ISSUE 003  ·  JULY 16, 2026

In 2025, sake went the other way for the first time. A Brooklyn brewery shipped its own sake to Japan, and every outlet that covered it ran the same sentence: the first American sake brewery to export to Japan.

That sentence is accurate. It is also hiding the more interesting story, which involves a crowdfunding campaign, a Japanese brewery that owns part of the American one, and a bottle that changes its legal classification somewhere over the Pacific.

First, the bottle. This week it's one of the three that actually made the trip.

JUNMAI DAIGINJO NAMACHOZO  ·  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

That −2 puts it fractionally sweet. Namachozo means it was stored unpasteurized and then pasteurized once on the way into the bottle — the middle path between a nama's liveliness and a fully pasteurized bottle's stability.

The brewery describes it as "delicate with a smooth texture. Bask in fresh fruit flavors with a kiss of vanilla, followed by a well-balanced acidity on the finish," and suggests pairing it with something equally delicate — raw oysters, or fresh cantaloupe.

Where to buy: 750ml, $39 at Palate Project. Price checked July 16, 2026.

Here's why this bottle and not another. When Brooklyn Kura shipped to Japan, three sakes went: Catskills, Grand Prairie and Occidental. Catskills is the one American drinkers can most easily buy, and it sells in Japan for ¥4,950 — near enough what you'd pay here, which is not what usually happens to an imported bottle.

Start with what's solid. On March 27, 2025, Brooklyn Kura announced it had become the first US-owned and operated sake brewery to export to Japan. Three products, all 750ml: Catskills, Grand Prairie and Occidental. "We are honored to be the first American sake brewery to bring our craft to Japan," co-founder Brian Polen said in the announcement. "This is an incredible moment not only for Brooklyn Kura, but for the entire American sake movement."

Now the parts that got left out.

It didn't start in March. By the time the American press release went out, the sake had been on sale in Japan for over a month. Hakkaisan — the Niigata brewery — announced the launch on February 21, 2025 and opened a campaign on Makuake, a Japanese crowdfunding platform, that ran until April 6. It raised ¥3,329,000 from 230 backers. General retail followed on April 14. So the first Japanese customers for American craft sake were crowdfunding backers, not bar-goers.

The importer is a shareholder. Hakkaisan didn't discover Brooklyn Kura. In December 2021 it formed a US subsidiary and entered a business and capital alliance with them — an equity stake alongside a commercial partnership, terms undisclosed. That partnership funded the Brooklyn brewery that began brewing in autumn 2023, with Hakkaisan sending brewers from Niigata to help. When the sake reached Japan it went through Hakkaisan's own authorized retailers, its Sennen Kojiya stores, and its web shop. None of that makes the achievement less real. It does make it a different kind of achievement: a partner opening a door, rather than an outsider forcing one.

A bottle that is one thing in Brooklyn and something else in Niigata.

One bottle changed category in transit. In the US, Catskills is a junmai daiginjo and Occidental is a dry-hopped junmai. On the Japanese listing, Catskills is ginjō and Occidental isn't given a ginjo or junmai class at all. We don't have a source explaining why, so we won't invent one — but Japan's rules for what may be labeled seishu are narrow, and a hopped sake sits awkwardly against them. If you want one image for the whole American sake project, it's that: a bottle that is one thing in Brooklyn and something else in Niigata.

What it amounts to is smaller than "American sake conquers Japan" and more significant than a stunt. The volume was, in Polen's own framing, relatively small. But the response has held up. "Retailers and restaurants, especially in Tokyo and the surrounding metro area, are enthusiastic about carrying our sake," Polen told Wine Enthusiast in October 2025.

And there's a reason this matters beyond one brewery. As we covered in issue one, Japan has spent generations not issuing new sake licenses, and in June 2025 began reconsidering. American craft sake exists because that door was shut. Sake going back through it, in 2025, sold by the company that helped build the American brewery — that's a category that has stopped being a curiosity.

The grades are milling, and only milling. Junmai means rice, water, yeast and koji with no added alcohol. Ginjo means the rice was milled to 60 percent or less; daiginjo, 50 percent or less. Put them together and a junmai daiginjo is an additive-free sake from heavily milled rice. What no grade tells you is quality, price or whether it's any good — a daiginjo is not automatically better than a junmai, it's made from smaller rice. Reading the grade as a ranking is the most common mistake newcomers make, and plenty of people who've been drinking sake for years still make it.