About this item
Discover the art of sake. An age-old staple of Japanese culture and cuisine, the fermented rice wine has recently been winning fans all over the world. Kampai! For the Love of Sake journeys from rice paddies in Japan to breweries around the globe as it chronicles three passionate exponents of the increasingly popular beverage: a British ex-pat who has become Japan s first foreign master brewer, an American journalist known as the Sake Evangelist, and a fifth-generation Japanese brewer determined to shake up the industry. Together, their stories form a fascinating snapshot of how ancient traditions are adapting to the demands of a growing global market.
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About the Author
John Gauntner is recognized as the world's leading non-Japanese sake expert. Originally hailing from Ohio, he worked in his original vocation as an electrical engineer in Japan before fate pulled him, although hardly kicking and screaming, into the sake world.A longtime Japan resident, he both speaks and reads Japanese fluently, and is well known among sake brewers and others within the sake industry as the window to making sake popular outside of Japan. He wrote the Nihonshu Column in the Japan Times (Japan's most widely read English language newspaper) for eight straight years. Many of those stories are archived here. He then wrote a weekly column on sake in Japanese for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's and the world's most widely distributed Japanese newspaper. He now writes a monthly piece for the Tokyo Metropolis magazine, and has published five books on sake. His last book entitled "Nihonjin mo Shirenai Nihonshu no Hanashi" (Things About Sake Even Japanese People Don't Know) was published in Japanese in 2003 by Shogakkan, and is available at bookstores everywhere in Japan.Known as "The Sake Guy," John has been quoted and/or mentioned in sake related articles in countless publications including The New York Times, Newsweek, Forbes, Business Week, and Rolling Stone. He has spoken at Harvard, Yale, and Columbia Universities, Wharton School of Business, and countless other venues across the US and Japan.John is the only non-Japanese certified Master of Sake Tasting in the world, and has also achieved the very difficult Sake Expert Assessor certification from Japan's National Research Institute of Brewing. No other non-Japanese in the world has both of these certifications. Learn more about them here.John also received the Sake Samurai award in 2006, the first year it was awarded. The "Original Sake Educator," John has educated hundreds of sake professionals through his Sake Professional Courses, including the owner/operators of many of the sake-centric stores in the US, Germany and other locales. He has written five books and hundreds of articles on sake (see Articles & Books), and publishes a free monthly newsletter and offers various digital products that make sake easily understandable. Learn more about John here. .He is the only non-Japanese member of the Ginjoshu Kenkyu Kikou (Ginjo Sake Research Group), and is the only non-Japanese to have participated as an official taster in a prefectural government tasting, as well as the only non-Japanese to provide regular sake-related consulting assistance in the form of lectures to the Government of Japan. He is the only non -Japanese to sit on the panel of the Award for the Promotion of Japanese Cuisine Overseas, an award assessed by the Ministry of Forestry and Fisheries in Japan. He is also the only non-Japanese to have won the "Kikizake Meijin" (Accomplished Sake Taster) award, presented by the Junsui Nihonshu Kyoukai (Pure Sak
