Written by Will Lerner, Communications Manager for Portland Japanese Garden & Japan Institute
At the end of September, Portland Japanese Garden collaborated with its longtime and official sake partner, Joto Sake, for a special afternoon tasting. Timed to align with World Sake Day on October 1, Joto presented six special offerings from their portfolio, accompanied by light bites from Elephant’s Delicatessen. Ahead of this highly anticipated event, the Garden sat down to chat about Joto and sake with Ryan Mellinger. Mellinger is a sake expert who has been with Joto for ten years. She currently serves as General Manager for Joto Sake within the Kobrand Corporation.
Sake as a Means of Cultural Diplomacy
In the 2015 documentary, The Genealogy of Sake, director Kahori Ishii examines the work of toji, or Japanese sake artisans, on the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture. Making sake is hard work. Brewers will rise before dawn and carry on well into darkest hours of night all while having to maintain deep focus on their output. It takes people with diligence and skill to make it in sake, people like Kiichi and Akiko Hakuto. Kiichi and Akiko first met as students at the Tokyo University of Agriculture. Jobs and apprenticeships would separate them, but not any longer than their love could permit. Now together they run Hakuto Brewery in Wajima, an operation first established in 1722. Akiko and Kiichi, the ninth generation in his family to run the business, don’t just make a product. They’re caretakers of a time-honored tradition and essential Japanese beverage. Their sake and story are worth sharing outside their humble seaside city. And that’s where Joto Sake comes in.
The New York-based Joto Sake was founded in 2005 by Henry Sidel, who studied Japanese at Carleton College and lived in Japan as a homestay student. Joto quickly ascended in prominence thanks to Sidel and the company fostering partnerships with high-quality sake breweries throughout Japan, each with their own unique offerings and meaningful backstories. Recognized for their carefully curated portfolio of admired sakes, Joto was acquired by Kobrand in 2016, an 80-year-old marketer of distinguished wines and spirits.
Ryan Mellinger now serves as General Manager for Joto. Born and raised in New York City, Mellinger was encouraged by her parents to develop an appreciation for many different kinds of food and drink, Japanese being among them. It wasn’t until after college, however, that Mellinger’s appreciation for sake started to transform into a passion. Running her own catering business and working in restaurants, she began to engage in partnerships with different beverage companies throughout Brooklyn. Sake, in particular, captivated Mellinger—she would read and research on her own, sampling some of the finest the City had to offer. When she saw Joto wanted to hire a sales representative, she took the leap and has developed an expertise and even deeper appreciation for the beverage in her decade with the company.
“Joto means ‘high quality’ in Japanese,” Mellinger notes. “For us that means not only the actual quality of the product, but also having a unique story that really can help bridge that gap and connect people in the United States to the people in Japan. We develop brands from the ground up that have had no representation in the United States previously. All of the breweries in our portfolio are what we call jizake (local sake) brewers. Most of the jizake we work with only sell their sake within the region they operate—it’s the equivalent of a microbrewery that might be really popular in Portland or Brooklyn, maybe exports to certain cities, but doesn’t have the reach of a large national brand. We work with ten jizake breweries, but even if you combined all of their production together, it is still only about a quarter of the size of a domestic sake brewer in the U.S.”
Mellinger makes regular visits to the nation. “All of our partners are in different parts of Japan; our portfolio is diverse in that we represent many different regions,” she notes. “We don’t duplicate the regions with our breweries, so when we visit, we’re visiting all over—from Akita up north to Hiroshima further south and even [the island of] Shikoku. It’s important for us to be there in person, not only so we can maintain cultural authenticity, but also because we’re working with people. Zoom makes meeting much easier now, but there’s a lot that is lost and can’t be replaced by digital means.”
The work Joto is doing to elevate the work of these family-owned breweries in the West is among the reasons why sake is becoming an increasingly popular beverage in the United States. The New York Times reports that exports from Japan to the U.S. more than doubled from 2012 to 2022. Interestingly, sake’s popularity is trending downward in its native nation, with some speculating that it’s because younger people in Japan have been slower to indulge in any alcohol whatsoever—an issue that has inspired Japan’s government to encourage people from the ages of 20 to 39 to drink more. As is the case with every nation, Japan has experienced peaks and valleys over its many centuries—but sake has remained vital and many of Joto’s partners have been in business throughout it all.
“These are real family businesses—one of our breweries is one that dates back to 1540 and the person running it today is now the 15th generation of his family to do so,” Mellinger shares. “The youngest is still quite old by American standards—they were established in 1902 and are run by the fifth generation of the family. Oftentimes they work in historic, landmark buildings. They’re all very charming!”
Joto is embodying the concept of cultural diplomacy—beyond encouraging people to learn more about an essential drink to great success, it’s also helping support an industry experiencing a temporary blip in fortune back home. This desire to help share the gifts of Japan is something shared between Joto and the Garden.
“We’re very proud to be a partner with Portland Japanese Garden, and to support the work your organization does in educating people about Japanese culture and, just as importantly, creating a space of refuge and peace for your community,” Mellinger offers. “I read how you’re considered a ‘living classroom,’ which I think is great. We’re similar in that education is an important component of what we do—sake production is a unique method that is truly particular to Japan. It only started to be made domestically in the U.S. relatively recently, so education is very important. When [Joto founder Henry Sidel] started the company, it was very hard to find sake bottles that even had English on the label. Even such simple things as including basic English flavor profiles is very important. We’ve also made sure our website is accessible and filled with information. Additionally, we’re always working with store owners, restaurants, and more to make sure their staffs are educated on sake, since they’re often the only point of contact for consumers.”
“Portland Japanese Garden is so important to community and to, especially people like myself who grew up in a city who don’t actually have access that easily to nature in that way, or even peace and quiet sometimes,” Mellinger concludes. “I think providing areas like the Garden are very important and are obviously a very big part of Japanese culture and philosophy. Having time to think and meditate and respect nature around you—I think we could all benefit from that more, and I think a glass of sake makes that even more enjoyable!”
Written by Will Lerner, Communications Manager for Portland Japanese Garden and Japan Institute.
More About Sake
An expert on the beauty of sake and its versatility for any occasion, cuisine, or venue, Ryan Mellinger is certified in WSET L3 Sake and is a certified Sake Scholar. Ahead of Portland Japanese Garden’s sake tasting in September, she answered some of the biggest questions folks have about the beverage.
Sake is described as a “rice wine.” Is it like wines that are made from grapes?
“Sake gets associated with wine in that when you actually taste a glass of it, it can be very fruity and it’s enjoyable to sip on. Sake is not very high in alcohol content, so it’s something that you drink with your meal and it can have beautiful aromatics. In that sense, sake feels similar to wine, but ultimately it’s very different. Wine is all about the fruit—where and how it’s grown. But rice isn’t a fruit, it’s a grain. You can grow rice throughout the year, harvest it, transport it, wait a year if you need to, and then start to brew sake from it. You harvest a grape, you have to start making wine immediately because it’ll start to ferment on its own.”
How much influence does the land have on the sake itself?
“Brewing sake is very hands-on work from the moment the rice enters the brewery itself. There are so many different choices the brewer has to make; How much do I polish the rice? At what temperature do I brew this? How do I steam the rice? How do I break down the starch into sugar? What yeast do I use? Am I pasteurizing? Am I filtering? Am I adding water? Am I releasing it immediately? Am I letting it age? And all of these choices are very active. So in that sense, terroir can be very complicated by the brewery process itself. That said, there are some styles of sake that areas of Japan are known for producing, but it’ll be very easy for breweries next door to each other in the same region to make completely different sake with the same rice.”
How about other kinds of alcohol? Is it like beer or whisky, for example?
“The methods for making sake are really unique on their own—there are standards that have evolved over many years in Japan independently in isolation. There’s really no apple-to-apple comparison with other fermented beverages, like beer or whisky. Sake is more similar to beer than whisky in the sense that you’re starting with a grain, and then in order to access the sugar in the grain, you need some sort of saccharification [the process of converting starch into simple sugar]. But the way that it’s done with beer is by malting the grain. With sake, however, you add something called koji-kin, a fungal mold that is grown on the rice after it’s been polished and the hull has been removed. It’s a very different process from any distilled spirit like whisky or gin or bourbon, because it’s not distilled.”
What is shinpaku?
“Shinpaku is what we call the ‘white heart.’ It is the center of the sake rice where all the starches are located. Sake rice is very different from table rice in that all of the starch is condensed into one part of the grain. Table rice, meanwhile, has starch, fats, and proteins pretty much throughout the entire grain. Shinpaku really makes sake possible because without the starch, there would be no sugar to ferment. There’d be no alcohol.”
Can I pair sake with foods other than sushi?
“Obviously sushi and sake go great together, but Japanese cuisine is so much more than sushi—sake pairs well with many foods. I like to grill in the summer; sausages or chicken are fantastic with sake. If I’m having a light snack with some cheese and fruit and some crackers and sake is wonderful. One of my favorite pairings is just bar food with sake—what you’d get in a traditional izakaya [casual Japanese bar]. There’s really no food you can’t pair sake with. And the great thing is that there’s so many different styles of sake to kind of meet all these different needs, whether it’s something that’s super rich, delicate, bright, or has super high acidity.”
How should I store my sake?
“It’s best just to keep sake in your fridge like a white wine. That will just limit its exposure to heat and sunlight. It shouldn’t go bad if it sits on your counter, but it’s very, very hot here in New York City in summer, so during this time of the year, I’m keeping everything in the fridge. But if it was winter, it’d probably be fine on the counter. Once you open the bottle, it can last for six weeks, probably even longer. You don’t need to pump out the oxygen or anything like that; it’s a very easy drink to have around when you’re in the mood.”
What’s the best way to learn more about sake?
“I would Google ‘sake bar closest to me’ and go there. You’re really going to learn so much just by taking a friend and drinking. Sake bars are run by the people who know the most and they’re very passionate about what they do. I would say aside from doing all the research online and reading, just go experience that. And if you have an opportunity, another great way is to look up a domestic sake brewery near you. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars and go to Japan.”