About a year ago, I checked out this shop in Tokyo that sells ice cream blended with real sake. It was really delicious! Both milky and refreshing, not too sweet, and it really captured the full sake flavor. I just wrote a piece about this innovative business for Japan Today. All the best to Hiroyuki-san. It was lovely to meet you and your business deserves all the success!

Luxurious treat promotes Japan’s traditional drink

Japan’s nihonshu (Japanese rice wine, or sake) consumption has continually declined since its peak in the 1970s. Tokyo-based business Sakeice is spreading sake awareness locally and abroad with its own innovative method: ice cream.

Unlike a typical ice cream shop displaying flavors in a riot of lurid colors, the Sakeice store, next to Tokyo station in Yaesu, sells a range of mostly plain, white ice cream. Sakeice, however, is far from vanilla — it makes Japan’s (and most likely the world’s) first and only high-alcohol, adults-only ice cream using real sake. Read the full story here.