Although Daimon – one of the first brewery owners to take on the dual role of company president and toji (master brewer) – was seen as a maverick in the sake world, the brewery, established in 1826, was struggling.

A chance meeting brought him together with Marcus Consolini, a native of New York with a background in finance and a deep interest in Japanese culture.

After learning that Daimon was considering selling the company, Consolini “realised there was an opportunity” to reinvent the brewery and expand beyond the Osaka region.

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Most Japanese breweries are family-owned businesses with little or no experience working outside traditional sales channels, often relying on long-established relationships with regional wholesalers and retailers.

In many cases, breweries lack the resources to explore new markets or invest in marketing strategy and product development.

By bringing his global management skills to the table, Consolini believed he could help turn the company around.

The number of breweries in Japan has dropped by roughly 36 per cent over the past 30 years, and production has decreased by 69 per cent. Exports, however, have tripled in volume, and the total value of sake exports reached 40.2 billion yen (US$325 million) in 2021 – a record high for the 12th consecutive year.

“We’ve made inroads into China in the last year and have seen good growth,” Fung says. “Previously, Chinese customers were focused on commercial brews and sake sold at a cheap price. There wasn’t much understanding and appreciation of the artisanal process.”

As Consolini, who relocated to Osaka, became more involved with the day-to-day running of the brewery, Fung stepped into the role of CEO. Over the past two years, he’s prioritised the goals of “diversity in market portfolio and expanding our footprint”.

Under the new management structure, Daimon remains brewery president but focuses more time on to sake education and communicating directly with consumers than the number-crunching side of the business.

In 2009, Daimon launched a sake-brewing-instruction course in English geared toward industry professionals outside Japan. The week-long programme offered an immersive experience that took participants through each stage of the brewing process.

Time constraints forced Daimon to discontinue the project, but it was revived after Consolini joined Daimon Shuzo in 2017. The brewery now accepts 12 interns per year, and demand is growing.

Daimon is enthusiastic about the brewery’s range of new products. “Domestically, we produce four seasonal products and two rice-strain-specific products. Internationally, we have developed two new projects. These are all exciting opportunities that we hope will help take Daimon Shuzo into the future,” he says.

Currently, the sake is available only in Hong Kong, although Fung says that the brewery hopes to introduce the Toji series in Japan in the future.

The company has also partnered with a producer in the UK to make a sake-based ready-to-drink cocktail similar to hard soda water, which will be released in the UK and US later this year. Called Sake Sling, the canned products will come in two flavours – melon-yuzu, and mandarin-cherry.

Daimon Shuzo may be the first artisanal sake producer to enter the ready-to-drink cocktail space – a bold move for a traditional sake brewery.

“We see this as a way to reach new sake drinkers,” says Fung. “What we’ve been learning is the importance of understanding different markets.”

Partnerships and out-of-the-box thinking have always been central to the mission behind sake start-up Nihonshu Oendan.

Founded in 2015 by venture capitalist Nao Kohara, the company started out as a way to “preserve the traditions of sake making that are being lost in Japan”, Kohara says.

Rather than having its own brewery, Nihonshu Oendan collaborates with six producers around Japan to create a line of sake that “expresses the terroir [or a sense] of each region”.

Each year, members from the Tokyo-based company travel to the breweries to help with the sake making.

“We asked each brewery to think about what makes each place special and then develop a style of sake that reflects those ideas,” Kohara says.

To that end, the brews are made with locally grown rice, and the sake bears the name of the area of production. The flavour profile of each takes into account the local food culture.

Recently, the company has been delving deeper into the relationship between food and sake and expanding on the concept of partnership by collaborating with local farmers, fishers and purveyors.

Last year, Nihonshu Oendan began creating monthly food-and-sake pairing sets, offering, for example, their Noto sake from Ishikawa prefecture alongside fresh fish from the Noto Peninsula caught in the morning just before shipping.

The sets have converted many new customers into sake fans, and the company plans to partner with more food producers who “can provide products and experiences that are unique to each region”.

“Part of what makes sake great is pairing it with food, and this really resonates with consumers,” Kohara says.

In 2020, the brewery embarked on a new series of events to connect the worlds of sake and cuisine while supporting local farmers and artisans in the Komatsu area of Ishikawa Prefectre.

The programme, called “Saketronomy”, invites chefs from Japan and around the world to create special menus with regional products, paired with a range of Noguchi brews.

The series is part of a larger development scheme, which includes the launch of an upscale hotel and restaurant, housed in a renovated former school. The twofold aim of the project is to showcase Komatsu as a “city of gastronomy” and to glean feedback on how to create more food-friendly sake.

“There is still a lot of potential for sake to become a part of global dining culture,” Noguchi says. “This is the future of sake.”