303 Day 2018

303 Day (March 3 for you out-of-state folks) is becoming a pretty big deal these days. Lots of events and sales and local pride happens across the Denver metro area.

I was fortunate enough to spend a few hours chatting with William Stewart from Colorado Sake Co. today. It got me pretty excited for this year’s 303 Day in that we will have more than one local sake to celebrate with! We will both be participating in the Pacific Rim Premium Sake Tasting II event this coming Saturday (303 Day). I’m very excited to put our sakes next to some great sakes from all over Japan and in get them in front of sake lovers across the metro area...and beyond.

Slinging sake for Denverites

It is very exciting that the sake community is growing, not only locally, but nationally as well. The diversity of styles, techniques, and experimentation is fantastic.

the great folks at Colorado Sake Co.

#sake and #cocktails

One of the nice things about having lots of friends, is that sometimes your friends challenge you to try different things.  I am not a huge fan of sake cocktails. Mostly they are either too simple (i.e. just cucumber or ginger) or way too complicated and push too much booze to punch up the cocktail and you loose the sake flavor.

Well, thank god for talented friends. Tonight a friend who lives in China, rolled through town and put together three cocktails that pushed the sake to the front in the best way.

Cherry Sake Float
2 Scoops Vanilla Ice Cream
Green Tea Cherries & Juice
1 oz Palisade Peach Sake
Top with Soda Water

Sometimes you just start with desert first. This Cherry Sake Float was a lovely way to start the process. It was a light, low alcohol  treat with a lot of flavor. 

High Country Lemonade
1 Shiso Ume
1-2 Lemon Rounds
1/3 Cup Lemon Juice
1 oz. Ginger Pear Shrub
1/4 Cup Elderflower Liqueur
1/2 Cup Queen City Sake

is roughly enough for 4 drinks. split between 4 glasses, give each one a shiso ume and a lemon round, some ice, and top with soda water. 

This tart salty treat was absolutely refreshing. It hits all the right spots and really made me miss summer.  

North Fork
1 Tablespoon Peach Jam
2 Tablespoons of Apple Juice
1-2 Drops of Cherry Bitters
Shake and pour into the bottom of a highball glass
2 oz of Palisade Peach Sake
1 oz of Ginger Ale
Fill Glass with Tiny Ice
Float 1/4 oz of Colorado Rose on top
Garnish with Brandied Cherry

This was a great way to end the tasting. It really pushed the sake to the front of the cocktail. The combo of all the ingredients paired really well with the sake and brought out all the best characteristics of the sakes. 

I'll get the recipes uploaded soon and thanks to everyone who came out tonight to offer their feedback.

Colorado's Only Sake Company

We were lucky enough to be featured on Channel 2 Daybreak this morning. It was a lot of fun and probably the fastest 3 minutes I've talked ever. We're really excited to see where this takes us.

Uploaded by Nancy Melear on 2017-09-27.

Lost in Translation with The Five

We had a fantastic evening hanging out with the great chefs of The Five. Our serving station was right next to Duane Walker of Centro Mexican Kitchen who prepared an incredible Beet Cured Salmon Noodle Bowl and Sriracha Buffalo Fried Oyster Roll. Both paired nicely with our LSQ and El Colorado sakes. Our other neighbor was Elan Wenzel of Sushi Sasa who created some tasty and unusual Pot Pie Stuffed Churros and Miso Soup Mashed Potatoes. The whole menu was fantastic and really surprising.

The whole night was kind of like being on an episode of Top Chef. The creativity and talent tonight was pretty amazing. 

The response tonight was really great from the attendees and we had a lot of fun. We look forward to working with all these folks in the future.

Preparing for Sake Day!

Some of this year's sake selection

We're pretty excited for Sake Day (October 1) this year! Our brewer Marc is breaking out some of the sake he brought back from Takayama, one bottle our good friend Gordon Heady helped make, some sake from our friends at Blue Current Brewery and Ceadar River brewery, and some other odds and ends he's picked up over the last year. He may even share some R&D stuff he's been working on.

Its a great day to do some research and hang with good friends.