Should Sake be Promoted like Wine?

Sake On Air

This week’s episode of Sake On Air we dive further into the topic started with our post “Is wine the best way to promote sake?” last year. Arline Lyons, who wrote the post and has extensively researched the topic, takes a seat behind the mic and joins one of our regular hosts, Sebastien Lemoine to talk more about her findings. However, we thought it may not be a fair discussion without having someone join us to balance out the possible sake-heavy opinions and add some wine background to the round, which is why we invited Sarah Stewart to join us. With her extensive knowledge in both worlds – Sake and Wine, we felt she would be a perfect guest to further discuss why we should/or should not lean onto the wine world when we are trying to promote Japanese sake to new audiences.

For anyone who is not yet familiar with Sarah and what she does, originally from Canada, but now based in the UK, aside from being a board-certified veterinary specialist, among the extensive list of her projects and qualifications, she is a WSET Certified Sake Educator at West & South London Wine School. Where she teaches WSET qualifications alongside her own original classes covering a wide variety of sake, wine and food pairing topics. She is also a Wine Scholar Guild Certified Instructor on the French, Spanish and Italian Wine Scholar courses, and teaches Academy of Cheese qualifications with a focus on cheese pairing with sake and wine, as well as judges for the International Wine Challenge – Sake Division and the UK’s Great Taste Awards.

Expect an engaging discussion, as the three take an honest look at the benefits of using wine terminology promoting sake, but also the problems in doing so, offer solutions, and possibly make you question the way you looked at the topic in the first place…

If it did, then we would love to know all about it! Let us know what you think. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook or you can email us [e-mail]. Of course, if you are also looking to find more sake, shochu and awamori-related information you can do so on all of these channels and don’t hesitate to share any other sake or shochu-related thoughts or questions with us. And if you like, rate us on the podcast service of your choice while you’re at it.

We’ll be back very soon with plenty more Sake On Air.
Until then, kampai!

Sake On Air is made possible with the generous support of the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association and is broadcast from the Japan Sake & Shochu Information Center in Tokyo. The show is brought to you by Potts.K Productions with audio production by Frank Walter. Our theme, “Younger Today Than Tomorrow” was composed by forSomethingNew for Sake On Air.