffricotta cheese, but for us it's
very clean sheets all the way.
Scott (07:57):
So what's the first account to have your sake in?
Todd (08:00):
So you had mentioned that was the brewer at Dovetail Sake,
which was Massachusetts firstsake brewery that the owner
closed down in 2018.
I actually just went back tothe people who were really great
customers of ours at Dovetail,people who obviously
demonstrated that not only wouldthey take the chance on local
(08:21):
sake, but actually execute itfairly well and sell a lot of it
.
So I just pulled up that samelist of people and sent it to
them, and most of them jumped onboard.
Scott (08:31):
So you built in sales calls yeah absolutely.
Todd (08:33):
I had spent years generating Dovetail's business
and all of their accounts, so itwas a pretty easy step to just
go back to those same people.
Many of them, almost all ofthem, I had known since before
Dovetail and when I worked inthe beer industry, so I've had a
long relationship with a lot ofthose accounts and they
continue to knock it out of thepark.
Scott (08:52):
So you've had a steady progression towards where you
are.
I remember you did some collabswith Cambridge Brewing Company
for a sake beer hybrid, but Ialso remember you did one for
our Boston Beer Company homebrewcontest.
Todd (09:04):
Yeah, I was constantly trying to make like a sake beer
for the homebrew contest.
It never quite caught on.
It would have been cool to seea sake beer in the long shot
pack.
That was always a wish of mine.
But yeah, will Myers, who's thehead brewer still the head
brewer at Cambridge BrewingCompany sort of fell in love
with sake through me, I think.
We started hanging out and hestarted learning more about sake
(09:24):
and we would go to like sakefestivals in New York so we
could taste a lot more stuff.
And then just one day itoccurred to him you know we
should try to hybridize it.
I think if it was anotherbrewer or another kind of brewer
we would have went in a verydifferent avenue.
But Will's got this veryholistic kind of approach to
beer.
He likes to mash a lot of thescience together.
(09:44):
So instead of making a beer andmaking sake and blending the
two together, which is not veryexciting we decided to come up
with a way to actually hybridizethe two brewing processes.
Scott (09:54):
So they were done at the same time.
Todd (09:56):
Right, so together, yeah, so what we would do is make a
batch of sake and then use thatto basically ferment a tank of
beer wort.
But the sake was a littledifferent, the beer wort was a
little different, so it's a longfermentation.
We let it ferment for four orfive weeks cold temp, because
sake is a cold fermentation.
So not a lot of beer brewerswould have taken that kind of
leap and been like, hey, I'mgoing to tie up a tank for five
(10:18):
weeks.
So, yeah, it really worked out.
It was nerve wracking at times,especially with filtration or
trying to get all the physicalrice bits and all that out of
the tank post fermentation, butit really worked.
The beer is amazing.
We made it, I think, two orthree different times and it
also allowed us.
We gave a talk at the KraftBrewer's conference, I think in
2012, on sake beer hybridization, which was another really cool
(10:43):
experience.
Scott (10:43):
Wow, yeah, I have something to admit to you.
It's been at least 10, 15 yearsnow.
I don't know if I've ever toldyou this.
We did all the home brews, andall the home brews were brought
into cold storage.
I was working at the brewery onthe weekends giving tours, just
hanging out, and I remembergrabbing there's a six pack of
everybody's and I grabbed like abottle of everybody's and I
grabbed a bottle of yours.
It was fucking awesome and I'mnot going to lie, but I went
(11:08):
back like two or three moretimes.
Todd (11:09):
Yeah, all they need is one bottle to judge.
That's it.
Scott (11:13):
There was a six pack and I was like all right, I'm like
this stuff is amazing.
It was pretty high alcohol.
It was like 10, 11 maybe, oryeah, I think so A little higher
.
Todd (11:20):
Yeah.
Scott (11:20):
Yeah, it was phenomenal.
But then I was like, oh shit,what if they don't have enough
bottles?
Todd (11:24):
and I drank it all.
It worked out.
I never actually, I don't know.
I never heard anything aboutany of the judging on the long
shot content.
You know I don't.
I made a lot of different beersfor it, but I never knew of any
of the results.
Obviously, I never won, butsome really great beers did win.
Scott (11:39):
Yes, you definitely won an award in the the Carney home
brewing contest because I lovedit.
That is a pretty importanttopic, of course.
Yeah, so are there any sakebeer hybrids in the US, do you
know?
Todd (11:50):
Uh yeah, One of the problems with that question is
that there's no definition ofwhat constitutes a sake beer
hybrid Okay.
I would love to in the future,when I have more time, codify
some of that stuff.
Some brewers, for example,would just take a regular beer,
regular beer, and add a sakeyeast and then ferment it.
Okay, you know, is that reallya hybrid?
(12:11):
It's just kind of beer at thatpoint.
Sake yeast is a different typeof brewing yeast, but it's still
Saccharomyces cerviciae, whichis the classic beer brewing
yeast.
They tend to like very coldtemperatures and then longer
fermentation.
When I explain it to beerbrewers I often explain it that
sake yeast are kind of the flipside of a Belgian beer yeast.
(12:32):
So Belgian beer yeast, if youferment them at warmer
temperatures you get a lot offlavors and aromas that kick off
, yeah, and if you ferment themat colder temperatures it tends
to be more subdued and you get alot less stuff.
So with sake it's the flip side.
So if you ferment it warm andkind of quickly, you pretty much
just get alcohol without a lotof expression, and if you
(12:53):
ferment it low and slow, you geta lot of complexity and
fruitiness and all kinds offlavors across the spectrum.
Okay.
Scott (13:00):
What are some of the flavors that you're looking for
in some of the sake?
Todd (13:04):
Yeah, I mean I've had hundreds and hundreds of sake
over the years but I don't know.
There's a fairly wide range offlavor.
I would say overall is thatsake across the board tends to
be fruit.
There can be a wide range ofthat expression, from things
like pear and apple to peach.
There's tropical fruit flavors,sometimes in there Banana,
(13:28):
which is isoamyl acetate.
That seems to be prettyprevalent in some sake.
So there's a wide, wide rangeof fruit flavors.
Nas can all have to do withwater chemistry or the yeast you
choose or the recipe, okay.
But then you also get a prettywide range of earthy, earth
flavors, like green stuff, likecucumber or some sort of herbal
(13:49):
note, to sort of things likeblack pepper and earthiness, one
of the other componentsobviously.
So we talked about koji asbeing a main ingredient to sake.
Koji technically is a fungus,aspergillus or rizzi.
So you can in some sake get awide range of very pleasant
fungal-based flavor, chestnut orsort of earthiness, some kind
(14:12):
of mossiness.
Those are all appropriate too.
It just depends on the style.
Scott (14:16):
You know.
So to dig into the flavorsdeeper, can you add ingredients
to spice it up a little, or isfruit added?
You know I've seen some sakehas pushed the cucumber.
Is cucumber in it or is thatjust a byproduct of what you're
doing?
Todd (14:28):
I mean, obviously you have to read the label pretty
carefully.
Some of them are not writtenvery well.
Yeah, yeah but yeah, if it'sfrom Japan, chances aren't.
Doesn't have anything in it butrice and koji water.
Yes, that's it.
That's the standard.
That's the sake.
They do much lessexperimentation in Japan than we
do here.
There's, you know, a couplethousand year old tradition of
(14:48):
making sake.
Some of the brews are very old.
There's a lot of that culturewrapped up in the brewing.
You will occasionally see somefruit added, but always post
fermentation.
So yuzu is pretty common, whichis a Japanese wild lemon.
I've seen a mango sake fromJapan, strawberry, but these are
all super low quantities.
(15:11):
It's not a common thing Amongstthe brewers outside of Japan.
We are doing all kinds of funstuff.
For me, at least in my brewery,it's all post fermentation.
Okay, so I'm not throwingcucumbers in a fermentation.
Post fermentation, when thesake is finished, I will infuse
a keg with fresh cucumber, freshlime.
We've done over 60 flavors inthe last 14 months that we've
(15:35):
been open.
Wow, that's great, yeah.
So one of the things I reallymiss about the beer industry is
the cask ale thing that peopleused to do.
So they would put on a caskevery Thursday night and then it
would die during the weekendand then you'd have to wait till
next Thursday for a new cast togo on.
I was like that ephemeralnature of that kind of mid-90s
beer scene, yeah, so I chose todo that at our tap.
(15:57):
So we make usually two kegs ofa single flavor and then when
they're gone we replace it withsomething else.
And we've infused sake with anextremely wide array of
ingredients.
I mean different teas andcoffees, oh wow, all kinds of
different fruits.
We've made Peanut colada sake,pumpkin spice sake you can spice
.
Yeah, you know last.
Scott (16:18):
I mean, we are in suburban Massachusetts, so
You've got to do what you've gotto do right, which you've got
to do so.
Todd (16:24):
In October last year we put out a pumpkin spice sake and
you could get either cold orwarm.
People had a pretty favorablereaction to it, so this year
we're probably going to makethree times as much.
Scott (16:33):
Yeah, I mean it's foot cells and it's addiction that
middle America has.
Todd (16:38):
It is also this whole flavored sake thing.
We don't have any designs toput any of it in a bottle yet.
That's good, that's way downthe line, but it's a fun thing.
It gives me an outlet to kindof create new things in the tap
room with a lot less risk thanis involved in creating a whole
tank of something and having topackage it and sell in the
(16:59):
market and all that.
So it's been pretty great andreally fun sort of outlet.
Scott (17:03):
It's got to be a nice draw to your regulars.
You know, hey, every time Icome there, I know for a fact
I'm going to get a new style ofsake and it's going to be fun
every time, Right.
Todd (17:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
We've also made other Japanesestyles.
So not just flavored sake, butwe have a sparkling sake on
right now for the summer.
I've got some sort of moretraditional brewing methods that
I've made that I'm giving someage before we start selling them
in the fall.
So I also want to expand thatlist of sort of traditional
brewing methods to give people awindow into.
(17:34):
Hey, you know, sake has thishuge wide range to it without
adding any flavor, just rice.
Scott (17:40):
Yeah Well, you mentioned earlier about warm sake.
A lot of folks don't realizethat sake can be consumed cold,
warm or hot.
I believe too, right.
Todd (17:49):
Yeah, but that's a real education sticking point that
all of the sake brewers outsideJapan kind of deal with.
At least in the United Statesmost people have only had warm
sake at a sushi restaurant orhibachi place.
The problem with that is thesake that they're warming is
really really inexpensive, massproduced sake.
So it's almost like opening acraft brewery in a market where
(18:13):
no one has ever had anything butBudla.
It's really hard to say hey, ifyou were in Japan, a couple of
things you might want to realize.
Mostly warm sake is onlyconsumed when it's cold outside,
which is not really a hugeintellectual leap to get over.
And then the other thingbrewers will brew a sake
specifically to be warmed up.
(18:33):
So craft brewers will make asake that's like earthier or
bigger alcohol, riceier, and itcan stand up to warming it up
and not lose a lot of itscomplexity.
Some of these modern sake, likea lot of the sake we make, is
very fruity and ethereal.
If you warm that up, all ofthat is gone.
Scott (18:52):
Disappates on warmth.
Todd (18:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah damages the flavor and aroma quite
quickly.
So only sake that are reallymeant to be warmed up or really
old sake can be warmed up tomake them a little more
palatable.
And yes, the sake that peopleare serving warm should be
served warm, because surf coldit doesn't really taste like
that.
Scott (19:13):
It was funny.
I tried it warm and hot andcold.
There's definitely a differencein flavor profiles.
It was interesting how thatchanges the flavor profile.
If you leave a can of soda inyour car in August and you for a
couple hours you go back in andtake a sip, not realize it, it
doesn't taste differently, itjust tastes warm.
But sake will take on differentflavors as temperature change.
Todd (19:33):
Yeah, there's actually some sort of traditional ranges
30 degrees C, 40, 45, 50.
And so the sake will definitelychange all the way up.
Even sometimes 5 degrees C isenough to make a difference.
And then, traditionally,there's this really interesting
thing called kanza-mashi, whichis you warm it up to 70 and let
(19:54):
it cool to 50.
And it tastes different than ifyou just warmed it up to 50.
Scott (20:00):
That's interesting.
Yeah, it's kind of mind blowing.
You mentioned the sea, so wasit hard when you started brewing
to go from metric to Englishsystem?
Todd (20:08):
Yeah, it's not really that hard at all.
There's a breakthrough thatalmost every sake brewer in the
US must go through.
But once you learn so you'remeasuring rice and kilos and
you're measuring water in litersonce you learn that one liter
of water weighs a kilogram, andthen you're just like oh, so I'm
just using equal units.
(20:29):
And so when you start talkingto Japanese brewers, they all do
the same thing, obviously.
So they'll express, for example, they're like well, we use 140%
water in the recipe, so ifyou're using 1,000 kilos of rice
, it's 1,400 liters of water.
It's not that hard of a concept.
(20:49):
And so, because everything'sequal, so yeah, I would never
use Fahrenheit and all that.
Also the fact that if you're asake brewer, there's really only
one country that originatedsake brewing.
If you would like knowledge toimprove your sake, you have to
talk to Japanese brewers at somepoint or read Japanese source
materials or something, and it'sall in metric.
(21:10):
Why would you do anything?
Scott (21:11):
Yeah, it's just funny.
Like every time I saw a sea Iwas like oh shit, I start doing
the math in your head.
Todd (21:18):
Yeah, I've heard some people on podcasts say stuff
like that.
I've heard people say like oh,I'm using this many gallons and
I'm like you're just gonna, Iwould just bake competition
layers all day long, right, yeah, so I just.
You know the whole thing's inmetric.
Scott (21:33):
we don't even pretend that it's not Just keep it as it
is?
For anybody who hasn't checkedout your website, I strongly
encourage you to check it out,because it is one of the coolest
.
Do you have the coolest logo?
Thanks, and you have some ofthe coolest pages on it.
How did you come up with theFarthest Star logo?
I love your science fictionaspects on the pages.
Todd (21:53):
Yeah, thanks, I had the luxury.
I fought about the brand forkind of a long time While I was
writing the business plan.
I had kind of a placeholder forthe brand and I just kept
trying to figure out really whatthe expression that I really
wanted was.
I had a couple other thingsthat in the end did not work out
, but I just kept coming aroundto science fiction.
I'm a huge science fiction fan,science fan.
(22:15):
I read a lot of like scienceliterature and I watch a lot of
science fiction and read sciencefiction.
So I just kept coming around tothat and I really wanted the
company to be a true expressionof me, not creating a brand that
I think people want.
I think you're much better offjust creating a brand that you
really believe in.
That's kind of an expression ofyourself.
And then if people like it,they like it, they don't.
(22:36):
And so I kept coming around tothe science fiction aspect and
then I realized that there werea lot of aspects of some of my
favorite science fiction thatwas true to sake in America, the
fact that sake is both thiskind of ancient beverage but
it's like the next big thing.
It's right on the cusp of thefuture of what people are going
to be drinking, and so a lot ofscience fiction tends to be the
(22:59):
same way.
Also, I don't know if you knowwhat I mean.
So a lot of anthropologicalbackground to a lot of science
fiction like Star Wars, thingslike that.
And I kept coming around to thefact that sake is this
incredibly discoverable beverage.
It's almost like anaspirational brand sort of
beverage.
So people discover it.
They really want to be the onesto like, turn their friends
(23:19):
onto it, because nobody knowsabout it.
You know, I kept coming aroundto things like the hero's
journey and you know all thisother stuff that's embedded in a
lot of good science fiction.
So I tried to make the brandscience fiction and fun but also
aspirational in that way.
Wow.
Scott (23:33):
And also I mean the Japanese culture that has come
over to the United States.
A lot of that was, you know,started in science fiction, you
know with the Godzilla's and youknow awesome monster films, and
you know that really comesthrough with your page.
You feel like you're going backkind of in time, but it is
still going forward.
It's a really cool concept.
Where do you see the sakeindustry going, you know, in the
(23:53):
next five years in New Englandand then do you see it growing
in the US along that period aswell?
Todd (23:59):
Yeah, I mean, I think sake is definitely going to grow.
It's such a small part of themarket that it there's no way
it's not going to grow somepercentage.
There are some things that havebeen happening recently, like
in the last 12 months, in thesake industry that seem to
indicate some increased growth.
Things like there's a breweryin Brooklyn called Brooklyn Cura
.
They've signed a cooperativedeal with a large Japanese
(24:21):
brewery and so they're startingto cooperate.
They weren't bought out in thetraditional sense, but they are
starting to cooperate, use eachother's resources so that this
kind of large craft in Japan canlearn from what's going on in
the United States and then, onthe flip side, Brooklyn can
benefit from you know,distribution across the globe,
all that stuff and likeexpertise and equipment and
(24:43):
information.
It's a pretty cool cooperativeagreement that's never been seen
before.
Also, the first Japanese EastCoast brewery is going to open
in the fall.
Scott (24:53):
Oh really.
Todd (24:54):
Yep, there's a brand in Japan called Dasei and they're
from Yamaguchi prefecture inJapan and they decided to open
up a New York brewery.
So it's two hours north of thecity, okay, and it's in a
beautiful area of New York, onthe Hudson, and they've built a
pretty large brewery Wow.
And they're going to startrolling out a different brand
(25:15):
instead of Dossai.
It's called Dossai Blue andthey're going to start rolling
out sake out of that brewerypretty soon, wow.
So there's things like thatthat are happening.
You were starting to see somebreweries, some sake breweries,
finally start to get bigger andexpand.
A lot of smaller breweries areopening.
There's a lot of peopleplanning breweries.
I don't know if they'llactually get to the launch stage
, but there's certainly a lot ofpeople trying to plan it.
(25:37):
And so at least in New EnglandI mean, I'm the only sake
brewery in New England I knowthat we're going to grow.
So I think over the next fiveyears you're certainly going to
see our sake spread, so it's inevery state in New England.
And then, after we've reallycemented us as like a New
England brewery, then I think wewould just look at expansion
(25:58):
opportunities to go outside ofNew England.
There's been a lot of statesthat people have requested our
sake.
Oh really, yeah, yesterday Igot a nice message from Florida.
Someone who's like you shoulddistribute your stuff in Florida
.
You know?
Ohio, apparently, chicago,canada I mean, we're right.
Next, to.
Canada.
I think there's a lot ofinteresting expansion
opportunities way in the futurefor us.
Scott (26:20):
Then you get into the logistics and all that kind of
fun stuff and it's a whole otheranimal.
Todd (26:25):
Yeah, at that point, hopefully someone I hire will
get into the logistics, becauseit's not my forte.
Scott (26:31):
So you are self-distributing.
Todd (26:33):
Right now we're self-distributing.
I have two amazing employees.
One of them comes from theretail side of beer and so he
tends to do almost anythinghelps in the brewery, works the
tap room, deliveries some salesstuff just to help me execute
whatever I need to execute.
And then we actually just hireda brewer a couple of months ago
(26:56):
who has spent seven yearsworking at a famous brewery in
Japan and wanted to move back toNew England and wasn't sure
what he was going to do.
But hey, I'm the only sakebrewer in New England, so come
work with me.
Scott (27:09):
You got to take advantage of that one.
Todd (27:10):
Yeah, I mean, I never thought in my business plan I
never really outlined a thingwhere I would say, oh, I'm going
to hire someone who knows howto brew sake.
That never occurred to me.
I figured I would hiresalespeople and things like that
and I would focus on brewing.
But yeah, I mean, I'm not goingto take myself out of the
brewery anytime soon, buthopefully someday it'll allow me
(27:31):
to kind of spend a little moretime on sales, marketing,
branding, executing everythingelse that we need to execute and
rely on someone reallytrustworthy to kind of spearhead
the brewery.
Scott (27:42):
So there's three employees and 110 accounts.
It's in.
Todd (27:46):
Yeah, so me obviously don't pay myself or anything.
I'm a small business owner, soI work there full time and then
we have two employees on thepayroll and then my wife, who
has a regular Monday throughFriday job.
She actually tends to do a lotof sort of support things for us
social media.
She's really been crushing iton Instagram lately.
Scott (28:06):
Yes, she has and I follow .
Yeah, thank you very much.
Tell her I said hi.
Todd (28:10):
Thanks, I will.
Yeah, amy's been invaluabletaking some of that stuff off my
plate as we get busier.
So she's been doing some of thesocial media stuff and getting
private events and communicatingwith food vendors for our tap
room and things like that thatare like very time-intensive and
that I don't really have timeto do.
Scott (28:29):
You had mentioned on another podcast that your
daughter is now helping out ininteresting ways.
What's she doing?
Todd (28:34):
Yeah, so Lula, she's 13.
No way Is she really?
Yeah, she's 13.
I know it's shocking.
Scott (28:41):
Oh my God, I remember when she was born.
Todd (28:43):
Oh, I'm so old.
I know Shocking to all of us,but yeah, she's 13.
She occasionally comes in andcleans up the tap room with my
wife and then the big thing shedoes for us is we have black
shirts in the merch stand andshe actually takes a lot of
those home and reverse, tie-dyethem with bleach and makes these
(29:05):
cool sort of bleach tie-dyeversions of our shirt and
they're all unique, right?
Everyone comes out differently.
Scott (29:12):
That's awesome.
Todd (29:13):
And so we sell those in the merch stand, and actually
they outsell the black ones.
Scott (29:17):
Good for her.
That's fantastic, you know, putthe kids to work.
Todd (29:20):
Yeah, I think you know a family business is.
You know, it's not a thing Ireally thought about years and
years ago, but it's been prettyfun and rewarding.
It is a lot of work and itcreates a lot of stress, but
it's nice to know that you know,we all are pitching in and
doing what we can to just getthis thing off the ground.
Scott (29:38):
You and I kind of talked, like you know, off mic, about
some of the challenges that youknow for me putting this podcast
together, and you know therewas times I don't get to see my
daughter as much as I want to,and I'm sure you know,
especially if you're sleepingover at the brewery you're
obviously not seeing yourdaughter.
But this is a good way toconnect when you're not getting
that opportunity to be at homeas much.
She's there hanging out and,you know, so is Amy.
That's nice.
Todd (29:57):
Yeah, it's pretty cool and sometimes if I have a run
that's real busy and I haven'tbeen home a lot, they'll come to
the brewery and like bringdinner or something like that,
especially if I'm working at thetap or Thanksgiving at the
brewery.
Yeah, no, we close.
We're not monsters.
We close with Thanksgiving, butyeah, it's pretty cool.
They'll bring me dinnersometimes so we can see each
(30:18):
other.
Occasionally, amy will open thetaproom, like yesterday she
opened the taproom so that Lulaand I could go kayaking.
Scott (30:26):
Awesome.
Todd (30:26):
So, yeah, definitely trying to find that work life
bounce which you know, I know alot of entrepreneurs don't seem
to put that in the forefront asimportant, but I've had some
people that I admire a lot overthe last bunch of years in the
brewing space who are just likeyou need that work life bound.
Yeah, because it's you're notgoing to make it.
The brewing industry is not aget rich quick scheme, so
(30:51):
hopefully we're building alegacy business that's going to
last.
You know, outlast me certainly.
It's not the sort of it's notan app or something where we can
like flip it and make it downto money and so you're in it for
the long haul.
So if you don't have work lifebounce as at least a priority in
your top five with thepriorities, then I don't know if
you're going to make it 10, 20,30 years in.
Scott (31:12):
Yeah we've talked a lot about sake, but we also have to
talk about one of the coolestthings that you've done.
You were an apprentice swordmaker.
Can you tell everybody aboutthat?
Todd (31:21):
Yeah, absolutely Because it was awesome.
Yeah, it's definitely a spot,Definitely a spot that sticks
out of my resume quite a bit.
Scott (31:28):
Yeah.
Todd (31:28):
But but yeah, yeah, I I've always been sort of a maker.
I love to cook.
I worked in restaurants for along time as a cook.
But I love to cook, I love tobake, I love to make stuff in my
hands, generally create stuff.
When I was in college, I wasworking full time at a
restaurant trying to affordcollege, which you know for you
(31:48):
American listeners, obviouslythat's something that's pretty
important when you're going toschool is like how am I going to
pay for all this?
And so while I was working, Ijust got really frustrated with
not having enough time to doschoolwork versus work to make
money to afford the whole thing.
I had an opportunity to go toJapan, sort of a window.
I was studying martial arts.
I was always really interestedin martial arts and swords and
(32:11):
so I wrote a letter in Japanese.
A couple of friends of minehelped me clean it up and then,
sort of in the early days of theinternet, we printed out all
the letters and physicallymailed letters to Japan.
So I spent $250 on postage,which seemed like a lot at the
time yeah, it was a dollar perletter.
So I mailed a copy of theletter to 250 different sword
(32:34):
make and I got nine responses.
That's a great percentage, it'sa really good sense.
I got nine responses.
Seven of them said thanks forthe letter but no thanks.
And then one of them said, well, you should move to Japan and
get a job and get an apartment.
Then come see me.
And I was like, well, thatsounds real easy to do.
(32:55):
And then one guy was like, hey,listen, I'm in the middle of
nowhere.
You'll literally sleep in atool shed, you know whatever.
But if you want to come herefor a year or however long, I'll
put you up and let you live ina tool shed and do whatever.
And so that's what I ended updoing.
So I went to Japan very littlemoney in my pocket, which seems
reckless, and then spent a yearstudying sword maker, lived in a
(33:18):
tool shed, as advertised.
He wasn't screwing around.
No, it wasn't screwed, it wasnot a euphemism.
So I yeah, the flip-in toolshed, which was crazy in the
winter time.
Scott (33:29):
Oh.
Todd (33:30):
And I worked for him and I learned all about chopping
charcoal, about metallurgy,about, you know, working the
forge, a bunch of stuffBasically.
After about a year we startedtalking about you know what life
as a swordmaker would look like.
And I was a little older at thetime, I think after I had found
him, when I was 18, I mean, whoknows, I still could be a
swordmaker, yeah, but I was 28,you know, living in a tool shed
(33:53):
with like very little income, inthe middle of nowhere in Japan,
and so you know he startedthrowing stuff around like, well
, you'd stay here for like 10years and then, you know, take
all these exams and they couldbecome a swordmaker.
I just, the more I lived inJapan it was exposed to Japanese
culture directly, not throughbooks or TV shows or whatever
the more I just kept going backto sort of food and alcohol,
(34:17):
beverages and things like that.
Before I moved to Japan, I had alot of interest in home brewing
.
I worked in a restaurant,obviously cooking food, so I
just kept being kind of pulledaway and found myself thinking
more about food and beveragethan the swordmaker thing.
And then after about a year Idecided to just move somewhere
else in Japan and not study withhim anymore because he was a
(34:38):
countryside swordmaker.
It seemed really sort of anabuse of his trust to just take
up resources and money if Iwasn't serious on becoming an
actual swordmaker.
Scott (34:49):
Do you have any of your creations still?
Todd (34:51):
I do not.
I never got to the point wherewe may.
You know I wasn't making swordsby myself or anything.
It was more like I was wieldinga hammer and he was forging the
blade.
Yeah, also, let's understandthat, like, the blades are like
a brand new sword made by theguy that I studied with.
You know, you're looking at 15to 20 thousand dollars, american
, you serious, yeah, so I don'tthink there was any, any
(35:13):
illusion that.
I was going to be able to own asword that he made.
Scott (35:18):
Yeah, Not like you work for a year and you get one sword
and see you later.
Todd (35:22):
Yeah, no, that's not the kind of what happens.
So, who knows, if I make mysake millions, I certainly would
give them a.
I would give them a phone calland have a custom made sword
made 100%.
Scott (35:33):
Well, you could just be building attachment on Saburi
and have a little sword forging.
Todd (35:37):
section A little sword maker shop.
Yeah, yeah, but only.
I've since only stepped into aforge.
One other time, at my previousbrewery, I went to someone's
bachelor party and the bachelorparty was in, like in a
blacksmithing shop, a learninghow to make like a wrought iron,
like bottle opener, and it wasa pretty cool idea for a
bachelor party, yeah, and sothat was the only other time
(35:58):
I've ever picked up a hammer andother thing.
I was surprised that.
How sort of easy itself, youknow, given the fact that it's
been a very long time since Ilived in Japan and studied sword
making.
So, no, it's cool.
I occasionally miss it.
I wonder sometimes, I mean,like anyone would, what would it
have been like if I just stuckwith it?
And you know, certainly thatworld has changed just as much
(36:18):
as the beer industry or otherindustries I've sort of run
across but introduced to peoplewho make swords for the movie
industry and like all kinds ofstuff like that.
So who knows, you know, if Ihad set up a sword shop
somewhere in America, maybe Icould be doing sort of jobs like
that.
So I think about itoccasionally, but I'm pretty
happy you could add your ownreality show.
Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Idon't know, I don't know.
(36:41):
There is certainly a smithingreality shows like Forge and
Fire.
You've ever seen that?
It's a pretty great show.
Yeah, maybe I could have goneon there.
So far, there's no sake brewingreality shows.
Scott (36:54):
Wow, there you go.
Todd (36:54):
Somebody could hit me up.
Scott (36:56):
Was it the Magnolia Network?
Do you could have a show onwith Chippa Joanna?
Todd (37:00):
Oh, that's right, that's right.
Chippa Joanna could come makesake.
Roll those cameras.
Scott (37:05):
For the tap room.
You are open on the weekends.
Folks come in.
What can they expect when theycome into the tap room?
Todd (37:11):
We built our brewery from scratch so we didn't have it
some other space, we built theentire space.
So we gave thought to sort ofthe tap room integration with
the brewery.
So when you walk in we've gotabout a 1500 square foot tap
room and our bar sits in a 20foot shipping container inside
the warehouse Wow.
But then we left most of theeverything open so you can see
(37:34):
the brewery.
It's right there, there is asort of half wall bar that you
can sit at that looks straightinto the brewery, and then we
have a seating for about 70people and we constantly have
stuff going on at the tap room.
So we are open Friday, saturday, sunday.
We're in the suburbs and wetried being open other days, but
(37:55):
it doesn't really seem to workout for us.
Yeah, I think a beer brewerymight be able to be open a
couple more days, but for uswe're fairly niche On the
weekends.
We do really well.
Yeah, I don't think anyone'scoming to a sake brewery on a
Wednesday, yeah, so we have foodpop ups all the time.
We've had a bunch of classesthat I think we're going to pick
up some more in the fall.
(38:15):
We've had cheese class, likehow to pair cheese and sake.
We had bone side classes, sohow to clip little miniature
trees.
Wow nice Standup comedy iscoming back in the fall.
Scott (38:27):
Very cool.
Todd (38:28):
We have a really great group called Hubbub Comedy, and
they do pop ups at the tap roomand have about three to four
comics each night.
It's great, and so, yeah, we doa lot of the stuff that our
regular brewery would do Awesome.
Scott (38:40):
Definitely got to get home and check that out.
I'm trapped down here inWilmington with just the mass
sake that we were talking aboutand not getting any real
interesting flavors and craftsake from the US.
The ones we have are prettystandard.
Yeah, those are standard ones,kind of the Bud Lights of the
sake world.
Todd (38:56):
Yeah, there's some good sake down there.
It's just the problem is it'svery hard to find and unless you
know about sake, you don't sortof stumble across it, and so
that's something that I thinksmall breweries like mine have
going for them is.
We say, hey, you know, allwe're doing is sake.
I'm not trying to sell sake aslike part of a catalog of
beverages, that's all we have.
(39:17):
So we're doing tastings anddinners and education stuff.
You can come to the tap room.
All that outreach hopefullywill grow sake, but also it'll
just allow someone to have aplace to go.
Scott (39:28):
Yeah, you haven't been open that long so it's hard to
see any growth.
You know long term, but do youthink that the sake industry is
picking up any growth from thedecline in the beer industry?
Todd (39:39):
That's a good question.
I am not 100% sure we areseeing growth.
I've made some choices in theearly days of our business that
would allow us to kind of fit inwith other beverages.
The one thing I realized isthat no one really goes to a
store specifically to buy sake.
There are some sake onlyretailers in giant markets like
San Francisco and New York andLA.
Scott (40:01):
Seattle.
Todd (40:02):
If you're where I am, no one really buys sake
specifically.
That's not a trip to the store.
So for us we decided to go withsingle serve packaging, so all
of our bottles are seven ouncebottles.
It's a good, healthy singleserve.
You could also split it withsomeone as like a trial, and so
that keeps the price low, thecost of entry low, and I
(40:24):
understood that someone's goingto the liquor store and they're
buying a four pack IPA and someseltzer and a bottle of wine.
We have to be in a form factorwhere people are like oh, I'll
just take two of those and hookthem in the basket, and so the
single serve really helps us dothat.
I don't think the growth thatwe see is coming from the
decline of any beverage.
I don't think people arejumping to sake from something
(40:47):
else.
But we're providing a ton ofeducation, a ton of content, a
ton of opportunity for people togo.
Oh, hey, I've always wanted totry sake.
Oh, it's nine bucks a bottle,I'll just throw two of those in,
yeah.
Scott (40:58):
So what's the alcohol range for sake?
Todd (41:02):
Yeah, so for me, I like to play in the 15 to 18% range.
Scott (41:07):
Okay.
Todd (41:07):
There are some sake from Japan that are as low as I want
to say 12.
And then the highest one I knowfrom Japan is 21.
Scott (41:16):
Oh, really Okay.
Todd (41:17):
But there are some breweries, obviously in Japan,
that could pull it off.
And then there's some ultra lowalcohol sake that, frankly, I
don't really understand.
So there's some sake from Japanthat's carbonated and is only
5% or 6% alcohol.
I don't think it really tasteslike sake.
I think it, I don't know, itdoesn't really taste like sake.
So to me and so I like to playin that range it's a little
(41:40):
stronger than wine and becauseof that, you know, a full pour
of sake is for us in thetabernum is five ounce Okay.
So obviously we're not tryingto get anybody extremely
inebriated, but you know,basically it's certainly one of
the first education points thatwe have to cover with people who
come to the tabernum is thatyou know this little glass
(42:02):
should be savored and enjoyedand experienced.
It's not a shot, it's not awhatever.
Scott (42:07):
Yeah.
Todd (42:07):
Because a five ounce glass is the exact same as drinking a
full 5% alcohol beer.
Scott (42:12):
Yeah, so they just have to be cautious with it.
Todd (42:14):
Yeah, so we do five ounce full pours and then we have a
six ounce flight.
That's three, two ounce pours.
Scott (42:22):
It's awesome.
Todd (42:23):
I tried some other stuff in the past when I was
developing the business and youknow everything we have is on
draft.
I just I can't pour less thantwo ounces.
Scott (42:31):
Yeah.
Todd (42:32):
It's like really hard to physically pour less than two
ounces.
So yeah, I would need like apipe at or something.
So we thought three, two ouncepours is like a really nice
flight.
Three different and currentlyat the tabernum we have five
things on draft, so people havesome choices.
Scott (42:47):
It's awesome.
So you mentioned earlier thatyou're self-distributing.
Do you have any plans to expandthat distribution to companies
and allow them to take over thataspect, or are you still pretty
okay with self-distribution?
Todd (42:59):
We've been extremely happy with self-distribution, but as
a three-person shop, yeah, we'vedecided.
We've started working withdistributors.
We haven't signed on anyone yet, but we're looking over
agreements and talking todifferent distributors to see
who would be a good fit for ourbeverage.
(43:19):
One of the things about freshlocal sake, compared to mass
produced sake, is that our stuffrequires refrigeration all the
time, so you have to store itcold, you have to sell it to an
account like a restaurant orstore.
They have to keep it cold andsell it to the drinker cold, and
so that might be a barrier forsome distributors.
(43:40):
But yeah, we're currentlytalking to distributors for our
home state of Massachusetts andMaine, although I didn't know
this from working at Boston Beer.
But Maine is an extremelydifficult state to get your
out-of-state produced beveragedistributed in.
It's not impossible, is itreally?
Yeah, I was surprised.
It's not impossible, but someof the laws are very interesting
(44:02):
and some of the paperwork isvery challenging.
So we're going to focus onMassachusetts first so that we
can least go statewide in ourhome state.
I don't know anyone who hasn'tbeen to.
Massachusetts is an extremelywide state and so with two
people it's very hard to get,let's say, to western
Massachusetts and the Berkshires, and it's very hard to get to
(44:25):
things like the Cape of theislands, so I think a
distributor is going to have tohelp us with that.
So hopefully we'll get somemovement on that pretty soon and
then you'll see our stuff in alot more places.
Scott (44:36):
You mentioned you were in Rhode Island.
Any farther star sake.
In Patucket, Rhode Island, myhometown.
Todd (44:41):
We're mostly around Providence because of the
distributor we work with and so,yeah, I would love to expand to
a lot more of Rhode Island.
That's one of the challengingthings as a brewery owner
talking about going to placeslike Maine or Vermont, new
Hampshire, rhode Island,whatever.
I think first I really had tojust really look at those states
and try to understand what iteven looks like.
(45:04):
Connecticut is one of thosestates where I don't really
understand it very much, but Iunderstand it enough to know
that it's almost like threeseparate large markets.
You have Hartford, you have NewHaven, you have Greenwich and
Stanford.
I think those markets seem to.
It seems to me like theyprobably take a very different
approach to sell sake in all ofthree of those markets.
(45:26):
So I think that would be achallenging state to go into,
but I'm trying to understandevery state and where the
opportunities lie.
We're even talking todistributors in Vermont, new
Hampshire.
Don't think there's a largesake market up there, but
certainly there are sushirestaurants and noodle places
and adventurous chefs who wouldtake a chance on a locally made
(45:48):
sake.
Scott (45:49):
You didn't want to do any .
Elk hunting sake advertising.
Todd (45:54):
Yeah, I mean I've thought about.
I don't ski personally, but Ithink a warm sake ski promotion
in the winter would be kind ofnice or snowshoeing or some kind
of winter sport.
I come from like the deep woodsof rural Maine so we certainly
did a lot of snowmobiling.
It would make me extremelyhappy to do it's like a
(46:15):
snowmobiling sake commercial orsomething of that nature, just
to mesh the two sides of myexistence.
But yeah, I think there's a lotof opportunity.
I mean the other thing aboutNew England we just have really
marvelous food here.
You have all the inland stuff,the dairy, the cheese makers,
amazing locally grown meats andraised meats and stuff, and then
(46:37):
on the other side you have thishuge coastline with tons of
fresh seafood and you know thatkind of thing.
It's always been in my bucketlist.
I certainly want to do a sakelobster roll promotion next
summer.
Things like fried clams andsake are really great together.
So that'd be, awesome.
I'd like to see a lot more ofthat integration.
Scott (46:55):
I'm just waiting for the Farthest Star logo to be on the
Green Monster in Fenway.
Todd (46:59):
That would also be amazing .
Yeah, so we're in small bottles, which are obviously made of
glass.
But one thing I did think aboutin the future, I would love to
get in cans instead of bottles.
There's ecological reasons forthat.
Cans are much less fuelintensive to ship and things
like that.
But I would, I thought about,if we were in cans, it would be
(47:21):
really cool to be in Fenway orto be in the garden or to be at
like Tanglewood or someplacelike that where you could have a
can outside because it's notbreakable.
Scott (47:30):
You and I have mutual, not friends, but you are friends
with my cousin Ellen.
I have to give Ellen a shoutout to see if she's actually
listening.
Todd (47:37):
Yeah, I'm not sure, I'm not gonna.
I didn't look at your metricsyet so I'm not sure if she's
listening.
Yeah, so actually I have a goodfriend from high school, andy,
and he married your cousin.
And it was a very oddrevelation when we were working
at Boston Beer that he was like,oh yeah, I know this woman, she
knows Scott Carney, and I waslike, oh, that's really cool.
(47:58):
Oh yeah, they're cousins andI'm like, wait, that's just so
random and so far from where Iwent to high school.
It just seems in problem,pretty ridiculous.
Yeah, I've often run into somepeople that it just blows my
mind.
So a couple of days ago I wasdoing four hour tasting at
Volante Farms, which is like abig farm store in here in in
(48:19):
Metro West in Massachusetts, andthis guy walked by that I knew
from Tokyo Really.
So he lives in Tokyo, yeah, helives in, he's from
Massachusetts and we first metat UMass, but I only have ever
spent time with him in Japan.
And he just walked by me in astore so I got his attention,
poured socket for him, you know,talked to him for a bit and
(48:41):
then he's like, yeah, my dadlives nearby and a home visiting
, so he was literally just homefor like two weeks, wow From
Tokyo, and I just ran into himand tasting.
So that stuff happens to me allthe time, much to the annoyance
of my wife, but it happens allof them.
Scott (48:55):
Anybody show up at the brewery and know you, but didn't
realize that you were the owner.
Founder.
Todd (48:59):
No, we've never had that.
This has been such a herculeantask to open that anyone who
knows me or knows about me orwhatever has, knows that I'm
opening a brewery.
No, we have had some people youknow we've had.
I had a group of guys from highschool that came by.
Scott (49:16):
That's awesome.
Todd (49:17):
You know which?
I went to high school quite along time ago, so I had a group
of guys from high school.
I had some old collegeroommates.
stop by unannounced mind you, ohwow really, which was, yeah,
they were like heckling me.
I was in the brewery cleaningkegs and they were heckling me
from the taproom and I was likewho the hell are these guys who
are like heckling me in thebrewery?
And then, as I got closer, Irealized who it was.
(49:39):
But we haven't seen each otherin decades.
That's awesome, and so we'vehad some people like that, some
Boston beer alum who've come by.
Yeah, been pretty cool.
Scott (49:47):
Well, Todd, this has been fantastic catching up with you.
It's great to see you, man.
I'm really happy and proud ofall your accomplishments.
What is doing my due diligenceas podcast host?
I was Googling you and you'reall over the internet, and
that's a good thing, yeah.
Todd (50:00):
I'm trying, actually, somebody that you and I used to
work with, andrew Teeman.
He gave me some of the bestadvice I've ever been given.
I was going to start a blog,which is still up on the
internet BostonSakecom.
I don't post it anymore, but ithas a ton of info on sake, so I
just left it up there.
But he gave me some of the bestadvice ever about social media
(50:22):
and branding.
He just said, look, do the thingyou want to do and just
consistently put out content.
That's the same thing all thetime.
We're talking about sake, we'retalking about this, we're
talking about don't flip allover the place and try to grab
likes or views or attention bydoing other stuff.
That's not true to your coremission.
(50:43):
And so I've always just keptthat in mind with I just look,
I'm just a sake maker and so Imake sake and I talk about sake
and I just I love sake.
I want to grow the industryacross the whole thing.
I want Japanese people to sellmore, I want us to sell more,
and so, yeah, I've just beenconsistent as far as I can, and
so far, people are loving whatwe're doing.
Scott (51:04):
Where can everybody find you on social media?
Todd (51:07):
So everything is linked through our website,
farthestarsakecom, and certainlywe're very active on Instagram,
facebook, whatever I'm supposedto call Twitter now.
Scott (51:16):
Big X.
Todd (51:17):
X, that's right, and we also have an amazing link in bio
attached to all of our socialthings which is constantly
updated with food, pop-ups atthe brewery and events and
podcasts like this one will beon there, and so that's a good
place to start.
We have also just started aYouTube channel.
Really, I haven't linked it toanything yet, yeah, so I
(51:39):
realized that we're doing allthis like kind of visually
interesting stuff in the breweryand I thought I would try my
hand at some short videos justto give people another kind of
content.
And so we just startedFarthestarsake on YouTube and
I've started uploading somevideos to that as just a
different way to get people'sattention.
Scott (51:57):
Folks definitely check out Farthestarsake, All of the
social medias.
Stop by the brewery, check itout.
If you see it in your stores,grab a bottle, try it.
I have not got a chance to tryit, but I am looking forward to
it when I come home and I'm sureit's going to be fantastic.
Thank you again, Todd, forhanging out with us today.
It's been a pleasure to catchup with you.
Todd (52:15):
Yeah, my pleasure.
It's been awesome to catch upwith you as well.
I never realized that workingat the Boston Beer Company would
gain all of these friends, likeacross all this broad spectrum
of industry, so it's been realcool.
Scott (52:27):
It's been awesome.
All right, ben, take care andfolks go check out
Farthestarsake.
Todd (52:33):
I don't right now.
I personally have the skill tomake a 21% alcohol sake that
doesn't taste like jet fuel.
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