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Business Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Surprising sake in Aomori
IN HACHINOHE, eight drunken immortals had a role to play in boosting the city's reputation for sake making. It's how its most famous brewery Mutsu Hassen got its name, with Mutsu referring to the Tohoku region in northern Honshu, and Hassen alluding to this legendary group of undying bar-hoppers. With an arsenal of eight regular sakes, and 30 seasonal and limited edition varieties, you can understand why they couldn't stay sober. Mutsu Hassen has a long history dating back to 1740, when its founder first arrived in Tohoku. Today, 250 years later, the brewery's ninth generation descendant, Hideyuki Komai, continues the tradition of making sake out of rice grown only in Aomori, clear spring water from Kanisawa, and Aomori yeasts. According to Komai, the rice grown in frigid Aomori is stronger, and more resistant to pests. 'It doesn't go bad easily,' he says in Japanese. Compared to Hachinohe's small population of just over 200,000, Hassen's annual production is sizeable, at 300,000 bottles of 1.8 litres each. Most of it is consumed in Tohoku and Tokyo, and predictably, it's the ubiquitous drink in Hachinohe with over 70 per cent of its restaurants serving it on their premises. Innovative and playful style Hassen's repertoire runs the gamut of award-winning Junmai, Junmai Ginjo, Junmai Dai-ginjo, Ginjo and Dai-ginjo – the perfect accompaniment to Japanese cuisine. It also has a playful side that makes it stand out from other staid sake brands. Take its special edition bottle of Junmai Dai-ginjo Nama, which is famous for its laterally inverted label. Komai jokes that it's a misprint, but fans can't get enough of it. Immediately sold out after its annual release in February, this unpasteurised pure rice sake without added alcohol is made with 50 per cent polished rice. Fresh and slightly fruity, with a long finish on the dry side, it pairs well with raw fish or karaage (fried chicken). A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 2 pm Lifestyle Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself. Sign Up Sign Up Mutsu Hassen is the most famous sake brewery in Hachinohe. PHOTO: JAIME EE/BT Hassen uses enamel tanks for fermentation, but Komai's less traditional approach also includes ageing sake and shochu, or Japanese distilled spirits, in oak or cypress barrels, for a softer, more complex profile. But, what is most special about his modern take on the traditional Japanese beverage is the wide range of Hassen sake with bubbles or white wine features. The result is sake with acidity that pairs perfectly with Western cuisine like Italian or French. But why the pivot? Komai attributes it to the industry's move some 20 years ago to appeal to younger adults who found traditional styles too dry for them. 'In the past, acidity was not seen as a good attribute of sake. But after the popularity of other types of cuisines, we added acidity to match them,' he says. Sparkling and fruity-tasting sake followed, as did the reduced alcohol content from the usual 15 per cent or 16 per cent. 'The alcohol content is lower because people were more used to wine, which was becoming more mainstream. It is also easier to drink when there is less alcohol.' Not black and white To create sake that tastes like white wine, Komai varies the type of koji mould used. He takes a special yellow koji, then adds some white koji, which is not typically used in sake production (there is also black koji, but that is reserved for shochu). 'The white koji is in the base fermentation mash to give the acidity, then we add the yellow. For sparkling sake, only white koji is used.' Hassen introduced the technique about eight years ago after Komai's younger brother and master brewer, Nobuyuki, visited an Akita brewery famed for its nama sake and began experimenting with white koji. An eye on exports The move towards modern sake is also motivated by another reason – the export market. Sake consumption in Japan is dropping amid an ageing population and the changing tastes of younger consumers. For now, 80 per cent of Hassen production goes to Tohoku and Tokyo equally, while 15 per cent is taken up by Hokkaido and Kyushu. Only 5 per cent is exported. To make sake more appealing worldwide, Hassen is making sake that matches international palates. It's not just rolling out new types that are sparkling, like champagne, or fruity and less dry, like white wine, but also new ways of making it. For example, the seasonal Hassen Junmai Dai-ginjo Nama is aged for one year at -5 degrees Celsius – unusual for sake which is often drunk fresh or within 12 months, not to mention more expensive. The reason? 'The sake becomes sweeter because of the increased amino acids,' explains Komai. How to wine and dine with sake Sake is a no-brainer match for Japanese cuisine or washoku. But without the acidity common in white or red wine, it's hard to pair it with non-Japanese cuisines like French or Italian. Hassen's solution is to incoporate acidity by using different types and combinations of koji mould. In sake brewing, koji is introduced to first break down the starch in rice into sugars, before yeast is used to convert the sugars into alcohol. Hassen's Aomori yeasts are also able to impart the fruitiness displayed by some of its sakes. One prime example is its use of multiple indigenous rice types and yeasts in its flagship Hassenblage sake. A portmanteau of 'Hassen' and 'assemblage', this premium Junmai Dai-ginjo sake is a blend made with four types of Aomori rice and four Aomori yeasts for a fruity and crisp wine-like profile. Komai says that its fruitiness makes it a good match with Italian food. Meanwhile, Isaribi is a light and dry Tokubetsu Junmai sake with some acidity and apple and banana aromas, making it a good match for Hachinohe's plentiful mackerel and squid. But this award winner is also excellent with something you wouldn't associate with Japanese food – Parmigiano cheese and aged pork. Komai shares that after a few months in the bottle, it develops even more umami for a richer finish. 'Hassen's philosophy is to make a sake for every course and every cuisine. For example, by changing the proportion of the koji used, our junmai daiginjo tastes like white wine.' Hassen Blanc, a Junmai with prominent acidity, easily passes for white Bordeaux, or sauvignon blanc, in a blind tasting. It's a perfect match with oily saba, or mackerel, and kohada – gizzard shad marinated in vinegar. Hassen 8000 Dry Sparkling is a Junmai with bubbles that is a good alternative to champagne brut. Creamy with grapefruit notes, it is ideal with cheese, cream or anything rich. Interestingly, that's not Hassen's only sparkling sake. Milky Sparkle is a slightly fruity and unfiltered Junmai Ginjo Nigori, with a light sweetness that goes well with dessert, and even Chinese food. There is also Natural Sparkling Sec in a 500 ml bottle, slightly smaller than the standard 720 ml. This slightly dry Junmai has almost imperceptible bubbles and is so easy to drink that it will match anything deep fried or grilled, like karaage or yakiniku. Fruity or sweet, sparkling or dry, Hassen goes where no other sake has gone before.
Los Angeles Times
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
They once thought playing Coachella was ‘unattainable' and ‘legendary.' Now these SoCal musicians prepare to take its stage
In many ways, Southern California is a breeding ground for aspiring musicians. It could be because of the region's proximity to Hollywood and major recording labels. Or maybe there really is something in the water. Either way, it's where artists like the Red Hot Chili Peppers first became acquainted at Fairfax High School. It's where N.W.A helped put Compton on hip-hop's radar, paving the way for King Kunta himself, Kendrick Lamar. No Doubt, fronted by Gwen Stefani, came to fruition inside an Orange County Dairy Queen. Billie Eilish started singing with her brother Finneas inside their Highland Park home. And the list continues on. Every April, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival brings global talent to crowds of nearly 250,000. Performing across two consecutive weekends, people in their finest festival wear gather to dance in the open field, hold their barricade spot secure for the night's headliner and possibly discover their next musical fixation. Though Coachella is a worldwide phenomenon, the lineup tends to spotlight a few local artists every year. The Times spoke with Southern California natives — rappers Shoreline Mafia, electro-punk duo Kumo 99, nu-gaze trio Julie and garage rockers Together Pangea — about how they are gearing up for the three-day desert festival. Ami Komai, one-half of electronic-punk duo Kumo 99, once thought of Coachella as 'somewhere all the cool kids hung out.' Growing up between San Pedro and Silver Lake, the singer's mother never let her attend the festival during her adolescence. But now, alongside bandmate Nate Donmoyer, Kumo 99 won't only be a part of the crowd — they'll be on stage. 'It's such a big festival that it felt unattainable. It's far away and picturesque. It seems like a different universe. I used to go to shows in parking lots and those kinds of festivals. I can't picture what it would be like on a golf course with these huge gleaming stages,' said Donmoyer. 'It always looked like fun.' Kumo 99, formed in 2020, brings the essence of a hardcore track to the sounds of an experimental rave. Komai handles the vocals, often singing in Japanese, and Donmoyer heads their fast-paced breakbeats and pulsating drums. Heard on the fan-favorite 'Four Point Steel Star,' the duo shapes a grungy, futuristic soundscape. The 2022 release hones in on an industrial-sounding synth, marked with sporadic, sci-fi sounds all while Komai energetically shouts in the background. They say the sounds of their respective upbringings often affect their music, sometimes without even being conscious of it — naming L.A.'s specific cadence as unintentional inspiration. 'San Pedro has such an expansive musical history and I was lucky enough where like my heroes still lived there when I was growing up,' said Komai. She cites Mike Watt from Minutemen and Black Flag's Keith Morris as local legends. 'They're super funny and super grumpy. Everything I liked was so hyper-local, so I didn't realize until much later in life how lucky I was to grow up where I did.' Donmoyer, who grew up in Washington D.C., says his neighborhood was of a similar environment. He fondly remembers 'every rec center function playing, live board recordings on CD-Rs of backyard and junkyard bands.' In addition to performing at the festival, they want to catch sets from the Prodigy and Blonde Redhead. But most of all, they are hoping to get driven around in a golf cart. 'Sometimes playing a festival really feels like a traveling circus act. It has the 'coming into town' kind of feeling. Or even like attending a giant summer camp where you get to see a bunch of your friends that you haven't seen in a while,' said Komai. Shoreline Mafia is back and they're planning to make headlines with their Coachella performance. The rambunctious East Hollywood rap group were key members of L.A.'s rap scene in the late 2010s. With party hits like the earworm 'Musty' and 'Nun Major's' subtle flex, they helped popularize a new spin of West Coast rap with danceable trap beats. But after several mixtapes and a studio album, the four rappers went their separate ways in 2020. Then 2024's 'Heat Stick' hit radio airwaves under the Shoreline Mafia name. Backed by an eerie beat, the track revisits their promiscuous, party lifestyle with hedonistic lyricism. Powered by OhGeesy and Fenix Flexin, this new era of Shoreline Mafia is marked by the two original members continuing what they started back in 2016. 'We got a chance to grow up, and find out a lot about ourselves. We figured out how to work alone, and that makes us better together,' said Fenix Flexin of their time spent apart. 'When we get the studio together now, it's like clockwork. Both of us are so refined and coming together to do music makes it 10 times easier.' They say their new sound feels 'different, but the same,' pointing out an 'updated beat game and elevated rhyme schemes.' OhGeesy credits this change to a new sense of maturity. Eager to see how their new music translates to live shows, the duo considers their upcoming Coachella performance as a chance to make history. 'I've never been to Coachella before. It's my first time even attending the festival. So to be attending as a performer is a blessing,' said OhGeesy. 'Everybody always loves Coachella. It's legendary and everybody has always has their eyes on it. Tickets are super expensive and it's this upper echelon festival. So, for us to be right there is crazy.' Fenix Flexin added, 'I have high expectations and high hopes for the show in general, just because it's been a long time since we've performed a new show and put out an album. It has to be one of the best performances we've ever given in our lives.' Beyond bringing their high energy levels and rowdy sounds to the desert, they see their set as a way to honor their city and cement Shoreline Mafia as a staple in L.A. hip-hop. 'We take inspiration from every single scene in the city. We grew up hanging out with gang bangers, skaters, punk rockers and graffiti artists. We soaked a little bit of everything in it, for sure,' said OhGeesy. 'L.A. is where everything came to fruition for us. We built a bond and everything else was built to follow.' When Together Pangea's bassist Danny Bengston thinks of Coachella, he's transported to a Ticketmaster inside a JC Penney. It was where his mother first bought him a ticket in 2005. That year, Coldplay and Nine Inch Nails were headlining and he remembers being most excited to see the Locusts. 'I was a kid. I was, at most, 16 years old and it ended up being a pretty formative experience,' said Bengston. 'For me, on some level, it was a realization that I wanted to play music, and one day I wanted to play [Coachella].' Together Pangea, made of Bengston, vocalist/guitarist William Keegan and drummer Erik Jimenez, have been a band since 2008, but they admit they didn't start taking it seriously until 2013. Describing Cal Arts as their 'incubator,' the musicians credit Santa Clarita's DIY, underground punk scene with giving them an entry point into music. 'When you grow up in a place like Santa Clarita, that's a conservative suburb, there's not really any place to play. Los Angeles is a 45-minute drive away and you are forced to figure out how to play shows and build your own community and space with what you have. It also makes you work a little harder,' said Keegan. After leaving their 'conservative suburb,' they settled into Los Angeles and immediately found new musical hubs — starting at different art galleries and parties until transitioning to downtown's the Smell and Echo Park's the Echo. During this period, they say they were able to find their organic sound. With nearly two decades together as a band, these garage surf rockers bring a West Coast twang to their DIY, punk roots. Their sonic range can go anywhere from mellow, feel-good acoustics to strained vocals over hard-hitting electric guitar riffs. The trio plans to treat their Coachella set like a normal show but says they are happy to get the opportunity at this point of their career when they are 'a little bit older and can appreciate it more.' 'At festivals like this, you get the opportunity to have a wider audience and have a bigger figurative and literal stage,' said Bengston. 'The only thing is that there's a little timer at the edge of the stage, that you don't have when you're playing your own [headline] show. So you have to make sure you're not [messing] around too much.' At one point, Julie, a shoegaze band from Orange County, was 'really afraid' of playing music festivals. The fast-paced nature of a short daytime set has its challenges, but drummer Dillon Lee shared they were able to overcome their fears through 'exposure therapy.' 'Festival sets now feel like a mini-game. You have no time to think and you go on stage, you play really fast — it's awesome — and then you run off,' explained bassist and vocalist Alexandria Elizabeth. The trio composed of Lee, Elizabeth and Keyan Pourzand, who also sings and plays guitar, released their first song in 2020, 'Flutter.' It's an angsty, maximalist take on heavy-handed shoegaze, similar to that of My Bloody Valentine. When they first came together, the then-teenage musicians were only thinking of short-term goals. Pourzand wanted to play at least one show and Elizabeth aimed to become a regular performer in their local underground music scene. They often spent their weekends frequenting different house shows, small warehouses and even neighborhood restaurants that would host punk and surf rock performances. Elizabeth describes the scene as a moshing crowd of people in cropped tees and raw-hemmed Dickies. To this day, Lee still has a hard time processing that they will be playing Coachella, saying, 'It doesn't go over my head, but it hasn't soaked in yet. And I don't think it will until it happens.' His first memory of the festival is watching a video of Deadmau5's performance with his mom who was jealous she wasn't there. Elizabeth laughs as she reveals her first impressions of the festival which have to do with the Jenner sisters, flower crowns and YouTube beauty vloggers. 'I'm hoping to just have a good show. I don't try to have too many expectations before going into the show, because I feel like that just sets me up for failure sometimes,' said Lee of their Sonora tent set. Elizabeth added, 'I just gonna show up and play really hard. I am curious to see the audience's reactions because festival crowds are way more relaxed than a headline show. Sometimes we'll have fans in the crowd who mosh for us, but it depends on the area. Either way, I'm just going to have a good show with my friends.' Coachella 2025 is set to take place April 11 to 13 and April 18 to 20.
