Don’t mockey yo Sake. Do you have tastings at your shop in S.F.
Smell it first. TR

Cool!….I requested this months ago!

Isee the critics are out again. God help us that the greats of the internet world have nothing better to do than critique your interviewing skills 🙂

Your website ordering is difficult to navigate. Is it only ‘business’ oriented? What are the shipping charges for your $20 two bottle special?
TR

Hey I love you man but a word to the wise.
You must tighten the pace when you have a guest.
The shows tend to run overlong and the amount of info doesn’t always justify the time spent watching when half the show is chit-chat.
I started today’s show and waited. Answered an e-mail, then waited. Went to pee and still there was no actual info being presented about the subject at hand.
So ten minutes in, I bailed. . . .and I won’t be back tomorrow.
Once again, love you, love your show, love the store. Am a big fan and a bigger customer.
But if you have guests, speed things up or try this.
Dare I say it? Editing. That’s what it’s for.

Some great info here – the sake guru looks like Alton Brown.

Airing it on Tuesday, not Monday. No, he looks like a nerd but a nice guy. Yeah, I think you’ve “heard” of wine retail on the internet. 🙂

I’m not into Sucky, I mean Sake but yes, I’d love to see you get into tea. That would be tremendous especially the entire ritual of preparing and enjoying tea in Japan. But back to show, very informative and educational and maybe, maybe one day I would buy a bottle of sucky just to relate to this episode.

Yes, I haven’t had one sake period let alone one good one.

Looking forward to Part II though will pick it up on Thursday since I’ll be at the Nats/Bosox game tomorrow.

For what it’s worth, and only to these failing ears, the sound quality on this new camera/set up isn’t what the old one was.

OH-IO! I love my state so many cool people from here…

Oddly enough I was given my first Sake for Father Day.
Even though I Eat Sushi alot I never wanted Sake because my perception was it was going to be like straight Vodka.

But on the other hand I drank beer everytime with Sushi except when working then I drink water only.

Popped open the Sake “Drink” tonight – Zipang Sparkling Sake by Gekkeikan.
I think it is more like the Zima of Sake. But it is Not bad at all.

Don’t know if it was just in my head but it taste like sparkling melons.

I like this guest and enjoyed the episode very much. That being said, I would have enjoyed the episode more if you guys had tasted at least one sake. Maybe, Gary, you could try to work the educational and biographical portions in a little more between the tasting. I look forward to the second part.

TEA INFO:

If you’re looking for a great book to learn about tea try the following book: “The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide” ISBN: 1-58008-745-0

It includes steeping times, has pictures of the tea in a white cup after it has been steeped to show color, and is an all around fantastic book.

I too am a huge fan of tea and like Dong Ding Oolongs, Lapsang Souchang, and much more. Oh, an interesting tea is Pu-Erh, it can be aged like wine.

If you’re looking for great tea deals, check ebay. There are plenty of stores that ship directly from China for a low price.

Good luck on your tea adventure, and I would love for you to do a tea library tv and perhaps in the future sell tea online!

Even though you probably won’t read this.

Interesting!

I must say, I’ve had but 2 Sakes in my whole lifetime: 27yrs.

Once at a restaurant, served warm. It was awesome! It went well with the food and I was on a date, which probably helped me enjoy it more.

The second Sake was a more “generic” brand, widely available, called
Hakutsuru sake. I don’t remember it being that great.

Hopefully we’ll learn more about Sake in the second part of this episode.

Thanks!

(Personally, I love the chit chat.)

Mr. Timken is way cuter than that Brown guy (who brings disturbing amounts of egotism and misanthropy to the table, IMHO. Check out some of the prejudiced, radical rants on his blog. Anyway, back to happier topics…)

I think the winner of the cutie award has to be the camera-shy visitor (Matthias?) from Germany in #689. Heck, yeah, wine makers are sexy!

Awesome. I like the house sake I get at Mt. Fuji and I’m totally down for getting some knowledge so I can broaden my horizons. Can’t wait for tomorrow’s ep.

The new camera seems to create a video that is slightly more pixelated/artifacted than the old one. Perhaps the video encoding settings need to be tweaked to take better advantage of the new hardware?

Very interesting episode and I really look forward to part 2. It sounded like this fellow had knowledge to share to fill 3 parts, but Gary did interrupt him quite a bit. 😉

Looking forward to the tastings. 🙂

I have had a decent sake, Junmai-shu, but am no expert. The bottle had a nice graphic showing what percentage of sake produced was each level of polish. Definitely going to try more. Sake’s comparison to vodka is a favorable one for me, because it makes me think of sweet vodka that is not distilled as much as normal vodka or cut with water, because it preserves the taste of the potato the same way a sake brings the rice flavors.

Love this guy. Already have his website bookmarked. Love how you guys are playing off of each other and I’ve been dying for a sake episode. I think a weekly spirit show or tea show would be amazing. Branch out and Crush it Gary!

I’m a big fan of sake. I disagree with your guest about ratings. Ratings are absolutely necessary in any consumption experience whether it is buying a car or buying wine (or sake). It is impossible for anyone to experience in depth everything there is to consume and thus become an expert on everything. I don’t have the time to dedicate nor the connections to experience wine as does Gary (Parker, Wine Spectator et al). It is my job as a consumer to seek out experts, find which ones whose ratings I can trust,or most closely match my tastes, and use their advice to make the best purchasing decision I can. Relying on tasting notes would be fine except that it is nearly impossible to compare tasting notes and come up with a real feel for the quality level of the product.Two sakes that have very similar tasting notes don’t give enough information to choose between them in my experience, especially if you are short on time. I also don’t agree 100% with the questionnaire method of determining what someone would like. I like good bold red wines and good mellow red wines but I don’t like poor examples of either. I like ales, stouts, ambers, pilsners etc. but not low quality examples of any of these. Trying to pigeonhole what I would like in sake based on these examples can’t be done. In fact, I enjoy bold sakes and light, ethereal sakes too.

I did enjoy the episode because it brought out so many areas that are worthy of discussion and because I am always willing to learn about good sake from an expert just as I enjoy learning about good wines from Gary.

Very cool – can’t wait for pt. 2

Oprah? come on man keep it low key and humble – IMO u lost some cool points for that!

Great idea to make a Sake show. I’ve only tasted two kids, a Suntory imported one and another called Nagaragawa and as far as I remember, I like it a lot.

Gary,

Great show. Apologies for free-riding for so long, I finally realized that I needed to COMMENT. I really enjoyed the questions and thought Beau had a great story to tell.

So much of why WLTV is awesome is that it reminds us of our first “wine epiphanies” and reminds us that the world is big and there are more adventures to be had.

Love sake. Just had some last night with some awesome sushi.

I got into sake a few years ago, there’s a few japanese markets around my area that has a small selection of sakes to try, but nothing like what your guest has. i’ll be out his way next month and plan on checking his shop out.

Cheers!

Is it me or is the resolution lower than normal? Is it the camera or is viddler lowering the quality of the video? Agreed, love the chit chat, the interaction makes it fun to watch.