December 27, 2024 • 36 mins
Episode 175. Join us this week for another wide-ranging sake interview. We are welcoming Lucas Smolic, the founder of the Sake Brewers Guild, to the podcast. Lucas started in engineering but found his way to sake which evolved into a deep passion for sake brewing. This inspired the development of the Sake Brewers Guild with its mission to make learning the skills of sake brewing accessible to all. Among other things, we discovered that the Guild is supporting and connecting sake brewers on ALL SEVEN continents (yes, including Antarctica!). As we chat, we taste a savory Tokubetsu Honjozo from Takeda Shuzo - a brewery in Niigata, Japan that welcomed Lucas for an internship. If you've ever considered giving sake brewing a go yourself, this episode is not to be missed! #SakeRevolution
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
John Puma (00:21):
Hello everybody and welcome to Sake Revolution.
This is America's First Sakepodcast.
I am your host, John Puma.
I'm from the Sake Notes.
I'm also the administrator overat the internet sake Discord, as
well as Reddit's r slash sake c.
Timothy Sullivan (00:37):
And I'm your host, Timothy Sullivan.
I'm a Sake Samurai.
I'm the Director of Education atthe Sake Studies Center, as well
as the founder of the Urban Sakewebsite.
And every week, John and I willbe here tasting and chatting
about all things sake and doingour best to make it fun and easy
to understand.
Hello, John.
How you doing?
John Puma (00:55):
hey, Tim, what do you hear?
Timothy Sullivan (00:58):
Well, I hear we have another guest in the
studio.
No.
John Puma (01:02):
Yes, yes, we do for our ongoing series about people
who have worked at sakebreweries.
We, we have not come up with aclever name for this yet.
If you have one, maybe reach outto us at
Feedback@SakeRevolution.Com andwe, you know, submit your name
and maybe we'll use it if wethink it's very good, or maybe
we'll come up with one duringthis very episode.
(01:23):
So, uh, so Tim, yeah.
Who is our guest today?
Timothy Sullivan (01:26):
I am so excited to welcome our guests
today.
We have Lucas Smolic.
He is a sake brewer and thefounder of the sake Brewer's
Guild which you can find atBrewSake.Org, and he is an all
around Super deep well ofknowledge about sake brewing,
and I can't wait to find outmore about the Sake Brewer's
(01:49):
Guild I think we have a few homebrewers that are listening to
our podcast.
John Puma (01:54):
One or two.
Timothy Sullivan (01:55):
All right, Lucas, welcome to the show.
John Puma (01:58):
Welcome, Lucas.
Lucas Smolic (01:59):
Thanks for having me.
Timothy Sullivan (02:00):
Lucas, I have to ask you first, for those of
you, John and I know youpersonally and, uh, are happy to
call you a friend, but for ourlisteners who don't know you
yet, can you tell us about yourbackground and how you got
involved with sake as a career?
Lucas Smolic (02:15):
Yeah, sure.
Um, how far do you wanna goback?
We do the, uh, grew up in Bostonthing.
Um.
First experience with sake,because of that, was kind of
what a lot of people had, thelittle tokkuri of hot sake that
many people can relate to.
I'm a software engineer bytrade, so spent 20 years in the
game dev industry advertisingfilm, yada yada Outside of work,
(02:39):
I got into cooking as a hobby,and that led me into wine
tastings and whiskey bars andall that stuff, and you know,
generally watching my life godownhill.
No, I'm kidding.
but, uh, But I developed thisinterest in the nuance of
flavors, right, textures,aromas, and things like that.
And I honestly have to say, whenit comes to sake, my
(02:59):
interactions with Japan werepurely random.
I was working on a stressfulaccount, and a friend of mine
was like, you know, you needsome R& R.
And I asked him, you know, whereshould I go?
And he just said, I don't know.
Why don't you go to Japan?
That place seems pretty Zen.
And, uh, and honestly, that wasit, you know, and I'll skip the
whole details of, of takingJapanese lessons and all that,
but, basically went to Japan.
(03:21):
Rented a car, drove all over theplace, little towns, you know,
meeting people.
This was that time when Airbnbswould actually meet you, like
the host would meet you at likethe train station, like walk you
to your place, and um, and Ijust got in the habit of saying
to people, you know, hey, Idon't know anything about this
place, I don't speak Japanesethat well, you know, can I take
you out to dinner or likewhatever else?
(03:42):
And I ended up meeting a wholebunch of locals that way, and
one of the things that I foundthat as I was going around My
first journey was everywhere Iwent, especially with the age
group that I was hanging outwith, sake was ever present.
It was like a constant culturalstaple of every meal, every
hangout.
One story that kind of, thatstands out in my mind, which is,
my friend Makiko, uh, inHiroshima, she took me to a
(04:05):
neighborhood association event,which most people would think,
okay, here's what we all say.
What's so great about that?
It wasn't that the, the eventwas any particular, like the,
the, the sake wasn't particularto me.
I don't even think it stood out.
What stood out was the, theexperience around it.
It was how like everyone'ssitting down and having this
really comfortable, uh,experience with each other and I
(04:26):
would, I just became sort oflike another person in the room.
Their, you know, uncle, heruncle's pouring me sake at one
point.
Her nephew's Pour me sake.
Everyone's just smiling andlaughing.
Very little language exchange.
Lots of emotion, lots of backand forth, you know, um, visual
kind of communication, andsomething about that got me kind
(04:46):
of hooked on it, and so I wouldsay, when I got back to L.
A., uh, where I was living atthe time, I became that guy that
just like going around with allmy friends saying, you know, oh,
hey, hey, we gotta try sake, wegotta, we gotta get sake, And I
wouldn't even say that'sactually what, was the final
moment that triggered I'm inlove.
Uh, it was more, this was just afascination of mine.
(05:07):
I didn't even get into brewinguntil about four or five years
ago.
John Puma (05:10):
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Wow.
So, I love the idea that youjust like went for it in, uh, in
Japan.
I don't, I don't think I havethat kind of, that kind of, fuck
it, let's go, in me.
but But clearly you do, andkudos to you for it, sir.
now when it comes to tastingsake, uh, outside of your, your
warm, Tokkuri experiences, whatwas your, like, Oh, this is,
(05:32):
this is Do you have, like, thataha moment, that this is the
stuff moment?
Lucas Smolic (05:37):
I do.
Yeah, there was, there's onethat always stands out because I
remember, uh, someone asked methis a few years ago and I, for
the longest time, I was like,ooh, what was it?
What was it?
And then it suddenly hit me.
I was like, oh, of course youknow what this was.
my friend Shio took me to theMeishu Center, or one of the
Meishu Centers in Tokyo, and itwas a bunch of tastings, you got
to, you know, pull off the rack,and, you know, that whole
(05:58):
experience.
so I had one that was really,you know, melon, one that was
sort of, uh, maybe, maybe morejust pure ginjo style, where
it's, it's kind of rough, and Iliked that.
And Okonomatsu, 30 year aged, Itliterally said 1988 on the
bottle, it had one of those poptops where you could reseal it,
you know, it was nice.
(06:19):
So this was in 2018, so that wasactually 30 years old when I saw
it, and the caramel, thechocolate, the smooth texture,
lingering aroma that made methink I was gonna like eat creme
brulee.
Absolutely amazing.
And I would describe it as,like, my Matrix 1999 moment,
although instead of, like,waking up and realizing the
world is this, like, barrenwasteland, instead I woke up and
(06:43):
realized that the real world isactually, like, this wonderland.
And I was like, oh, this isamazing.
so I just started seekingeverything out that I could,
like, that vibe.
And I was that guy going, like,excuse me, do you have a sake
menu?
And in America, being extremelyunderwhelmed by, like, what I
would receive as a sake, I'd belike, Oh, none of this tastes
(07:03):
good.
Cool.
Um, but that's, I would saythat's what really sent me down
the obsession with sake.
John Puma (07:10):
Wow.
Timothy Sullivan (07:11):
that is awesome.
So wafting, wafting cremebrulee, John, we have to add
that to our, we have to add thatto our tasting notes.
John Puma (07:19):
I want a sake that makes me think of creme brulee
Lucas Smolic (07:21):
If you get that sake, I'm taking the train down
to have it with you.
John Puma (07:24):
Haha.
Hahaha.
Timothy Sullivan (07:29):
well, when we introduced you, we mentioned
that one of your titles is sakebrewer.
And we know that you've workedat sake breweries and made sake
in Japan.
And we'd love to hear a littlebit about those experiences.
Can you tell us what breweriesyou've worked in and what that
was like for people who kind ofdream about that?
(07:49):
Like you're living the dream.
So what, what was that like foryou?
Lucas Smolic (07:52):
Well, you know, I would distance myself a little
bit from the, from anyonethinking that it's, you know,
that I've done tons and tons.
the honest only brewery that I,I really would say I was on
staff on was Takeda Shuzo, whoputs out a, a, a very common
sake.
um, brand up in Niigata calledKatafune.
And, uh, you know, they, theywere started in 1866, so
(08:12):
they're, they're fairly old,Shiaki, who technically brews in
Hawaii, but if you countbreweries that prefer to speak
Japanese all day long, I wouldthrow that one into the ring.
Because, um, the vibe there issuper Hawaiian paradise, but
when you're like doing the workin a day to day basis, you do
not speak, or if you cannot hearand understand Japanese, you
(08:34):
are, you're not doing the righttask.
So, You know, that's that.
I did have a chance to, makesome koji at Lagoon Brewery in
Niigata.
That was fun.
but I would say, the majority ofmy time as a brewer was spent at
Wetlands Sake, first as one oftheir, that was in Louisiana, as
one of their, brewers to start.
Um, I was there really just tolearn how to work pumps and
(08:57):
stuff like that on a commercialscale, and was kind of quickly
promoted.
To head brewer.
I thought it was, whoa, inshock.
but to go back to the, theexperience in Japan, I do think
that there's some, some stuffthat's worthwhile.
I was glad that I'd had theexperience brewing for about
two, three years prior to goingthere, because by the time I got
there, I had about a hundred,Commercial fermentations under
(09:19):
my belt, ranging all the way upto 3, 000 liters.
In fact, a lot of them were 3,000 liters.
and I'd already had thechallenge of managing a staff,
doing overnights, and that kindof prepared me for the, like,
the sadistic way thatproduction, carries itself out.
and so that, that was what made,and this is where I'm going to,
like, I think a lot of peopleare like, wait, what?
I'm gonna blow your mind withTakeda, because the thing with
(09:42):
Takeda Shuzo that blew my mindwas We had nap time two times a
day and lunch was an hour.
Well, to be fair, lunch was theonly sleep time unless it was a
really heavy day in which casewould also sleep around like 2
30.
But my point is, every day theyhad a consistent schedule.
(10:05):
So, it went like this, youarrive at like 7 30 or 8, And
then it's kirikaeshi, steam,shubo, cool, cool rice, shikomi,
break, so like, you know,coffee, essentially, we'd clean
up, more shubo stuff, lunch, forlike an hour, which we'd go hang
out with everyone in the houseand like eat with all their kids
and stuff like that, super fun,rice prep, you know.
(10:27):
Wash rice, coffee time, prep fortomorrow, daikoji, go home.
That was every single day.
Like, clockwork.
John Puma (10:37):
Hmm.
That is consistent.
Lucas Smolic (10:38):
and I actually think that having seen that now,
I was comparing it back to mytime, and I was like, wow.
So you can do two hours ofbreaks in a given day?
And a given eight hour day, ourproduction day was eight hours,
so two of those spent eating orsleeping, and then the rest of
it was just crunch, crunch,crunch, go, go, go.
(10:58):
but the things that were more,that I wanted to take away from
those experiences were, were thenuance.
Because again, I was coming inunderstanding sake brewing, but
there was I had just spent threemonths brewing with Chiaki
before I, I actually went fromHawaii to Takeda and back to
Hawaii, and she had, she hadopened my mind up to all kinds
of stuff, and I, um, I almostwant to say I would give her the
(11:23):
most credit of anyone I'vespoken with or met.
Even my time brewing in Japan,she really showed me what to be
focusing on and what I shouldnot be focused on, what I not
worry about, but the time inJapan you got to see the old
school stuff and that was reallycool to kind of go back in time
using like kotatsu's to like,they call them Colloquially they
(11:44):
call them hitas, that they putunderneath your shubo tank to
warm it up.
but they also had like a wall ofall the instruments that like
they never use, it's just fortours, you know, like the
awakeshi bow, which is like the,the stick, looks like a bunch of
reeds tied together they use tokind of like take down the foam.
And then they now use awakeshiki, which is basically just like
an egg beater strapped to a ropehanging above a, a shubo tank
(12:08):
and you're just whipping thatfoam.
There's like, they had a ricewasher there that I've literally
only seen in books, like, likemimeograph copies of books from
the 1950s.
And I was like, and they're allsaying like, this might be the
only one of these that exists.
Like still,
Timothy Sullivan (12:23):
So, the sake process that you worked with at
Takeda Shuzo in Niigata soundslike it's very regimented and
scheduled and all those stepsyou mentioned, those were all
different for our listeners whomay not be familiar with those
terms.
Those are all differentproduction steps like a rice
washing.
different koji steps, making thekoji rice, making the
(12:44):
fermentation starter, etc.
And, uh, would you say that itwas fairly disciplined?
I mean, that was kind of myexperience in a Japanese sake
brewery was that it wasregimented and disciplined and
highly scheduled.
Can
Lucas Smolic (13:03):
kind of like their, their sense of what they
had to do.
Right, there was no, there wasno question about it, because it
is a thing you get into a cycleof, right?
Also, the brewers I was workingwith were farmers, right?
So they make the rice.
All the rice for this brewerycomes from these farmers.
There was two or three of themthat had their own fields, and a
couple of them worked together,another one's separate.
(13:25):
But, it is interesting the, thedifference maybe in mentality
around how they work, they justthink, they take it very
seriously, there's no screwingaround, there's a lot of joking
though, I mean that's, I don'tknow, I don't know if your
brewery had the same thing, butfor us it was like, constant
jokes, the whole time was fun,so much fun to work with these
people, but, you know, like whenit came down to stuff that got
(13:47):
serious, everyone's, Like, wholetone, like the face, everything
dropped and it became, you know,okay, let's get this done.
but, some things, some thingsyou don't, you don't realize
when you're using olderequipment, like, say, the, the
sort of, like, wooden bucketsthat they use, like the hangiri
they use to move rice from thesteamer, over, like they have
this steamer that's brand newand it's gorgeous and huge, can
(14:07):
do like, you know, 3, 000kilograms of rice at a time, but
they're still using these likeold, hangiri to move rice over
to these, they call them tsu,they're like the mats they lay
on the ground, and you put thatthing down too hard, like if you
drop it to the ground like toomuch speed, even though you're
supposed to work as quickly aspossible, if you put it down too
much speed, it, you know, if youever touch it, oh man, the eyes
(14:30):
in the room will suddenly shiftto you.
I did this.
It's like a, oh, you havecommitted a mortal sin, like,
you let the thing touch, even ifit's sanitary, it's like, that
thing could break apart at anymoment, never let it touch the
ground, you know what I mean?
Timothy Sullivan (14:45):
you explain what a hangiri is?
Can you paint a picture for ourlisteners what
Lucas Smolic (14:49):
Yeah, it's, it's, well, it's literally like a half
barrel or half bucket.
It's like a wooden, woodenbucket, you know, think like
apple orchard, right?
And, The open top, so there'snothing enclosing it.
They use these for everything.
There are some smaller, um, andI bet it has a different name,
if I'm being honest.
Hangiri is typically a veryshallow tub.
This is shallow, but it's maybeabout a foot by a foot.
(15:09):
they just put rice in it for themost part.
I don't think there's anythingelse I've seen them use it for.
Their shovel to scoop rice outof the koshiki and into this
thing was also one of these.
It was like a, like a half ofone of those with like these
rickety wires tied around it.
It, it was a, it was afascinating experience.
John Puma (15:29):
really quickly though, you mentioned that
before you went to Japan, thefirst time you did some
studying.
Uh, and then you also mentionedthat when you were working with
Chiyaki over at, Islander, theywere conducting most of their
day-to-Day work completely inJapanese.
How much Japanese did you, uh,did you pick up when you like,
were getting ready and how muchdid you commit, like before you
started working in a situationwhere you had to know it every
(15:50):
day?
Lucas Smolic (15:50):
You know, it's, it's funny.
The brewsake.
org work, all this like,research on, on Japanese
fermentation and all that, sakefermentation, most of my
Japanese is fermentation words.
I actually truly believe this.
I can't order sushi to save mylife, but if we're talking
about, uh, acidcarboxypeptidase, I can talk
(16:11):
about that all day.
And I've realized this, that ifI, if someone asked me, like,
can you speak Japanese, andI'll, you know, like, let me
hear some.
I'm like, I don't know what totell you right now.
I get, I get hung up.
But if someone were to say, youknow, can you describe what's in
that, you know, that coolerright now?
I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,let's go into this.
Talk about the fermentationhappening right now, the yeast I
(16:32):
put in, or how I steam the rice.
Um, but I would say, because I'mfamiliar with the terms and the
words of fermentation, that didmake that experience a lot
easier.
But, a lot of times it wouldcome down to, like, if we really
weren't understanding eachother, I would go ahead and
actually draw it out.
And as soon as we hit, like,what is an enzyme, or as soon as
(16:54):
we understood the, so, like,koso, I learned a lot of these
words, like, koso is, is enzyme,while we were there, because as
you're trying to describe, like,why do you do this, and they're
trying to describe it, and theysay a word like koso, and you're
like, I don't know what thatword is, and you, it's really
critical to the understanding ofwhat you're trying to
understand.
You'll do everything in yourpower to learn that word, and I
guarantee you'll never forget itagain, because the next day
(17:17):
You're going to come back andwant to say, you know, how did
such and such work, and you'regoing to want to be able to say,
ah, you know, um, the koso, thekosa, and, sometimes, you know,
I'm sure you've both had thisexperience, you, you figure it
out, a little bit of English, alittle bit of Japanese, you get
there, right?
John Puma (17:34):
So you mentioned the brewsake.
org there, which is, lot of whatyou're working on these days,
and also the Sake Brewers Guild.
So what's that all about?
Lucas Smolic (17:42):
you know, I think, I think the, the ultimate, goal
here after coming out of a fewyears of Brewing myself and
wanting to learn more was, Ialways wanted to, I, from the,
from the first time I think Iever read a book on sake
brewing, Japanese sake brewing,um, I was always reading
something and then they wouldsay, you know, put this much
rice in or use this much water.
(18:03):
And in, you know, computerscience, you always have to know
why you do something.
You never just do it.
Someone's always going to askyou that question.
Why did you do that?
Why would you do that?
and so I wanted to connect thosedots.
I wanted to say, like, This iswhat, this is what the problem
is, or this is what we're tryingto achieve.
Why do we do these things toachieve it?
Why did they write it that way?
(18:24):
so to connect a few dots, I hadtaken John Gauntners,
certification course.
I had read a few books inEnglish, or all the books in
English that we could on sakebrewing.
I joined every relevant, uh, orgthat had to do with sake
brewing, if that allow us.
There's a lot of Japanese orgsthat you, they just won't let
you join.
basically I was trying to applythat engineer's mind of, you
(18:45):
know, take your experiential,but apply control points.
Like, I did this, but whatshould it have been?
My baume is this.
What should my baume be if Iwant to hit this target?
John Puma (18:57):
And, and hold on, gotta keep in mind that a lot of
our people at home do not knowwhat a
Lucas Smolic (19:00):
Baume is Oh, that's a good point.
No, no, I like, this is a goodpoint because, because that's
what I've been doing the lastfew years, right, is like trying
to get, trying to get all thisin,
John Puma (19:09):
You're on the other side now, Lucas.
Lucas Smolic (19:12):
on multiple levels.
I'm on, I'm on the SakeRevolution podcast.
I feel like I'm I'm literally onthe other side.
Yeah, so, so, things, learninglike what baume is, even just
that, right?
You,
John Puma (19:24):
What is bame?
Lucas Smolic (19:26):
uh, it's a French word that, that describes the
density of, of something in, uh,of a liquid, right?
Um, it's, It's the same asspecific gravity, there's other
words, that are similar tothese, they all have different
measures, like play doh andthings like that, and we use all
these words in brewing.
typically, I say typically, uh,it's a measure of how much sugar
(19:47):
is, is still in, but really it'slike all the dissolved particles
and things like that, becausethe more stuff you put in that,
Solubilize in a liquid it givesit it gives it things buoyancy
right so so anyway Bāme
John Puma (20:03):
Yeah.
All right.
Perfect.
As we're rolling along, Ibelieve we Point in the show
where we are going to Taste andtalk about a specific sake now
Tim.
What do we have today?
Namasake
Timothy Sullivan (20:22):
recommendation for a sake to all taste
together, we're going to betasting, Takeda Tokubetsu
Honjozo, which is a Muroka NamaGenshu, and Lucas, if you'll
indulge me, I'm just gonna listoff some of the stats for this
sake and then we can get it inthe glass and start tasting.
(20:43):
So again, this is a TokubetsuHonjozo, unpasteurized.
It's from Takeda Shuzo out ofNiigata.
The rice milling on this is 60percent and we're using Koshi
Kagura and Koshi Ibuki, twodifferent rice varieties.
SMV minus four.
(21:04):
John, our alcohol is up around18%.
That's the genshu, the notdiluted with water.
Uh, very medium acidity, 1.
5 acidity.
And the yeast I've never heardof.
It's listed here as S3.
Don't know anything about that,but, uh, those are the stats for
this sake.
And there's a very distinctlabel.
(21:25):
Uh, Lucas, do you know anythingabout this label here?
Lucas Smolic (21:28):
Yeah, I know.
It's not the same label as it isin Japan.
I tell you that um This This isthis is a great label so nama
sake Paul as he's knowledge Froma lot of us who are who are
ordering sake from him from along time He started importing
this and made a custom label forit, and I think, honestly, it's
a great label for a number ofreasons, but it's this, this is
(21:50):
the black skull bottle, whichalways confused me in a little
ways, because it's a white skullon black, but we'll just, we're
going to skip over that.
It's called the black skull.
Um, but, so yeah, we're going toget a laugh about that later.
John Puma (22:05):
Mm
Lucas Smolic (22:07):
because it's one of those, in advertising we call
it like the, I think it was the,the 6 6 3 or 1 rule or something
like that.
It was the, what you see whenyou're walking by on a shelf and
that gets you to come closer andthen as you get closer, what
draws your eye to want to pickit up.
And then that final, like, what,what makes you want to actually,
like, commit to buying thisthing?
(22:27):
And I gotta be honest, I thinkthis is a fantastic thing that
makes someone immediately say,Ooh, what is that?
You know, they don't even knowwhat it is.
They're just like, I want todrink whatever's in that bottle.
Um, and it also has thisadorable polar bear on it, so
Timothy Sullivan (22:41):
Yeah, well, let me, let me briefly describe
the label for our listeners.
It's a black background.
It says Takeda Tokubetsu HonjozoNama Genshu.
And then, as you said, there'sthis, uh, very graphic white
outline of a skull.
And I just want everyone toenvision like a pirate's flag
skull, right?
Lucas Smolic (22:59):
Jolly roger.
John Puma (23:02):
Yeah, Yeah, it's a Jolly Roger.
Timothy Sullivan (23:04):
And it is very eye catching and I've never
tasted this sake before, Lucas.
So I'm very excited.
John Puma (23:10):
wow.
You're in for a treat.
Timothy Sullivan (23:11):
Lucas, is it true that this is one of the
sakes you helped to brew whenyou were at Takeda?
Is that
Lucas Smolic (23:18):
It's difficult to know if this specific one is the
bottle you're drinking, butthat's only because there's an
aging process involved in it.
I don't know if the ones we gothere would have been those, but
it is possible.
It is totally possible.
But yes, I did get a chance to,help brew this.
Timothy Sullivan (23:34):
awesome.
So, John, what do you say?
Should we get this in the glass?
Let's
John Puma (23:37):
I think it's time.
Timothy Sullivan (23:39):
All right.
John Puma (23:54):
Tim, that pour was so beautiful.
I didn't even bother.
Timothy Sullivan (23:58):
All right.
So, uh, we've all got it in theglass now.
This is the Takeda TokubetsuHonjozo, uh, little bit of
color, little bit of a goldencolor there.
Right?
All right.
John Puma (24:09):
Yeah.
I assume that's that
Timothy Sullivan (24:12):
That's the Muroka bit.
Yeah.
Not charcoal filtered.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's give it a smell.
Mmm.
It smells very Nama, veryunpasteurized.
John Puma (24:26):
Yeah.
It definitely has that Nama noteto it.
it's also like, it kind ofbetrays.
That's got some strength behindit.
You can kind of almost smellthat 18%.
Mm
Timothy Sullivan (24:38):
Lucas, any, any notes on the aroma from you?
Lucas Smolic (24:41):
You know, I was trying to think off the top of
my head, what?
What would I describe this as?
I think I would describe whatI'm getting from this as like
amino acid for it, like I likethe It's not quite to a soy
sauce, but if you age this, Ithink it would go that
direction, uh, in a verypositive way.
I like those type of sake, so Ilike when things have a kind of,
(25:05):
it's not acid forward, I think,to be clear on that.
It's not bitter, it's notbiting, it's not, um, it's not
even astringent, it's verysmooth, but it's not, but it has
this quality to it that I,usually would associate with
amino acids from all thedifferent varieties I've tried
of sake where it's a little bitof acidity on your tongue and it
(25:30):
kind of gives that notes of notumami but it's close, close in
that direction.
Timothy Sullivan (25:36):
Yeah, well, I totally get what you're saying.
We're looking at the aroma and Ithink that there is a savory
note there.
There's a little ricey notethere, but what John said as
well, I pick up on a little bitof warmth from the higher
alcohol percentage when you'rejust smelling it.
And, uh, it leads me to thinkthat this will have some
richness to it, but there's onlyone way to find out, right JP?
John Puma (25:59):
Absolutely.
Timothy Sullivan (26:00):
All right, let's give it a taste.
John Puma (26:01):
It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.
Timothy Sullivan (26:04):
mmm, okay.
On the palate, This has,
John Puma (26:08):
big.
Timothy Sullivan (26:09):
it's big, it's rich.
it has almost a nutty, nuttinessto it, but not oxidized.
Like it's not a nuttiness from,you oxidation, or sitting around
for three years.
There's an, uh, you'reabsolutely right, Lucas, there's
amino acids and umami on thepalate.
(26:30):
It gives it this nutty, um,borderline soy sauce flavor.
Really good.
John Puma (26:36):
lot of umami.
In a very good way.
Timothy Sullivan (26:39):
I had, I went to a restaurant recently and
they made a soft serve ice creamfrom sesame seeds and it was a
sesame seed soft serve and itwas like, so peanut buttery.
I was like, Oh my gosh, this islike, Unbelievably how the
sesame seeds brought throughthat nutty characteristic and it
(27:00):
reminds me very much of thatexperience drinking this.
It has almost a nuttycharacteristic, but it is still
rich like a nama.
Lucas Smolic (27:11):
think that nutty flavor that you described, I
really agree with that.
That, um, I think I'm going totake back something I said
earlier.
I think, I think the umamiThat's how I would describe it.
It's like, amino acid is where,you know, I mostly taste it um,
what is it, glutamine?
specifically like that umamisweetness coming from the amino
(27:33):
acids, which typically aminoacids present as bitter or
something else, and so.
Timothy Sullivan (27:38):
Yeah, you know, while we're sipping on
this, I'd love to ask you,Lucas, something that I think we
have a few homebrewers in ourlistenership, and I'd love to
know if I was a homebrewersitting at home and I'm just
hearing about brewsake.
org for the first time, what doyou recommend for people who
want to try their first batchhomebrewing?
Like, where do you get started?
What do you do?
Lucas Smolic (27:59):
Boy, is that a great question.
The number one thing, I think,to start before anyone even does
the brewing is to Set themselvesa course, like, to how to arrive
where they want to go.
If all they want to do is trybrewing sake, then I would say,
we have a recipe on the site,you can follow it.
Uh, if you can't find theingredients, generally you can
order things on Amazon, or eventry rice that you have at home.
(28:22):
you, believe it or not, you canorder koji on Amazon.
It, it's not going to be thesame as you can get you know, if
you make your own, but what wekeep trying to tell people is,
you know, give yourself adirection.
If you want to eventually get tothe point where you're home
brewing or commercial brewingsake, um, start at the basics.
Just, just let yourself put theingredients into a thing.
(28:44):
You don't have to make the koji.
You don't have to make it superspecial.
Just, Don't, don't even worryabout getting sake yeast.
Use wine yeast.
Just do the process.
Because that part, getting theprocess down, that's the hard
part.
Once you get it in your head andyou don't even need to, like,
you don't even need to look atyour sheets anymore, okay, then
you can start going, okay, Iwant to focus on less acid or,
(29:06):
you know, higher sugar orwhatever it may be.
But we see a lot of people comein and the first thing they say
is, I'm making my own koji, I'mdoing a kimoto or a bodai moto,
and, you know, they It's likecalling a Babe Ruth on your
first day of peewee baseball.
It's like, what are you doing?
But you know, that's fine.
I love that energy though.
(29:26):
Like that's good.
You're going to need it.
You're going to need that energythe same way that Kimoto yeast
need to be strong AF to last forlike 60 days.
So good.
Congrats.
Welcome to the party.
Um, and yeah, come to brewsake.
org.
We do have a lot of informationthere and then you can always.
Um, go to, we have a, a, well,the internet sake discord that,
(29:48):
uh, John Puma, um, has beenrunning for a long time.
that's where I found a wholebunch of people, and, and
recently, um, when we startedthe guild, we created a kind of
brewer's Like a brewer's kindof, area where commercial and
homebrewers kind of get togetherand, talk about these kind of
topics and help each other out.
and a little bit, a lot morefocused, we'll say, with forums
and things like that to keep usa lot more, uh, engaged.
John Puma (30:13):
Yeah, the rest of the Discord is a little bit chaotic,
but the portion of the Discordthat Lucas runs is very, you
know, you guys have a mission.
And so, I really love what youhave done with that, you and the
other guys that run that group.
It's fantastic and it's areally, I'm so happy that it's
become such a great resource forpeople.
(30:34):
you again for that.
Timothy Sullivan (30:36):
And one thing I want to highlight is that I'm
not a brewer day to day, butwhen I poke my nose into the
sake brewers discord, the thingthat makes me so excited is that
you have people from all overthe world.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Like, this is not just
Lucas Smolic (30:53):
I know.
Timothy Sullivan (30:54):
48.
Lucas Smolic (30:55):
So much, of this in in the ecosystem is like
America, America, America.
In fact, even when people sayAmerica, they're usually
referring to the U.
S.
and, and that's, that'sobviously challenging, right?
I mean, half of the rice thatIsbell Farms produces, uh, for
sake brewing goes to Mexico.
For nami, that's incredible.
(31:15):
That's how much they'reconsuming down there.
And I haven't had a chance to govisit there, but I want to.
But let's talk really quick.
The people that we've reached,this last year over 5, 000
people came to our site, whichfor a niche thing like sake
brewing is huge, considering twoyears ago or even a year ago
those numbers were nothing likethat.
(31:38):
We have 55 countries that havecome to our site and have
participated in our calls and inour chats, and this is just kind
of cool.
At this moment we have sakebrewers who are in our group on
all seven continents.
All seven.
And that includes Antarctica foranyone that didn't do the math
(31:59):
on that.
We got someone literallystationed at the South Pole
right now.
Uh, anyway.
John Puma (32:04):
amazing.
That is absolutely
Lucas Smolic (32:07):
Sake Lab LA.
Uh, two guys that I, I knew, uh,when I was living in LA.
Uh, one of them is currentlystationed for a year down in the
South Pole.
Hysterical.
John Puma (32:17):
That's amazing.
Timothy Sullivan (32:18):
God.
John Puma (32:19):
Yeah.
That was, that was a fun fact Idid not expect to hear today and
learn.
so.
Uh, we're gonna get, we're gonnawrap it up here.
Lucas, thank you so much forcoming by.
now, a couple of questions foryou, though, before we do.
Where can people learn aboutyou?
or, brewsake.
org.
And don't just say brewsake.
(32:39):
org.
That's cheating.
Lucas Smolic (32:41):
See how easy it is?
That's why we chose that name.
Um, yeah.
Um, so, we do have a mailinglist you can sign up on the
site, so, you know, we will sendout things when we're doing it.
There's no, we don't, you know,there's no advertising or
anything like that.
This is just, trust me, it'svery dry.
You're not going to be in anyrisk of receiving, um, you know,
advertising from us.
(33:01):
we have, uh, monthly sakebrewing seminars that are on
YouTube, you can register forthem on the site if you, that'll
help us keep you in touch.
We would love you to join theguild if you want to be a brewer
or if you are currently abrewer.
Um, again, we literally havepeople in all over the world.
The third largest participant inthat, by the way, is Japan,
strangely enough.
Um, this is lots of people, Iwould say Just join and you'll
(33:24):
meet people from all over theworld, commercial and home.
and then, uh, we do have socialchannels in the works, but right
now, uh, if you follow me, Iwill connect you and you can
stay there and I'll let you knowwhen the other ones are coming
up.
That's junmai underscoregaijinjo.
So, not daiginjo, it's junmaiunderscore gaijinjo.
(33:44):
Um, good friend of mine, Kim.
Come up with that.
Um,
John Puma (33:48):
think it's very clever.
Timothy Sullivan (33:50):
Very
Lucas Smolic (33:50):
that's that's that.,
John Puma (33:51):
that's awesome.
and by the way, look, I wasgoing to say, like, when we met,
it was, uh, during the pandemic,it was when we were kind of,
everybody was doing online stuffand you were brewing sake in
your kitchen, you wereliterally, uh, washing rice and
I was like, oh, you're cooking.
You're like, no, we're makingsake.
I was like, okay.
You know?
Lucas Smolic (34:06):
probably doing both
John Puma (34:07):
and it was.
And it's really great to seewhat you've done since then,
because it's been, it's been,it's relatively like a short
period of time, and you've doneso many things in that span.
It's been crazy.
Lucas Smolic (34:21):
What's really crazy, John, is to think that I,
I would say at this point, Iwould rate my experience.
I'm at one percent of being whatI would consider to be like a,
you know, a expert sake breweror even like a proficient sake
brewer.
So I think everyone that getsinto this has that feeling of
you're nowhere near where youwant to be.
John Puma (34:39):
is that all learning?
don't know.
Timothy Sullivan (34:43):
I agree with that.
John Puma (34:44):
Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan (34:45):
Lucas, so great to have you here.
I want to mention for all ourlisteners that, uh, all the
resources and, YouTube videosand everything that Lucas has
mentioned, we're going to embedthose into our show notes.
So if you want a shortcut toeverything Sake Brewer's Guild
and BrewSake.Org, please visitthe Sake Revolution website.
(35:07):
Check out our show notes forthis episode.
And we will make sure to connectyou with all the home brewing
goodness that they have atbrewsake.
org for any of our aspiring sakebrewers out there.
Lucas, thank you so much forjoining us.
It was a pleasure to have you.
Lucas Smolic (35:24):
Thank you.
Timothy Sullivan (35:24):
So a special again to Lucas for joining us.
I can't wait to learn more atbrewsake.
org.
And I know that.
They have different ways tosupport them.
So if you visit their website,you can learn all about their
organization there.
And I want to shout out aspecial thank you as well to our
patrons who are the supportersof Sake Revolution.
(35:47):
Without you guys, we would nothave a show and we appreciate
you all so, so much.
If you would like to learn howto support Sake Revolution,
visit Patreon.com/SakeRevolutionto learn more.
John Puma (35:58):
Uh, and if you have questions, comments, show ideas,
or if you would like to namethis series that we're currently
doing, you can contact us overat feedback@sakerevolution.com.
get at us on Instagram,SakeRevolutionPod, we're over on
Facebook, people message usthere sometimes too.
yeah, we want to hear from you,we want to interact, we want to
have some, some exchange ofideas.
(36:19):
While you're pondering thatexchange of ideas, please raise
a glass.
Remember to keep drinking sakeand kanpai.
Hello everybody and welcome to Sake Revolution.
This is America's First Sakepodcast.
I am your host, John Puma.
I'm from the Sake Notes.
I'm also the administrator overat the internet sake Discord, as
well as Reddit's r slash sake c.
Timothy Sullivan (00:37):
And I'm your host, Timothy Sullivan.
I'm a Sake Samurai.
I'm the Director of Education atthe Sake Studies Center, as well
as the founder of the Urban Sakewebsite.
And every week, John and I willbe here tasting and chatting
about all things sake and doingour best to make it fun and easy
to understand.
Hello, John.
How you doing?
John Puma (00:55):
hey, Tim, what do you hear?
Timothy Sullivan (00:58):
Well, I hear we have another guest in the
studio.
No.
John Puma (01:02):
Yes, yes, we do for our ongoing series about people
who have worked at sakebreweries.
We, we have not come up with aclever name for this yet.
If you have one, maybe reach outto us at
Feedback@SakeRevolution.Com andwe, you know, submit your name
and maybe we'll use it if wethink it's very good, or maybe
we'll come up with one duringthis very episode.
(01:23):
So, uh, so Tim, yeah.
Who is our guest today?
Timothy Sullivan (01:26):
I am so excited to welcome our guests
today.
We have Lucas Smolic.
He is a sake brewer and thefounder of the sake Brewer's
Guild which you can find atBrewSake.Org, and he is an all
around Super deep well ofknowledge about sake brewing,
and I can't wait to find outmore about the Sake Brewer's
(01:49):
Guild I think we have a few homebrewers that are listening to
our podcast.
John Puma (01:54):
One or two.
Timothy Sullivan (01:55):
All right, Lucas, welcome to the show.
John Puma (01:58):
Welcome, Lucas.
Lucas Smolic (01:59):
Thanks for having me.
Timothy Sullivan (02:00):
Lucas, I have to ask you first, for those of
you, John and I know youpersonally and, uh, are happy to
call you a friend, but for ourlisteners who don't know you
yet, can you tell us about yourbackground and how you got
involved with sake as a career?
Lucas Smolic (02:15):
Yeah, sure.
Um, how far do you wanna goback?
We do the, uh, grew up in Bostonthing.
Um.
First experience with sake,because of that, was kind of
what a lot of people had, thelittle tokkuri of hot sake that
many people can relate to.
I'm a software engineer bytrade, so spent 20 years in the
game dev industry advertisingfilm, yada yada Outside of work,
(02:39):
I got into cooking as a hobby,and that led me into wine
tastings and whiskey bars andall that stuff, and you know,
generally watching my life godownhill.
No, I'm kidding.
but, uh, But I developed thisinterest in the nuance of
flavors, right, textures,aromas, and things like that.
And I honestly have to say, whenit comes to sake, my
(02:59):
interactions with Japan werepurely random.
I was working on a stressfulaccount, and a friend of mine
was like, you know, you needsome R& R.
And I asked him, you know, whereshould I go?
And he just said, I don't know.
Why don't you go to Japan?
That place seems pretty Zen.
And, uh, and honestly, that wasit, you know, and I'll skip the
whole details of, of takingJapanese lessons and all that,
but, basically went to Japan.
(03:21):
Rented a car, drove all over theplace, little towns, you know,
meeting people.
This was that time when Airbnbswould actually meet you, like
the host would meet you at likethe train station, like walk you
to your place, and um, and Ijust got in the habit of saying
to people, you know, hey, Idon't know anything about this
place, I don't speak Japanesethat well, you know, can I take
you out to dinner or likewhatever else?
(03:42):
And I ended up meeting a wholebunch of locals that way, and
one of the things that I foundthat as I was going around My
first journey was everywhere Iwent, especially with the age
group that I was hanging outwith, sake was ever present.
It was like a constant culturalstaple of every meal, every
hangout.
One story that kind of, thatstands out in my mind, which is,
my friend Makiko, uh, inHiroshima, she took me to a
(04:05):
neighborhood association event,which most people would think,
okay, here's what we all say.
What's so great about that?
It wasn't that the, the eventwas any particular, like the,
the, the sake wasn't particularto me.
I don't even think it stood out.
What stood out was the, theexperience around it.
It was how like everyone'ssitting down and having this
really comfortable, uh,experience with each other and I
(04:26):
would, I just became sort oflike another person in the room.
Their, you know, uncle, heruncle's pouring me sake at one
point.
Her nephew's Pour me sake.
Everyone's just smiling andlaughing.
Very little language exchange.
Lots of emotion, lots of backand forth, you know, um, visual
kind of communication, andsomething about that got me kind
(04:46):
of hooked on it, and so I wouldsay, when I got back to L.
A., uh, where I was living atthe time, I became that guy that
just like going around with allmy friends saying, you know, oh,
hey, hey, we gotta try sake, wegotta, we gotta get sake, And I
wouldn't even say that'sactually what, was the final
moment that triggered I'm inlove.
Uh, it was more, this was just afascination of mine.
(05:07):
I didn't even get into brewinguntil about four or five years
ago.
John Puma (05:10):
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Wow.
So, I love the idea that youjust like went for it in, uh, in
Japan.
I don't, I don't think I havethat kind of, that kind of, fuck
it, let's go, in me.
but But clearly you do, andkudos to you for it, sir.
now when it comes to tastingsake, uh, outside of your, your
warm, Tokkuri experiences, whatwas your, like, Oh, this is,
(05:32):
this is Do you have, like, thataha moment, that this is the
stuff moment?
Lucas Smolic (05:37):
I do.
Yeah, there was, there's onethat always stands out because I
remember, uh, someone asked methis a few years ago and I, for
the longest time, I was like,ooh, what was it?
What was it?
And then it suddenly hit me.
I was like, oh, of course youknow what this was.
my friend Shio took me to theMeishu Center, or one of the
Meishu Centers in Tokyo, and itwas a bunch of tastings, you got
to, you know, pull off the rack,and, you know, that whole
(05:58):
experience.
so I had one that was really,you know, melon, one that was
sort of, uh, maybe, maybe morejust pure ginjo style, where
it's, it's kind of rough, and Iliked that.
And Okonomatsu, 30 year aged, Itliterally said 1988 on the
bottle, it had one of those poptops where you could reseal it,
you know, it was nice.
(06:19):
So this was in 2018, so that wasactually 30 years old when I saw
it, and the caramel, thechocolate, the smooth texture,
lingering aroma that made methink I was gonna like eat creme
brulee.
Absolutely amazing.
And I would describe it as,like, my Matrix 1999 moment,
although instead of, like,waking up and realizing the
world is this, like, barrenwasteland, instead I woke up and
(06:43):
realized that the real world isactually, like, this wonderland.
And I was like, oh, this isamazing.
so I just started seekingeverything out that I could,
like, that vibe.
And I was that guy going, like,excuse me, do you have a sake
menu?
And in America, being extremelyunderwhelmed by, like, what I
would receive as a sake, I'd belike, Oh, none of this tastes
(07:03):
good.
Cool.
Um, but that's, I would saythat's what really sent me down
the obsession with sake.
John Puma (07:10):
Wow.
Timothy Sullivan (07:11):
that is awesome.
So wafting, wafting cremebrulee, John, we have to add
that to our, we have to add thatto our tasting notes.
John Puma (07:19):
I want a sake that makes me think of creme brulee
Lucas Smolic (07:21):
If you get that sake, I'm taking the train down
to have it with you.
John Puma (07:24):
Haha.
Hahaha.
Timothy Sullivan (07:29):
well, when we introduced you, we mentioned
that one of your titles is sakebrewer.
And we know that you've workedat sake breweries and made sake
in Japan.
And we'd love to hear a littlebit about those experiences.
Can you tell us what breweriesyou've worked in and what that
was like for people who kind ofdream about that?
(07:49):
Like you're living the dream.
So what, what was that like foryou?
Lucas Smolic (07:52):
Well, you know, I would distance myself a little
bit from the, from anyonethinking that it's, you know,
that I've done tons and tons.
the honest only brewery that I,I really would say I was on
staff on was Takeda Shuzo, whoputs out a, a, a very common
sake.
um, brand up in Niigata calledKatafune.
And, uh, you know, they, theywere started in 1866, so
(08:12):
they're, they're fairly old,Shiaki, who technically brews in
Hawaii, but if you countbreweries that prefer to speak
Japanese all day long, I wouldthrow that one into the ring.
Because, um, the vibe there issuper Hawaiian paradise, but
when you're like doing the workin a day to day basis, you do
not speak, or if you cannot hearand understand Japanese, you
(08:34):
are, you're not doing the righttask.
So, You know, that's that.
I did have a chance to, makesome koji at Lagoon Brewery in
Niigata.
That was fun.
but I would say, the majority ofmy time as a brewer was spent at
Wetlands Sake, first as one oftheir, that was in Louisiana, as
one of their, brewers to start.
Um, I was there really just tolearn how to work pumps and
(08:57):
stuff like that on a commercialscale, and was kind of quickly
promoted.
To head brewer.
I thought it was, whoa, inshock.
but to go back to the, theexperience in Japan, I do think
that there's some, some stuffthat's worthwhile.
I was glad that I'd had theexperience brewing for about
two, three years prior to goingthere, because by the time I got
there, I had about a hundred,Commercial fermentations under
(09:19):
my belt, ranging all the way upto 3, 000 liters.
In fact, a lot of them were 3,000 liters.
and I'd already had thechallenge of managing a staff,
doing overnights, and that kindof prepared me for the, like,
the sadistic way thatproduction, carries itself out.
and so that, that was what made,and this is where I'm going to,
like, I think a lot of peopleare like, wait, what?
I'm gonna blow your mind withTakeda, because the thing with
(09:42):
Takeda Shuzo that blew my mindwas We had nap time two times a
day and lunch was an hour.
Well, to be fair, lunch was theonly sleep time unless it was a
really heavy day in which casewould also sleep around like 2
30.
But my point is, every day theyhad a consistent schedule.
(10:05):
So, it went like this, youarrive at like 7 30 or 8, And
then it's kirikaeshi, steam,shubo, cool, cool rice, shikomi,
break, so like, you know,coffee, essentially, we'd clean
up, more shubo stuff, lunch, forlike an hour, which we'd go hang
out with everyone in the houseand like eat with all their kids
and stuff like that, super fun,rice prep, you know.
(10:27):
Wash rice, coffee time, prep fortomorrow, daikoji, go home.
That was every single day.
Like, clockwork.
John Puma (10:37):
Hmm.
That is consistent.
Lucas Smolic (10:38):
and I actually think that having seen that now,
I was comparing it back to mytime, and I was like, wow.
So you can do two hours ofbreaks in a given day?
And a given eight hour day, ourproduction day was eight hours,
so two of those spent eating orsleeping, and then the rest of
it was just crunch, crunch,crunch, go, go, go.
(10:58):
but the things that were more,that I wanted to take away from
those experiences were, were thenuance.
Because again, I was coming inunderstanding sake brewing, but
there was I had just spent threemonths brewing with Chiaki
before I, I actually went fromHawaii to Takeda and back to
Hawaii, and she had, she hadopened my mind up to all kinds
of stuff, and I, um, I almostwant to say I would give her the
(11:23):
most credit of anyone I'vespoken with or met.
Even my time brewing in Japan,she really showed me what to be
focusing on and what I shouldnot be focused on, what I not
worry about, but the time inJapan you got to see the old
school stuff and that was reallycool to kind of go back in time
using like kotatsu's to like,they call them Colloquially they
(11:44):
call them hitas, that they putunderneath your shubo tank to
warm it up.
but they also had like a wall ofall the instruments that like
they never use, it's just fortours, you know, like the
awakeshi bow, which is like the,the stick, looks like a bunch of
reeds tied together they use tokind of like take down the foam.
And then they now use awakeshiki, which is basically just like
an egg beater strapped to a ropehanging above a, a shubo tank
(12:08):
and you're just whipping thatfoam.
There's like, they had a ricewasher there that I've literally
only seen in books, like, likemimeograph copies of books from
the 1950s.
And I was like, and they're allsaying like, this might be the
only one of these that exists.
Like still,
Timothy Sullivan (12:23):
So, the sake process that you worked with at
Takeda Shuzo in Niigata soundslike it's very regimented and
scheduled and all those stepsyou mentioned, those were all
different for our listeners whomay not be familiar with those
terms.
Those are all differentproduction steps like a rice
washing.
different koji steps, making thekoji rice, making the
(12:44):
fermentation starter, etc.
And, uh, would you say that itwas fairly disciplined?
I mean, that was kind of myexperience in a Japanese sake
brewery was that it wasregimented and disciplined and
highly scheduled.
Can
Lucas Smolic (13:03):
kind of like their, their sense of what they
had to do.
Right, there was no, there wasno question about it, because it
is a thing you get into a cycleof, right?
Also, the brewers I was workingwith were farmers, right?
So they make the rice.
All the rice for this brewerycomes from these farmers.
There was two or three of themthat had their own fields, and a
couple of them worked together,another one's separate.
(13:25):
But, it is interesting the, thedifference maybe in mentality
around how they work, they justthink, they take it very
seriously, there's no screwingaround, there's a lot of joking
though, I mean that's, I don'tknow, I don't know if your
brewery had the same thing, butfor us it was like, constant
jokes, the whole time was fun,so much fun to work with these
people, but, you know, like whenit came down to stuff that got
(13:47):
serious, everyone's, Like, wholetone, like the face, everything
dropped and it became, you know,okay, let's get this done.
but, some things, some thingsyou don't, you don't realize
when you're using olderequipment, like, say, the, the
sort of, like, wooden bucketsthat they use, like the hangiri
they use to move rice from thesteamer, over, like they have
this steamer that's brand newand it's gorgeous and huge, can
(14:07):
do like, you know, 3, 000kilograms of rice at a time, but
they're still using these likeold, hangiri to move rice over
to these, they call them tsu,they're like the mats they lay
on the ground, and you put thatthing down too hard, like if you
drop it to the ground like toomuch speed, even though you're
supposed to work as quickly aspossible, if you put it down too
much speed, it, you know, if youever touch it, oh man, the eyes
(14:30):
in the room will suddenly shiftto you.
I did this.
It's like a, oh, you havecommitted a mortal sin, like,
you let the thing touch, even ifit's sanitary, it's like, that
thing could break apart at anymoment, never let it touch the
ground, you know what I mean?
Timothy Sullivan (14:45):
you explain what a hangiri is?
Can you paint a picture for ourlisteners what
Lucas Smolic (14:49):
Yeah, it's, it's, well, it's literally like a half
barrel or half bucket.
It's like a wooden, woodenbucket, you know, think like
apple orchard, right?
And, The open top, so there'snothing enclosing it.
They use these for everything.
There are some smaller, um, andI bet it has a different name,
if I'm being honest.
Hangiri is typically a veryshallow tub.
This is shallow, but it's maybeabout a foot by a foot.
(15:09):
they just put rice in it for themost part.
I don't think there's anythingelse I've seen them use it for.
Their shovel to scoop rice outof the koshiki and into this
thing was also one of these.
It was like a, like a half ofone of those with like these
rickety wires tied around it.
It, it was a, it was afascinating experience.
John Puma (15:29):
really quickly though, you mentioned that
before you went to Japan, thefirst time you did some
studying.
Uh, and then you also mentionedthat when you were working with
Chiyaki over at, Islander, theywere conducting most of their
day-to-Day work completely inJapanese.
How much Japanese did you, uh,did you pick up when you like,
were getting ready and how muchdid you commit, like before you
started working in a situationwhere you had to know it every
(15:50):
day?
Lucas Smolic (15:50):
You know, it's, it's funny.
The brewsake.
org work, all this like,research on, on Japanese
fermentation and all that, sakefermentation, most of my
Japanese is fermentation words.
I actually truly believe this.
I can't order sushi to save mylife, but if we're talking
about, uh, acidcarboxypeptidase, I can talk
(16:11):
about that all day.
And I've realized this, that ifI, if someone asked me, like,
can you speak Japanese, andI'll, you know, like, let me
hear some.
I'm like, I don't know what totell you right now.
I get, I get hung up.
But if someone were to say, youknow, can you describe what's in
that, you know, that coolerright now?
I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,let's go into this.
Talk about the fermentationhappening right now, the yeast I
(16:32):
put in, or how I steam the rice.
Um, but I would say, because I'mfamiliar with the terms and the
words of fermentation, that didmake that experience a lot
easier.
But, a lot of times it wouldcome down to, like, if we really
weren't understanding eachother, I would go ahead and
actually draw it out.
And as soon as we hit, like,what is an enzyme, or as soon as
(16:54):
we understood the, so, like,koso, I learned a lot of these
words, like, koso is, is enzyme,while we were there, because as
you're trying to describe, like,why do you do this, and they're
trying to describe it, and theysay a word like koso, and you're
like, I don't know what thatword is, and you, it's really
critical to the understanding ofwhat you're trying to
understand.
You'll do everything in yourpower to learn that word, and I
guarantee you'll never forget itagain, because the next day
(17:17):
You're going to come back andwant to say, you know, how did
such and such work, and you'regoing to want to be able to say,
ah, you know, um, the koso, thekosa, and, sometimes, you know,
I'm sure you've both had thisexperience, you, you figure it
out, a little bit of English, alittle bit of Japanese, you get
there, right?
John Puma (17:34):
So you mentioned the brewsake.
org there, which is, lot of whatyou're working on these days,
and also the Sake Brewers Guild.
So what's that all about?
Lucas Smolic (17:42):
you know, I think, I think the, the ultimate, goal
here after coming out of a fewyears of Brewing myself and
wanting to learn more was, Ialways wanted to, I, from the,
from the first time I think Iever read a book on sake
brewing, Japanese sake brewing,um, I was always reading
something and then they wouldsay, you know, put this much
rice in or use this much water.
(18:03):
And in, you know, computerscience, you always have to know
why you do something.
You never just do it.
Someone's always going to askyou that question.
Why did you do that?
Why would you do that?
and so I wanted to connect thosedots.
I wanted to say, like, This iswhat, this is what the problem
is, or this is what we're tryingto achieve.
Why do we do these things toachieve it?
Why did they write it that way?
(18:24):
so to connect a few dots, I hadtaken John Gauntners,
certification course.
I had read a few books inEnglish, or all the books in
English that we could on sakebrewing.
I joined every relevant, uh, orgthat had to do with sake
brewing, if that allow us.
There's a lot of Japanese orgsthat you, they just won't let
you join.
basically I was trying to applythat engineer's mind of, you
(18:45):
know, take your experiential,but apply control points.
Like, I did this, but whatshould it have been?
My baume is this.
What should my baume be if Iwant to hit this target?
John Puma (18:57):
And, and hold on, gotta keep in mind that a lot of
our people at home do not knowwhat a
Lucas Smolic (19:00):
Baume is Oh, that's a good point.
No, no, I like, this is a goodpoint because, because that's
what I've been doing the lastfew years, right, is like trying
to get, trying to get all thisin,
John Puma (19:09):
You're on the other side now, Lucas.
Lucas Smolic (19:12):
on multiple levels.
I'm on, I'm on the SakeRevolution podcast.
I feel like I'm I'm literally onthe other side.
Yeah, so, so, things, learninglike what baume is, even just
that, right?
You,
John Puma (19:24):
What is bame?
Lucas Smolic (19:26):
uh, it's a French word that, that describes the
density of, of something in, uh,of a liquid, right?
Um, it's, It's the same asspecific gravity, there's other
words, that are similar tothese, they all have different
measures, like play doh andthings like that, and we use all
these words in brewing.
typically, I say typically, uh,it's a measure of how much sugar
(19:47):
is, is still in, but really it'slike all the dissolved particles
and things like that, becausethe more stuff you put in that,
Solubilize in a liquid it givesit it gives it things buoyancy
right so so anyway Bāme
John Puma (20:03):
Yeah.
All right.
Perfect.
As we're rolling along, Ibelieve we Point in the show
where we are going to Taste andtalk about a specific sake now
Tim.
What do we have today?
Namasake
Timothy Sullivan (20:22):
recommendation for a sake to all taste
together, we're going to betasting, Takeda Tokubetsu
Honjozo, which is a Muroka NamaGenshu, and Lucas, if you'll
indulge me, I'm just gonna listoff some of the stats for this
sake and then we can get it inthe glass and start tasting.
(20:43):
So again, this is a TokubetsuHonjozo, unpasteurized.
It's from Takeda Shuzo out ofNiigata.
The rice milling on this is 60percent and we're using Koshi
Kagura and Koshi Ibuki, twodifferent rice varieties.
SMV minus four.
(21:04):
John, our alcohol is up around18%.
That's the genshu, the notdiluted with water.
Uh, very medium acidity, 1.
5 acidity.
And the yeast I've never heardof.
It's listed here as S3.
Don't know anything about that,but, uh, those are the stats for
this sake.
And there's a very distinctlabel.
(21:25):
Uh, Lucas, do you know anythingabout this label here?
Lucas Smolic (21:28):
Yeah, I know.
It's not the same label as it isin Japan.
I tell you that um This This isthis is a great label so nama
sake Paul as he's knowledge Froma lot of us who are who are
ordering sake from him from along time He started importing
this and made a custom label forit, and I think, honestly, it's
a great label for a number ofreasons, but it's this, this is
(21:50):
the black skull bottle, whichalways confused me in a little
ways, because it's a white skullon black, but we'll just, we're
going to skip over that.
It's called the black skull.
Um, but, so yeah, we're going toget a laugh about that later.
John Puma (22:05):
Mm
Lucas Smolic (22:07):
because it's one of those, in advertising we call
it like the, I think it was the,the 6 6 3 or 1 rule or something
like that.
It was the, what you see whenyou're walking by on a shelf and
that gets you to come closer andthen as you get closer, what
draws your eye to want to pickit up.
And then that final, like, what,what makes you want to actually,
like, commit to buying thisthing?
(22:27):
And I gotta be honest, I thinkthis is a fantastic thing that
makes someone immediately say,Ooh, what is that?
You know, they don't even knowwhat it is.
They're just like, I want todrink whatever's in that bottle.
Um, and it also has thisadorable polar bear on it, so
Timothy Sullivan (22:41):
Yeah, well, let me, let me briefly describe
the label for our listeners.
It's a black background.
It says Takeda Tokubetsu HonjozoNama Genshu.
And then, as you said, there'sthis, uh, very graphic white
outline of a skull.
And I just want everyone toenvision like a pirate's flag
skull, right?
Lucas Smolic (22:59):
Jolly roger.
John Puma (23:02):
Yeah, Yeah, it's a Jolly Roger.
Timothy Sullivan (23:04):
And it is very eye catching and I've never
tasted this sake before, Lucas.
So I'm very excited.
John Puma (23:10):
wow.
You're in for a treat.
Timothy Sullivan (23:11):
Lucas, is it true that this is one of the
sakes you helped to brew whenyou were at Takeda?
Is that
Lucas Smolic (23:18):
It's difficult to know if this specific one is the
bottle you're drinking, butthat's only because there's an
aging process involved in it.
I don't know if the ones we gothere would have been those, but
it is possible.
It is totally possible.
But yes, I did get a chance to,help brew this.
Timothy Sullivan (23:34):
awesome.
So, John, what do you say?
Should we get this in the glass?
Let's
John Puma (23:37):
I think it's time.
Timothy Sullivan (23:39):
All right.
John Puma (23:54):
Tim, that pour was so beautiful.
I didn't even bother.
Timothy Sullivan (23:58):
All right.
So, uh, we've all got it in theglass now.
This is the Takeda TokubetsuHonjozo, uh, little bit of
color, little bit of a goldencolor there.
Right?
All right.
John Puma (24:09):
Yeah.
I assume that's that
Timothy Sullivan (24:12):
That's the Muroka bit.
Yeah.
Not charcoal filtered.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's give it a smell.
Mmm.
It smells very Nama, veryunpasteurized.
John Puma (24:26):
Yeah.
It definitely has that Nama noteto it.
it's also like, it kind ofbetrays.
That's got some strength behindit.
You can kind of almost smellthat 18%.
Mm
Timothy Sullivan (24:38):
Lucas, any, any notes on the aroma from you?
Lucas Smolic (24:41):
You know, I was trying to think off the top of
my head, what?
What would I describe this as?
I think I would describe whatI'm getting from this as like
amino acid for it, like I likethe It's not quite to a soy
sauce, but if you age this, Ithink it would go that
direction, uh, in a verypositive way.
I like those type of sake, so Ilike when things have a kind of,
(25:05):
it's not acid forward, I think,to be clear on that.
It's not bitter, it's notbiting, it's not, um, it's not
even astringent, it's verysmooth, but it's not, but it has
this quality to it that I,usually would associate with
amino acids from all thedifferent varieties I've tried
of sake where it's a little bitof acidity on your tongue and it
(25:30):
kind of gives that notes of notumami but it's close, close in
that direction.
Timothy Sullivan (25:36):
Yeah, well, I totally get what you're saying.
We're looking at the aroma and Ithink that there is a savory
note there.
There's a little ricey notethere, but what John said as
well, I pick up on a little bitof warmth from the higher
alcohol percentage when you'rejust smelling it.
And, uh, it leads me to thinkthat this will have some
richness to it, but there's onlyone way to find out, right JP?
John Puma (25:59):
Absolutely.
Timothy Sullivan (26:00):
All right, let's give it a taste.
John Puma (26:01):
It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.
Timothy Sullivan (26:04):
mmm, okay.
On the palate, This has,
John Puma (26:08):
big.
Timothy Sullivan (26:09):
it's big, it's rich.
it has almost a nutty, nuttinessto it, but not oxidized.
Like it's not a nuttiness from,you oxidation, or sitting around
for three years.
There's an, uh, you'reabsolutely right, Lucas, there's
amino acids and umami on thepalate.
(26:30):
It gives it this nutty, um,borderline soy sauce flavor.
Really good.
John Puma (26:36):
lot of umami.
In a very good way.
Timothy Sullivan (26:39):
I had, I went to a restaurant recently and
they made a soft serve ice creamfrom sesame seeds and it was a
sesame seed soft serve and itwas like, so peanut buttery.
I was like, Oh my gosh, this islike, Unbelievably how the
sesame seeds brought throughthat nutty characteristic and it
(27:00):
reminds me very much of thatexperience drinking this.
It has almost a nuttycharacteristic, but it is still
rich like a nama.
Lucas Smolic (27:11):
think that nutty flavor that you described, I
really agree with that.
That, um, I think I'm going totake back something I said
earlier.
I think, I think the umamiThat's how I would describe it.
It's like, amino acid is where,you know, I mostly taste it um,
what is it, glutamine?
specifically like that umamisweetness coming from the amino
(27:33):
acids, which typically aminoacids present as bitter or
something else, and so.
Timothy Sullivan (27:38):
Yeah, you know, while we're sipping on
this, I'd love to ask you,Lucas, something that I think we
have a few homebrewers in ourlistenership, and I'd love to
know if I was a homebrewersitting at home and I'm just
hearing about brewsake.
org for the first time, what doyou recommend for people who
want to try their first batchhomebrewing?
Like, where do you get started?
What do you do?
Lucas Smolic (27:59):
Boy, is that a great question.
The number one thing, I think,to start before anyone even does
the brewing is to Set themselvesa course, like, to how to arrive
where they want to go.
If all they want to do is trybrewing sake, then I would say,
we have a recipe on the site,you can follow it.
Uh, if you can't find theingredients, generally you can
order things on Amazon, or eventry rice that you have at home.
(28:22):
you, believe it or not, you canorder koji on Amazon.
It, it's not going to be thesame as you can get you know, if
you make your own, but what wekeep trying to tell people is,
you know, give yourself adirection.
If you want to eventually get tothe point where you're home
brewing or commercial brewingsake, um, start at the basics.
Just, just let yourself put theingredients into a thing.
(28:44):
You don't have to make the koji.
You don't have to make it superspecial.
Just, Don't, don't even worryabout getting sake yeast.
Use wine yeast.
Just do the process.
Because that part, getting theprocess down, that's the hard
part.
Once you get it in your head andyou don't even need to, like,
you don't even need to look atyour sheets anymore, okay, then
you can start going, okay, Iwant to focus on less acid or,
(29:06):
you know, higher sugar orwhatever it may be.
But we see a lot of people comein and the first thing they say
is, I'm making my own koji, I'mdoing a kimoto or a bodai moto,
and, you know, they It's likecalling a Babe Ruth on your
first day of peewee baseball.
It's like, what are you doing?
But you know, that's fine.
I love that energy though.
(29:26):
Like that's good.
You're going to need it.
You're going to need that energythe same way that Kimoto yeast
need to be strong AF to last forlike 60 days.
So good.
Congrats.
Welcome to the party.
Um, and yeah, come to brewsake.
org.
We do have a lot of informationthere and then you can always.
Um, go to, we have a, a, well,the internet sake discord that,
(29:48):
uh, John Puma, um, has beenrunning for a long time.
that's where I found a wholebunch of people, and, and
recently, um, when we startedthe guild, we created a kind of
brewer's Like a brewer's kindof, area where commercial and
homebrewers kind of get togetherand, talk about these kind of
topics and help each other out.
and a little bit, a lot morefocused, we'll say, with forums
and things like that to keep usa lot more, uh, engaged.
John Puma (30:13):
Yeah, the rest of the Discord is a little bit chaotic,
but the portion of the Discordthat Lucas runs is very, you
know, you guys have a mission.
And so, I really love what youhave done with that, you and the
other guys that run that group.
It's fantastic and it's areally, I'm so happy that it's
become such a great resource forpeople.
(30:34):
you again for that.
Timothy Sullivan (30:36):
And one thing I want to highlight is that I'm
not a brewer day to day, butwhen I poke my nose into the
sake brewers discord, the thingthat makes me so excited is that
you have people from all overthe world.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Like, this is not just
Lucas Smolic (30:53):
I know.
Timothy Sullivan (30:54):
48.
Lucas Smolic (30:55):
So much, of this in in the ecosystem is like
America, America, America.
In fact, even when people sayAmerica, they're usually
referring to the U.
S.
and, and that's, that'sobviously challenging, right?
I mean, half of the rice thatIsbell Farms produces, uh, for
sake brewing goes to Mexico.
For nami, that's incredible.
(31:15):
That's how much they'reconsuming down there.
And I haven't had a chance to govisit there, but I want to.
But let's talk really quick.
The people that we've reached,this last year over 5, 000
people came to our site, whichfor a niche thing like sake
brewing is huge, considering twoyears ago or even a year ago
those numbers were nothing likethat.
(31:38):
We have 55 countries that havecome to our site and have
participated in our calls and inour chats, and this is just kind
of cool.
At this moment we have sakebrewers who are in our group on
all seven continents.
All seven.
And that includes Antarctica foranyone that didn't do the math
(31:59):
on that.
We got someone literallystationed at the South Pole
right now.
Uh, anyway.
John Puma (32:04):
amazing.
That is absolutely
Lucas Smolic (32:07):
Sake Lab LA.
Uh, two guys that I, I knew, uh,when I was living in LA.
Uh, one of them is currentlystationed for a year down in the
South Pole.
Hysterical.
John Puma (32:17):
That's amazing.
Timothy Sullivan (32:18):
God.
John Puma (32:19):
Yeah.
That was, that was a fun fact Idid not expect to hear today and
learn.
so.
Uh, we're gonna get, we're gonnawrap it up here.
Lucas, thank you so much forcoming by.
now, a couple of questions foryou, though, before we do.
Where can people learn aboutyou?
or, brewsake.
org.
And don't just say brewsake.
(32:39):
org.
That's cheating.
Lucas Smolic (32:41):
See how easy it is?
That's why we chose that name.
Um, yeah.
Um, so, we do have a mailinglist you can sign up on the
site, so, you know, we will sendout things when we're doing it.
There's no, we don't, you know,there's no advertising or
anything like that.
This is just, trust me, it'svery dry.
You're not going to be in anyrisk of receiving, um, you know,
advertising from us.
(33:01):
we have, uh, monthly sakebrewing seminars that are on
YouTube, you can register forthem on the site if you, that'll
help us keep you in touch.
We would love you to join theguild if you want to be a brewer
or if you are currently abrewer.
Um, again, we literally havepeople in all over the world.
The third largest participant inthat, by the way, is Japan,
strangely enough.
Um, this is lots of people, Iwould say Just join and you'll
(33:24):
meet people from all over theworld, commercial and home.
and then, uh, we do have socialchannels in the works, but right
now, uh, if you follow me, Iwill connect you and you can
stay there and I'll let you knowwhen the other ones are coming
up.
That's junmai underscoregaijinjo.
So, not daiginjo, it's junmaiunderscore gaijinjo.
(33:44):
Um, good friend of mine, Kim.
Come up with that.
Um,
John Puma (33:48):
think it's very clever.
Timothy Sullivan (33:50):
Very
Lucas Smolic (33:50):
that's that's that.,
John Puma (33:51):
that's awesome.
and by the way, look, I wasgoing to say, like, when we met,
it was, uh, during the pandemic,it was when we were kind of,
everybody was doing online stuffand you were brewing sake in
your kitchen, you wereliterally, uh, washing rice and
I was like, oh, you're cooking.
You're like, no, we're makingsake.
I was like, okay.
You know?
Lucas Smolic (34:06):
probably doing both
John Puma (34:07):
and it was.
And it's really great to seewhat you've done since then,
because it's been, it's been,it's relatively like a short
period of time, and you've doneso many things in that span.
It's been crazy.
Lucas Smolic (34:21):
What's really crazy, John, is to think that I,
I would say at this point, Iwould rate my experience.
I'm at one percent of being whatI would consider to be like a,
you know, a expert sake breweror even like a proficient sake
brewer.
So I think everyone that getsinto this has that feeling of
you're nowhere near where youwant to be.
John Puma (34:39):
is that all learning?
don't know.
Timothy Sullivan (34:43):
I agree with that.
John Puma (34:44):
Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan (34:45):
Lucas, so great to have you here.
I want to mention for all ourlisteners that, uh, all the
resources and, YouTube videosand everything that Lucas has
mentioned, we're going to embedthose into our show notes.
So if you want a shortcut toeverything Sake Brewer's Guild
and BrewSake.Org, please visitthe Sake Revolution website.
(35:07):
Check out our show notes forthis episode.
And we will make sure to connectyou with all the home brewing
goodness that they have atbrewsake.
org for any of our aspiring sakebrewers out there.
Lucas, thank you so much forjoining us.
It was a pleasure to have you.
Lucas Smolic (35:24):
Thank you.
Timothy Sullivan (35:24):
So a special again to Lucas for joining us.
I can't wait to learn more atbrewsake.
org.
And I know that.
They have different ways tosupport them.
So if you visit their website,you can learn all about their
organization there.
And I want to shout out aspecial thank you as well to our
patrons who are the supportersof Sake Revolution.
(35:47):
Without you guys, we would nothave a show and we appreciate
you all so, so much.
If you would like to learn howto support Sake Revolution,
visit Patreon.com/SakeRevolutionto learn more.
John Puma (35:58):
Uh, and if you have questions, comments, show ideas,
or if you would like to namethis series that we're currently
doing, you can contact us overat feedback@sakerevolution.com.
get at us on Instagram,SakeRevolutionPod, we're over on
Facebook, people message usthere sometimes too.
yeah, we want to hear from you,we want to interact, we want to
have some, some exchange ofideas.
(36:19):
While you're pondering thatexchange of ideas, please raise
a glass.
Remember to keep drinking sakeand kanpai.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.