Sake Event in Singapore (Part 3)

WORKS

December 22, 2022

At the bottle shop "Bottle shop HZ 宏尊" in Singapore, we held a sake gathering centered on Nagano Prefecture, together with ingredients from Japan (crab, rice, pickles, miso, beef, eel, wasabi, and prosciutto).

That day the event was led by Mr. Fujii, who had also joined us on the first day, so rather than wearing kimono, I helped out behind the scenes as a server.

I cooked the rice and shaped the onigiri.♪

The Japanese ingredients, which were met with cries of "delicious!"

To my surprise, the wasabi was very popular too.

"Oh? The room's gone quiet..." I thought — and then it was crab time.

Is it universal, then? Everyone goes silent when eating crab (laughs).

As I mentioned that I'd be working behind the scenes that day, I was indeed doing back-of-house work.

In the two previous events, the sake "Tenpu" that had been brought in ahead of time had sold out, so I figured my job was, for the moment, finished.

But then, as I was checking the slips...

The number of bottles of sake sold in Singapore didn't match the number exported from Japan!

Six bottles of sake had vanished??

"The Singapore Mystery Theater"?

It wasn't the plot of a two-hour drama, though —

it was simply a matter of storage space: six 1.8 L bottles of Tenpu junmai ginjo (純米吟醸) were sitting in the refrigerator inside the shop.

(With such a modest, retiring nature, had they been playing hide-and-seek??)

And so,

I ended up giving an impromptu presentation. Yes — entirely ad-libbed.

Thanks to that, the "Tenpu" we'd exported for this event was very well received,

and sold out completely. Thank you.

Once again, to everyone who attended, and to the local staff,

I'd like to express my heartfelt gratitude for this precious connection.

Everyday sake, and out-of-the-ordinary sake.

I hope you enjoy both, blended with this land of Singapore.

I boarded my return flight feeling once more how much I love the space where sake brings people together in harmony — in Japan and abroad alike.

I look forward to the day we can meet again.