Latest / Satellite Gourmet Gastronomy Podcast / #110 JORIS VERMEER alias The Sake Priest
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Zodat je hebt afgestemd op de podcast, zet de Lightboard mee.
- 0:03SPEAKER_00: Mijn gasten zijn gastronomen die werkzaam zijn in de horecasector.
- 0:07SPEAKER_00: Of een link hebben met gastronomie in de breedste zin van toort.
- 0:11SPEAKER_00: Hier kunnen ze hun verhaal kijken over hun onhoeke passie voor koken en de horeca.
- 0:17SPEAKER_00: Over de cultuur van voedsel en dranken.
- 0:19SPEAKER_00: En hoe gaat vrijheid de rode draad is en blijft in die mooie sector als die van de horeca.
- 0:25SPEAKER_00: Mijn naam is David Groetland.
- 0:27SPEAKER_00: Ik ben jouw host.
- 0:29SPEAKER_00: Veel luister plezier met deze aflevering.
- 0:34SPEAKER_00: Deze aflevering is opgenomen tijdens het Duitsers Také Festival.
- 0:38SPEAKER_00: In het kader van een zesige reeks over saké en zoveel meer.
- 0:46SPEAKER_00: Dit is podcast 110.
- 0:49SPEAKER_00: En ik zal praten met niemand minder dan Joris Vermeer.
- 0:52SPEAKER_00: En ik denk dat ik nog heel veel van hem zal leren over saké.
- 0:55SPEAKER_00: Maar deze podcast gaat verder in het Engels, want we gaan all the way international.
- 0:59SPEAKER_00: Ik begin met de introductie.
- 1:01SPEAKER_00: Joris Vermeer, there was a time when you were a chef, co-owner of the restaurant in the Amstel in Amsterdam, and later the presenter behind the aardappeleters, tracing origins of everyday dishes around the world.
- 1:16SPEAKER_00: That must be an adventure.
- 1:18SPEAKER_00: Today you give yourself a divine title, The Sake Priest.
- 1:23SPEAKER_00: You run your own Saki Church, turning people into sake believers.
- 1:28SPEAKER_00: And on Sake Sunday, you organize tastings.
- 1:31SPEAKER_00: You are at the Belgium Saki Festival here to give some masterclass, but you are in my podcast.
- 1:37SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Joris Vermir.
- 1:39SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 1:40SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 1:41SPEAKER_00: I will have it with you about Saki more than a drink.
- 1:44SPEAKER_00: When Saki becomes a story, a rinal and a connection.
- 1:48SPEAKER_00: But tell me first, why in God's name, God's name, you say Saki Priest?
- 1:54SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, very good that you are here on Holy Ground today.
- 2:00SPEAKER_01: No, it it is actually a little bit of a joke, of course.
- 2:03SPEAKER_01: I am not a real priest, and the sake church uh is just here this weekend on the festival, and uh it is a bit of a joke in a in a sense that all the importers here working today, all the sake enthusiastics here today, uh helping with the festival, everybody loves sake so much, and they are all preaching a little bit in a sense.
- 2:29SPEAKER_01: So, all those people daily have to convert people.
- 2:34SPEAKER_01: Uh, most people want to drink wine, don't know anything about sake, and you really have to pull them into your story, uh, let them know how great sake is as a as a flavor, as a as a drink to combine with food.
- 2:50SPEAKER_01: And that feels like preaching a bit, so I just made a bit of a joke around that.
- 2:55SPEAKER_00: So, when did sake really become more than just a drink for you?
- 3:01SPEAKER_01: Um well, in Holland, uh in uh close to Amsterdam, I'm working uh for a Dutch company.
- 3:09SPEAKER_01: Uh you said it already.
- 3:11SPEAKER_01: I was a presenter once of a television program, and with the owner of the company, I went to Japan to make a program about sushi.
- 3:19SPEAKER_01: I was never in Japan before, my first time, and I completely fell in love with the country immediately.
- 3:26SPEAKER_01: When I came back, I became friends with the owner, and we always stayed in touch.
- 3:31SPEAKER_01: A few years later, he asked me to write a book about his company, about Japan.
- 3:36SPEAKER_01: We went back to Japan, uh, visited all his producers, and then I really got in love not just with Japan, but also with the more layers the country has, and and uh the more kitchen the con kitchens the country has, the more uh the bigger culinary landscape basically.
- 3:55SPEAKER_01: And when I got back, started writing the book, and he has a restaurant as well, so I started working there.
- 4:01SPEAKER_01: So slowly uh sake came in my life because I had to pour sake in glasses, I didn't know anything about it.
- 4:10SPEAKER_01: This is only uh two, three years ago.
- 4:14SPEAKER_01: And people started asking me questions.
- 4:16SPEAKER_01: I started reading a lot about it, and uh well, from one came another, and uh uh it it became my second love.
- 4:24SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 4:25SPEAKER_00: It's really strange that learning how to drink or drinking sake is in fact really connected to Japan.
- 4:34SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's connected with Japan, but at the same time, Japan is connected with sake.
- 4:40SPEAKER_00: And if you I talked to three of already, and everyone says I was in Japan and there I learned to drink sake.
- 4:50SPEAKER_00: So it's really strange.
- 4:51SPEAKER_00: Do I really have to go to Japan to understand sake, dear Yoris?
- 4:57SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
- 4:58SPEAKER_01: No, okay.
- 4:59SPEAKER_01: No, luckily, uh but I will go.
- 5:02SPEAKER_01: I will be please go.
- 5:03SPEAKER_01: The country uh I have to go opens uh uh their arms for a good podcast uh about Japan.
- 5:11SPEAKER_01: So I think you should make a program about it.
- 5:14SPEAKER_00: All right, really.
- 5:15SPEAKER_00: We do it together.
- 5:16SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
- 5:17SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
- 5:18SPEAKER_01: Uh yes, but no, no, it's uh it's definitely not not necessary, especially nowadays.
- 5:24SPEAKER_01: In those uh we live in a beautiful time where a lot, a lot of crazy good sake comes to uh to Belgium, to the Netherlands, to Europe.
- 5:35SPEAKER_01: Uh and it's in fact maybe even easier to drink good sake here than in Japan, because you really need to know where you where you uh where you have to go.
- 5:46SPEAKER_01: In Japan, sake has a a different role.
- 5:51SPEAKER_00: Okay, tell me, if sake had a personality, what would it be?
- 5:56SPEAKER_01: Uh a personality, yeah, a character.
- 5:58SPEAKER_01: Uh the sake in general.
- 6:01SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 6:01SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think a really soft, hard, aggressive, assertive, emotion?
- 6:08SPEAKER_01: Introverts.
- 6:09SPEAKER_00: Really introverts?
- 6:10SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I would say uh uh the quiet one in the room.
- 6:16SPEAKER_01: But when you meet her, uh yeah, I think so, yeah.
- 6:22SPEAKER_01: When you when you meet her, she starts talking and she's she becomes the most interesting one.
- 6:27SPEAKER_00: Okay, all right, that's a very lovely personality.
- 6:31SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
- 6:32SPEAKER_00: Alright, good.
- 6:33SPEAKER_00: If you had more or less ten seconds, could be more, to explain someone what sake exactly is, what would you say?
- 6:45SPEAKER_01: Oh, are you actually really counting?
- 6:49SPEAKER_00: No, not really.
- 6:50SPEAKER_00: All right, but I mean there's a lot to tell about sake.
- 6:54SPEAKER_00: I'm I presume I'm not I don't know anything about sake, and you want to tell me what sake is, tell me.
- 7:01SPEAKER_01: So without going into any technical detail, I would always refer immediately to food.
- 7:07SPEAKER_01: Uh sake is the perfect drink to combine with almost any kind of food.
- 7:13SPEAKER_01: So where most people think uh sake is really uh classical Japanese and needs to be drunk with uh with uh Japanese food, it has so much more to offer.
- 7:26SPEAKER_01: So it is a uh drink you can combine with any type of food and comes out the best when you eat with it.
- 7:32SPEAKER_00: Sake, for you, is it closer to beer or to wine?
- 7:36SPEAKER_01: You you depends on how you look at it.
- 7:41SPEAKER_00: I think the brew process is more into beer, isn't it?
- 7:44SPEAKER_01: I think the other ones uh might have told you already.
- 7:48SPEAKER_01: So uh for me it's much closer to wine.
- 7:51SPEAKER_01: Uh I would never call it a rice wine because I think that you kill the the drink a little bit with with that term, but for sure you drink it mostly cold uh as a wine, so uh a little bit at the same time as well.
- 8:09SPEAKER_01: Beer is another drink, right?
- 8:11SPEAKER_01: You drink it in the bar, you drink it uh when you have uh loud conversations with your friends, and wine is more something you uh enjoy drinking.
- 8:21SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 8:22SPEAKER_00: So Sabi is is a good thing for your personality because I I think you are extrovert and not introvert.
- 8:30SPEAKER_01: No, but I I like uh I think I like introverts.
- 8:34SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 8:35SPEAKER_01: I was actually uh when I finished describing, I thought I'm actually describing my wife at the moment, so see uh yeah, I I think uh I think it's really true that that's what I think.
- 9:04SPEAKER_00: Because you were there, so you must have learned a lot about the country.
- 9:09SPEAKER_00: And why does it play such an important role there?
- 9:15SPEAKER_01: Well, the weird thing is it doesn't.
- 9:21SPEAKER_01: Uh it changed a lot in the last hundred years, and uh in the last hundred years, sake got competition with beer first and then whiskey.
- 9:35SPEAKER_01: Uh, of course, the Japanese whiskey uh uh industry became very big and very fashionable, and and everybody loves it.
- 9:44SPEAKER_01: Uh and nowadays young people are not drinking sake at all.
- 9:49SPEAKER_01: It's really in Japan.
- 9:52SPEAKER_01: Really?
- 9:53SPEAKER_01: It actually a little bit has the connection, uh, the feeling or the vibe as we say uh as we say nowadays.
- 10:02SPEAKER_01: Uh the drunk uncle on family uh family gatherings, that it comes a little bit too close to everybody and shouting.
- 10:12SPEAKER_01: Uh that is in Japan a little bit the person that drinks still sake.
- 10:16SPEAKER_01: It has a a little bit a negative vibe around it for a lot of people, and it is a very cheap drink.
- 10:25SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people in Japan, Japanese people, they buy sake as cheap as possible from the supermarket.
- 10:33SPEAKER_01: Okay or uh from uh from uh the the gas station, for example.
- 10:37SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how do you feel about that?
- 10:39SPEAKER_00: It's sad, isn't it?
- 10:41SPEAKER_01: It has uh different ways you can look at it.
- 10:45SPEAKER_01: Yes, it it's sad.
- 10:47SPEAKER_00: Even so, sake is tradition, it's rituals, it's gathering.
- 10:52SPEAKER_01: It is, it is a bit sad.
- 10:54SPEAKER_00: It's not about the alcohol because everyone here has to avoid beer, also because of the alcohol, but it's such a beautiful story, and yeah, and I think that tradition is still there.
- 11:07SPEAKER_01: So when people marry, for example, they still have uh when they do it the Shinto way, the the religious way, they share three small cups of sake together.
- 11:20SPEAKER_01: So that's still very much embedded in in everyday culture.
- 11:24SPEAKER_01: Uh, you also see that when uh the people are still offer sake to the kami, to the gods, uh, and they they offer the sake, then drink it themselves, so that's still a big part.
- 11:36SPEAKER_01: And don't forget, Japan is still the country where most of the sake in the world is drunk.
- 11:43SPEAKER_01: So, in that case, of course, sake is still very much uh uh present in Japan.
- 11:52SPEAKER_01: But the big difference is that, for example, uh hundred years ago there were 10,000 of breweries, now there are only uh 1200 left.
- 12:04SPEAKER_01: And the a big thing about this is that what happened is that it during industrialization in the 60s, uh breweries became bigger and bigger, and the product became a little bit more anonymous.
- 12:18SPEAKER_01: So 100 years ago, every village has had its own little brewery, they drank a local product, and that local product disappeared a lot, and that helped a lot to make sake a more anonymous product from bigger breweries cheaper, they started competing with each other, and uh therefore the character got taken away a bit from sake.
- 12:44SPEAKER_01: In Japan, that that lack of character, uh that that type of sake is what you see most.
- 12:53SPEAKER_01: When you want to drink good sake in Japan, and that's where we're going, you really need to know where to go.
- 12:58SPEAKER_01: When you go to an average small town restaurant, they just have uh one or two sakes, and they don't really know when to pour it in a glass and what to eat with it.
- 13:08SPEAKER_01: And that's that's the big difference over here because there is no background in drinking sake.
- 13:16SPEAKER_01: No, it is much easier to take people and see it as a very beautiful new drink in a repertoire.
- 13:26SPEAKER_01: So people when people love wine, it's really easy to take them, convert them as a priest, and uh show them uh how to drink sake.
- 13:38SPEAKER_01: It's a people here are a bit afraid, but at the same time, it's really easy to take that that that that afraid part away.
- 13:46SPEAKER_00: How is the most beautiful way to drink sake?
- 13:49SPEAKER_00: Just drink it or share it?
- 13:52SPEAKER_01: Well, last week uh uh you aired a podcast with uh Laura, and uh today here on the festival she is going uh to heat up sake.
- 14:04SPEAKER_01: And I think we are we were all brought up in the last couple of years uh uh saying it's only cold sake you have to drink.
- 14:13SPEAKER_01: And nowadays I notice with myself but also with Lola and other other people that warm sake is uh going to be the new big thing, and I think also for all those saker sake drinkers that still don't know it, I think in one or two years they will be drinking sake at home warm, also.
- 14:36SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's about drinking uh sake warm, but do you like to share?
- 14:41SPEAKER_00: I mean, in a company, or what do you like more?
- 14:45SPEAKER_00: Because I heard you say that drinking sake is more sharing with three people around the little cups and so on.
- 14:53SPEAKER_00: What do you like the most?
- 14:55SPEAKER_00: Could you drink sake on your own, or do you love it more when it's got in company?
- 15:01SPEAKER_01: Is right, yeah.
- 15:02SPEAKER_01: Uh well, it's a trick question.
- 15:06SPEAKER_01: Once you become importer, you start to drink uh yeah, uh in a different way, of course.
- 15:14SPEAKER_01: So uh for me, drinking uh sake uh changed a lot since I started importing for Hokkain Amade.
- 15:22SPEAKER_01: Um I love both actually.
- 15:26SPEAKER_01: I like to drink sake when I come home from work, uh, but again, when I truly appreciate it is when I have friends over, I cook a nice meal, I find a good bottle that that's perfectly matching the meal.
- 15:42SPEAKER_01: For me, that's the the most beautiful way, and I get people crying saying, I never knew this can be sake, and that's what the the match with food does.
- 15:53SPEAKER_00: So you have a sake cellar at home instead of a wine cellar?
- 15:57SPEAKER_01: Uh I live in the center of Amsterdam uh uh on the third floor.
- 16:02SPEAKER_01: So uh unfortunately, no no cellar for me.
- 16:05SPEAKER_01: Uh but I I I have a small uh a small are there really expensive ones between uh the other sakes?
- 16:15SPEAKER_00: Do you go for expensive?
- 16:17SPEAKER_00: Because it doesn't have to be expensive all the time, it's just with wine.
- 16:21SPEAKER_00: Wine doesn't have to be expensive to be good.
- 16:24SPEAKER_00: Yeah, is it the same with uh sake?
- 16:26SPEAKER_00: Because you tell me that in Japan, yeah.
- 16:30SPEAKER_01: I love your I love your question.
- 16:32SPEAKER_01: Um this uh what I'm gonna tell you now is super personal, of course.
- 16:37SPEAKER_01: It's my personal choice.
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: It's that's why you're here to be personal.
- 16:42SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying anything about good or bad sake.
- 16:45SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, it's uh that's that's something different.
- 16:49SPEAKER_01: I myself tend to love sake uh which is less expensive with super high quality.
- 16:57SPEAKER_01: Um and you're talking da ginjo then, so the the higher polished uh uh sakes.
- 17:04SPEAKER_01: For me personally, sake becomes a little bit more of the same when you take away too much of the rice.
- 17:13SPEAKER_01: And I love that character.
- 17:15SPEAKER_01: And that I don't know if uh I'm starting to talk very technical, so it might be not very clear uh what what's the go on, go on.
- 17:25SPEAKER_00: You are yeah, yeah, go on.
- 17:27SPEAKER_00: I love it.
- 17:28SPEAKER_00: So I want to be a sake lover at the end of the day, so okay.
- 17:32SPEAKER_01: Here you go.
- 17:33SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna take you a little bit.
- 17:37SPEAKER_01: So a lot of of the the flavors and and taste of the sake uh comes back to how much you take away from the rice grain.
- 17:47SPEAKER_01: You have a rice grain, I'll show it in the camera.
- 17:49SPEAKER_01: Uh it it's layers, yeah, layers of different uh uh it's lipids, vitamins, minerals, uh, and all those parts, they give the flavor to rice.
- 18:01SPEAKER_01: They are all in the outside layers of the rice.
- 18:04SPEAKER_01: Inside, you have starch, heart of starch, and that that starch is almost tasteless.
- 18:11SPEAKER_01: So when you take away, when you start polishing rice and you take away those layers, you take away you take away the flavor of rice and you take away certain characteristics of of the sake.
- 18:23SPEAKER_01: You start to make more fruity and fresh sake, fresh not really, but but fruity or floral, and that fruitiness that comes from the yeast that is used.
- 18:34SPEAKER_01: So when you start polishing sake, you already have in your mind what kind of sake you are going to make.
- 18:41SPEAKER_01: That fruity sake that is is different, and that polishing is a lot of energy, and taking away all those layers, uh you make a smaller rice grain, so you need more rice for the layer of alcohol.
- 18:57SPEAKER_00: And that makes it expensive.
- 18:58SPEAKER_01: And that makes it expensive.
- 18:59SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 19:00SPEAKER_01: Also, that polishing, uh the ginjo, the more premium, as they uh uh most people say, uh sake, it takes at least 50 hours to to uh put of polishing to start making that type of sake.
- 19:15SPEAKER_01: And 50 hours of polishing is so much energy, and especially now in these times when energy is so extremely expensive, this makes the sake more expensive.
- 19:27SPEAKER_01: A lot of people they they think oh expensive is the same.
- 19:31SPEAKER_01: The best, yeah, and that's not correct, and that's exactly your introduction uh of wine.
- 19:36SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's not always true that more expensive stuff is uh is better.
- 19:41SPEAKER_01: I like that that flavors, that full flavors of the rice grain.
- 19:45SPEAKER_01: I I love that, and that's what I'm looking for when I drink sake myself.
- 19:50SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 20:00SPEAKER_00: Let's go to the human side of sake because there are people behind it.
- 20:04SPEAKER_00: You tell me that it's a lot of time to make the best sake, so the brewers have to be extraordinary people too.
- 20:15SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's what I like about Japan in general, I think, but uh what I see most in brewers, because I visit a lot of breweries, uh, is the ability to do the same every day, over and over again, and every day trying to be better than the last day.
- 20:40SPEAKER_01: I I it's a bit of a cliche, I think.
- 20:42SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, but but uh this is what do you mean, Judis?
- 20:45SPEAKER_00: Do you never have the same sake then?
- 20:48SPEAKER_00: Uh because you say every time doing the same routine and trying to be better, do you mean to make better sakes or to be better in the process?
- 21:00SPEAKER_01: That's what they want to achieve.
- 21:02SPEAKER_01: Um I'm talking about a brewer.
- 21:04SPEAKER_01: So uh for for a brewer and for most Japanese people that that uh really uh are makers, like knife makers or uh even farmers, a lot of old-fashioned uh jobs.
- 21:21SPEAKER_01: A lot of those Japanese people, they every day want to do a little bit better than the day before, and that that's differences we will never notice.
- 21:32SPEAKER_01: It's not the sake is changing a bit, but it's also in uh uh cleaning or working as a team or whatever small details.
- 21:42SPEAKER_01: The head brewers they always want to do better, they are never there, and that's something uh I you see in everything, you feel it when you are visiting a brewery.
- 21:56SPEAKER_01: That's what I love the most.
- 21:58SPEAKER_00: Yeah, who are Those brewers are there families?
- 22:02SPEAKER_00: Are there big companies?
- 22:04SPEAKER_00: You said it already.
- 22:05SPEAKER_00: There are in the countryside little brewers, but who are those people?
- 22:11SPEAKER_01: Usually brewers themselves, they come from uh a technical background, they all did like technical uh farming studies.
- 22:23SPEAKER_01: Uh there's also uh a lot of uh sake universities, so you uh you can study uh to become a brewer.
- 22:31SPEAKER_01: And basically the the most funny thing, and you hear that a lot, those family breweries they are very old.
- 22:40SPEAKER_01: Most most sake most sake companies they are really really old, and it's family member to family member.
- 22:48SPEAKER_01: I talk to 17th generation brewers uh in companies, and that's that's fantastic to talk with them.
- 22:57SPEAKER_01: But what you hear a lot is yeah, when I was 20, I really didn't want to take over the brewery, but I had to.
- 23:06SPEAKER_01: And the first years I hated it, because uh it's repetition, of course, and it's not the city life they were used to.
- 23:13SPEAKER_01: So and uh and then you hear a lot, it grows on them, and after a couple of years, uh it becomes their their habits, their the daily.
- 23:24SPEAKER_00: And nowadays they realize I think you could do much more with sake than just sharing or drinking sake.
- 23:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you said it before, pairing with food and and uh making beer of it and and do uh some other stuff.
- 23:40SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 23:41SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true?
- 23:42SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
- 23:43SPEAKER_01: It's funny, we're we're talking a little bit about r the religious part of sake.
- 23:48SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 23:48SPEAKER_01: And uh when uh for me, what's really the religious part is that I'm an ambassador for those people, and I'm religious in telling those stories of those people.
- 24:03SPEAKER_01: It's not nothing to represent a company, uh, that's 17th generation brewer.
- 24:11SPEAKER_01: You represent not just that drink, you represent that 17th generation or 17 generations of uh of a company uh with a history that builds up to the point we are now, and telling those stories of uh of that family, telling the stories of that that place where the brewery stands is super special, and for me that has a very religious uh place in my heart.
- 24:37SPEAKER_00: Okay, go further, go deeper.
- 24:39SPEAKER_00: Why is this is it so special?
- 24:42SPEAKER_00: We also have uh families who do things, wineries, uh beer brewers who have that same connection, but what's the difference?
- 24:53SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it starts with uh something really uh so I told you already that the whole sake industry is going down in Japan all the time.
- 25:05SPEAKER_01: So a lot of breweries they are struggling a lot to survive, so it starts there.
- 25:11SPEAKER_01: The fact that you are an ambassador of a company uh that really has to fight for its existence um is something special.
- 25:21SPEAKER_01: We are ambassadors of that that culture here, and by selling sake here, selling uh sakes by glass or in a shop in a bottle really helps saves and helps the culture, yeah.
- 25:36SPEAKER_01: Not just the the the the the breweries itself but the whole culture as a yeah as a as a whole.
- 25:41SPEAKER_01: Uh so it I think it starts there.
- 25:44SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 25:45SPEAKER_01: Uh and then then again it's the combination.
- 25:49SPEAKER_01: Uh it's it's the the line in my life.
- 25:53SPEAKER_01: I I love great products when I was not in Japan yet and didn't work with sake.
- 25:59SPEAKER_01: You were a chef?
- 26:00SPEAKER_01: I was a chef, and my job basically for the restaurant was driving through the country the whole day.
- 26:06SPEAKER_01: The best product.
- 26:07SPEAKER_01: Yes.
- 26:09SPEAKER_01: So for me, going to sake was a quite a small step.
- 26:12SPEAKER_01: And what came extra in comparison to those products is uh I think the the the the Japanese character we we talked about, uh the the fact that that they try to do better every day, uh the the deep technic technical aspect of the drink.
- 26:31SPEAKER_01: I I'm a bit nerdy and it is so I love talking uh technical aspects as well.
- 26:39SPEAKER_01: And the fact here that it is so new, the way we talk about sake is still something we have to invent.
- 26:48SPEAKER_00: I'm I I I think I'm totally not giving answer to your question, but that's what I it does does matter because I love the feel through you that you are uh also like Laura, like everyone, like Jonas, on a mission to not just to maybe to help the brews there in Japan, but also say, hey, there's something else and wine and beer and spirits and there's also sake.
- 27:17SPEAKER_00: Try and taste it, take it with you, take it in you.
- 27:22SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a lovely story, but why is it so difficult to introduce sake here in Europe or in Belgium, Holland, France, whatever?
- 27:33SPEAKER_00: Why?
- 27:34SPEAKER_00: Is it because of our tradition?
- 27:36SPEAKER_00: Is it because of our personality?
- 27:38SPEAKER_00: Because we are so far stubborn, maybe stubborn too, but we are not like Japanese personalities.
- 27:47SPEAKER_00: We are we are busy and we are energetic and we are want to do everything in life, and then Laura told me in Japan everything is so at ease, more at ease and perfect perfection and surreal, yeah.
- 28:04SPEAKER_00: Is that the case why it's so difficult to introduce a cake?
- 28:08SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with us?
- 28:10SPEAKER_01: Well, talking from a Dutch perspective, it's more or less the same as in Belgium, I think.
- 28:16SPEAKER_00: No, well, there is a very example.
- 28:19SPEAKER_00: You have to tell me.
- 28:20SPEAKER_01: Okay, first you're through it's point of view.
- 28:23SPEAKER_01: The biggest cliche of Dutch people, but of course, I think Dutch people are in general a little bit a little bit uh more on the money.
- 28:31SPEAKER_01: Uh and they uh the average spending on a bottle of wine is less than 10 euros still.
- 28:39SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, which is crazy when you think about it.
- 28:42SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, so the average good bottle of sake is of course a lot more expensive.
- 28:48SPEAKER_00: It's it's not only about the price, Yodis.
- 28:50SPEAKER_00: I think it's about our mind.
- 28:52SPEAKER_00: You Dutch people are more open-minded than we are.
- 28:55SPEAKER_01: So yeah, but but still, I think it starts it starts there.
- 29:01SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one of the factors.
- 29:03SPEAKER_01: What a lot of people say is uh yeah, there is no knowledge, so people don't buy it.
- 29:08SPEAKER_01: And that's what I don't buy.
- 29:10SPEAKER_01: Because when you go to a restaurant uh and uh there is a group of people sitting around the table and the wine list is given to the table from the waiter, most people say, No, I don't want it because I don't know anything about wine.
- 29:25SPEAKER_01: So there is still no knowledge necessary to drink wine.
- 29:30SPEAKER_01: I think most people know a little bit what a Malbeca is or something, and they just buy it because they know the name.
- 29:36SPEAKER_01: So it's it's fine to have no knowledge.
- 29:39SPEAKER_01: Everybody drinks beer, most people don't know how beer is made.
- 29:44SPEAKER_01: Uh, so that's that's totally fine.
- 29:47SPEAKER_01: That's not necessary.
- 29:49SPEAKER_01: I think uh what you want is the stories.
- 29:54SPEAKER_01: What you want is uh an easier way to talk about sake.
- 29:59SPEAKER_01: So, what I like is to stay away when I'm explaining sake to people, to stay away completely from everything that's mysterious about Japan, and to stay away from all the the Japanese brewery terms, okay, and to stay away from everything that makes it a little bit mystique.
- 30:20SPEAKER_01: I like to see it as a a good drink.
- 30:23SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's good.
- 30:25SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh uh you don't have to go into detail when you start with it.
- 30:32SPEAKER_01: Of course, later on, and that's the same with wine, if you love it, you start to enjoy reading about it, listening podcasts about it.
- 30:40SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
- 30:40SPEAKER_00: Uh it has to be the opposite.
- 30:42SPEAKER_00: First drink it and then think it.
- 30:44SPEAKER_01: Yes, and we're still in that drinking stage.
- 30:55SPEAKER_00: So tell me, if there's one sake you really should try for the first time, I can not try to drink very complex uh sakes, I think, for the first time.
- 31:08SPEAKER_00: Or do I have to?
- 31:10SPEAKER_01: No, you no, uh of course not.
- 31:13SPEAKER_01: No, um, yeah.
- 31:19SPEAKER_01: The the uh I'm gonna give you an answer that also is a little bit another answer uh to your last question.
- 31:27SPEAKER_00: You really are not a priest.
- 31:31SPEAKER_00: You always got the opposite, but I like you.
- 31:34SPEAKER_00: Okay, go.
- 31:35SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, what what you hear a lot.
- 31:39SPEAKER_01: So I said already, uh, most people don't have a background in drinking sake, but every people, all the people here are fairly new to it.
- 31:48SPEAKER_01: At the same time, a lot of people drunk sake once or twice in their life uh in uh sushi restaurants, uh heated up till crazy 90 degrees Celsius, and that's what people have in their heads.
- 32:03SPEAKER_01: Well, it's super uh alcoholic, and uh it always tastes a bit the same, and that's basically what you have to take out of people's brains.
- 32:13SPEAKER_01: That uh, so the there again, we are uh it's a lot of repetition for entirely new drinkers.
- 32:21SPEAKER_01: It's super easy.
- 32:22SPEAKER_01: I can pour you 10-20 sakes, which you immediately like.
- 32:26SPEAKER_01: Uh lighter stuff, uh, super expressive, fruity stuff, uh, elegant drinks, uh uh super nice.
- 32:37SPEAKER_01: At the same time, a lot of somoyers they they make a crossover with wine, and they have this feeling that uh heavier red wine drinkers can drink heavier sake.
- 32:50SPEAKER_01: There is no similarities in in the flavors, yeah.
- 32:54SPEAKER_01: So that doesn't really say anything to me.
- 32:56SPEAKER_01: I I don't believe in that.
- 32:57SPEAKER_01: I uh I always have my wife as a reference, she doesn't like Sauvignon, for example, which is more a floral wine, of course.
- 33:06SPEAKER_01: She's a real beginning drinker, she doesn't really like sake, but when I give her those elegant fruity styles, she really dislikes it.
- 33:16SPEAKER_00: I would like the fruity styles, I think.
- 33:18SPEAKER_00: I will later on I will drink some sake with you.
- 33:22SPEAKER_01: Of course, we're gonna drink the whole rest of the day sake together.
- 33:27SPEAKER_00: Yeah, can can you get easily drunk with drinking sake?
- 33:31SPEAKER_01: Yes.
- 33:32SPEAKER_01: Okay, definitely it's a different kind of drunkness as well.
- 33:36SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 33:38SPEAKER_00: Hi.
- 33:38SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 33:39SPEAKER_01: Really?
- 33:40SPEAKER_01: I I really get uh in Japan, it's really not allowed to do that here, so don't phrase me wrong on this.
- 33:49SPEAKER_01: Uh in Japan, they still say uh it's healthy to drink sake.
- 33:54SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 33:54SPEAKER_01: Because of uh because it's uh a different type of fermentation, of course.
- 34:00SPEAKER_01: It's basically they say it's the holy trinity of uh of fermentation.
- 34:06SPEAKER_01: Uh it's really they say because it's so clean alcohol, it's uh and it has a lot of uh uh amino acids and uh it's it's really healthy to to drink.
- 34:19SPEAKER_00: So is that is that a good thing to use to convince people to drink sake?
- 34:25SPEAKER_01: Not sure.
- 34:26SPEAKER_01: Let's stay away from from healthy alcohol because everybody knows it's not uh but at the same time, uh uh because it has no uh sulfides, of course, which come from grapes.
- 34:42SPEAKER_01: So in wine you have sulfites, the the fermentation is very, very different from wine, and therefore the the way uh the alcohol comes in your body is a bit different.
- 34:54SPEAKER_01: I really notice a different type of influence in my hat.
- 35:00SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I I went really crazy a couple of times.
- 35:05SPEAKER_00: Really?
- 35:05SPEAKER_00: With brewers, but also here it you drank already a few sakes today before getting into the podcast.
- 35:13SPEAKER_00: So you're okay still?
- 35:16SPEAKER_01: I uh no, I I I I had to remember now I spit it out.
- 35:20SPEAKER_00: I didn't I did really because you knew you had to come in my podcast.
- 35:32SPEAKER_00: Okay, a quick answer.
- 35:35SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one misconception about sake you would like to erase it's not vodka.
- 35:41SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so a lot of people think it's uh high alcohol and it's a little bit like vodka, it's not a distilled drink, it's uh it's a fermented drink around 15%.
- 35:54SPEAKER_00: Number two, what does sake mean to you today?
- 35:58SPEAKER_01: I see hundreds of people uh that are here together for that drink, very interested in the culture behind it, the different flavors, and for me uh it's a bit cheesy, but the connection between all those people is what it is about.
- 36:18SPEAKER_01: We're building a community at the moment.
- 36:20SPEAKER_00: What do we have to remember about sake?
- 36:24SPEAKER_00: Short answer.
- 36:27SPEAKER_00: Keep it short, Yoris.
- 36:28SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sorry, sorry, I'm not good at that.
- 36:30SPEAKER_00: No, it's okay.
- 36:32SPEAKER_01: Drink it with food.
- 36:34SPEAKER_01: Again, it's uh drink it when you eat.
- 36:37SPEAKER_00: Okay, what's the best pairing uh you you you would tell us to do?
- 36:43SPEAKER_00: I heard sake with cheese.
- 36:45SPEAKER_01: Sake with cheese is fantastic.
- 36:47SPEAKER_01: Um I'm gonna give you something that that is going to remind a lot of listeners because uh nobody ever heard of it.
- 36:55SPEAKER_01: Uh if you try kimoto, an older way of sake producing, uh, with a lot of amino acids, a lot of umami, a lot of layers, and you pair it with asparagus next spring uh with a bit of butter sauce and uh and egg, just uh the old-fashioned way, you're gonna die of happiness.
- 37:15SPEAKER_00: The classic asparagus with egg and with sake.
- 37:19SPEAKER_00: All right.
- 37:20SPEAKER_00: Last question, dear Judis.
- 37:22SPEAKER_00: If you could pour one cup of sake for the world and say one thing before we drink it, what would you say?
- 37:34SPEAKER_00: Shall I repeat it?
- 37:35SPEAKER_01: Please, and then I yeah, then I have to answer.
- 37:38SPEAKER_00: You can think if you could pour one cup of sake for the world and say one thing before we drink it, what would you say, dear Yoris Vermeer?
- 37:56SPEAKER_01: Wow, I'm just imagining I I have the chance to do that.
- 38:01SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and everybody is in the world, everybody in the world is going to drink my favorite uh uh sake.
- 38:10SPEAKER_01: It's a Shiboitata uh Nama from Nida.
- 38:14SPEAKER_01: Um and uh it's fresh, it's alive, it's insanely beautiful, it has all the characteristics of a really full sake.
- 38:27SPEAKER_01: Introduction to that one sentence, right?
- 38:29SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh so it has it all, and uh um I would say something like after this drink, you are converted.
- 38:42SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm the priest now, right?
- 38:43SPEAKER_00: Oh in the name of Joris Mir.
- 38:49SPEAKER_01: Okay, yes, hallelujah!
- 38:51SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
- 38:52SPEAKER_00: I still have one last question.
- 38:53SPEAKER_00: What do you think about the Belgian sake festival?
- 38:56SPEAKER_00: Because we are here now, yeah, and Jonas Kellens, he's a very great guy, Master Sake Sommelier.
- 39:02SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what do you think about it?
- 39:04SPEAKER_01: An event like this here in Antro it's so nice.
- 39:09SPEAKER_01: Um he what what he he's already building this community for years and years.
- 39:15SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
- 39:16SPEAKER_01: First was with the restaurant last couple of years with the festival.
- 39:19SPEAKER_01: The festival uh is for the first year on this location.
- 39:23SPEAKER_01: It's uh uh the the location is perfect for it.
- 39:27SPEAKER_01: Uh I see so many enthusiastic people together, and I think what he's building is incredible.
- 39:34SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 39:35SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 39:36SPEAKER_00: I still have questions because I want to know you more, more about you.
- 39:41SPEAKER_00: Um has uh being um busy with sake changed your life?
- 39:51SPEAKER_00: Changed your personality, changed your environment?
- 39:55SPEAKER_00: I think today, Yoris, it's more about connection and yeah, so what did it to you?
- 40:02SPEAKER_00: Did you have you changed during the years you are into sake?
- 40:06SPEAKER_01: A lot.
- 40:06SPEAKER_01: And I I actually um it feels weird to tell this, but I'm I can only tell you this uh and give you a super personal answer.
- 40:16SPEAKER_01: My whole life I really uh I I have extreme ADHD, and that's blah blah.
- 40:24SPEAKER_01: I don't really uh not at all about it more than that.
- 40:27SPEAKER_01: Uh but I I could never uh finish any studies.
- 40:31SPEAKER_01: I uh could I I had very much difficulties even finishing finishing high school.
- 40:37SPEAKER_01: Uh but I'm a reader, I read a lot, so I I I'm I'm not uh stupid.
- 40:42SPEAKER_01: I just I I I find it very difficult to study and listen to other people.
- 40:47SPEAKER_00: It's about concentration, of course.
- 40:48SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
- 40:49SPEAKER_01: When I had a restaurant, I worked as a restaurateur my whole life.
- 40:53SPEAKER_01: I was never I never dared to become a specialist in something.
- 40:59SPEAKER_01: I made super nice wine.
- 41:02SPEAKER_01: You think you were not good enough at this time?
- 41:06SPEAKER_01: Um secure super insecure, but uh of course I'm I as you know now I'm a talker, so I don't really oh yeah, you are secure now.
- 41:15SPEAKER_01: Uh I I don't, but I I never wanted to become a wine expert.
- 41:21SPEAKER_01: I never wanted to study and and become an expert in something.
- 41:25SPEAKER_01: When I started with sake in the restaurant, uh, like I told you in the beginning, uh I noticed that there was literally nobody that knew anything about sake.
- 41:37SPEAKER_01: Literally nobody.
- 41:38SPEAKER_00: So you had a lot of doubts, of course, in the beginning.
- 41:42SPEAKER_01: Well I needed to sell sake, so I needed to start reading about about it myself, and I had the chance to make mistakes, and I had the chance to not doubt myself.
- 41:57SPEAKER_01: Uh and I had the time to make mistakes, tell people I uh uh uh stories and I made a lot of mistakes, but they didn't notice.
- 42:09SPEAKER_01: So I I had the time to find my own security, and that's uh that brought me to the point where I now know a lot and talk a lot with people, and it changed my whole life in a sense that now I could become an expert in something.
- 42:28SPEAKER_01: So that's really what Sake gave me.
- 42:31SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 42:32SPEAKER_00: But you're not here to change people's life or you really do.
- 42:41SPEAKER_01: No.
- 42:42SPEAKER_01: I think that's uh not so strongly.
- 42:46SPEAKER_01: No, if I think you should never try to change people's lives, but um what what I love about sake is that you really you can really change the way they drink.
- 42:58SPEAKER_01: And you can really, really uh put sake in their repertoire.
- 43:04SPEAKER_01: Uh you can let the magic happen.
- 43:06SPEAKER_01: At a table, when you work in a restaurant, when you talk about people on a fair like this, on a festival, you really change all the time people's lives.
- 43:14SPEAKER_01: In that sense, small, small stuff.
- 43:17SPEAKER_01: That's really nice.
- 43:18SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 43:19SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 43:20SPEAKER_00: It's about small steps.
- 43:22SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 43:23SPEAKER_00: To create the bigger ones.
- 43:25SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
- 43:25SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 43:26SPEAKER_01: Like my own life.
- 43:27SPEAKER_00: All right.
- 43:27SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 43:28SPEAKER_00: Yuri Sumir, may I thank you a lot.
- 43:30SPEAKER_00: I hope you have fun.
- 43:32SPEAKER_00: It was great to know you.
- 43:34SPEAKER_00: And have a great day and a great stay in Antwerp.
- 43:38SPEAKER_00: What what do you think about Antwerp, by the way?
- 43:41SPEAKER_00: Oh You were here a lot, of course.
- 43:43SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm here a lot.
- 43:45SPEAKER_01: And also I um my family has a small house close to Diest.
- 43:50SPEAKER_01: Oh, Diest?
- 43:51SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 43:51SPEAKER_00: So that's a beautiful town.
- 43:54SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, it is.
- 43:55SPEAKER_01: Small and with a with a Dutch uh history, actually.
- 43:58SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so orange.
- 44:00SPEAKER_01: It does anyway, uh I'm uh I'm a lot in Belgian and uh uh I really love the country uh uh I think uh m even more than Amsterdam uh than than the Netherlands.
- 44:14SPEAKER_01: I'm I I love to surround me with uh Belgian people.
- 44:18SPEAKER_00: Every time I say this is the last question, so I will go on.
- 44:22SPEAKER_00: What can I wish for you in the future or in the near future?
- 44:27SPEAKER_00: Of course, health and personality and and but into the sake story you are telling.
- 44:35SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 44:36SPEAKER_00: This is your business now, this is your life.
- 44:38SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
- 44:39SPEAKER_00: Will you never go back to being a chef?
- 44:42SPEAKER_00: Are you still cooking?
- 44:44SPEAKER_00: No.
- 44:44SPEAKER_00: Not even at home.
- 44:46SPEAKER_01: I I am uh in the worst part of my life.
- 44:49SPEAKER_01: I have two small kids at home.
- 44:51SPEAKER_01: One one is not eating, so my life consists uh of making tomato sauce and spaghetti and boring, boring foods.
- 45:00SPEAKER_01: And uh the other days that they are sleeping already, I'm too tired to uh put energy in it.
- 45:05SPEAKER_01: So I'm cooking the least in my whole life.
- 45:08SPEAKER_01: Uh I when I started uh when when Japan became part of my life, uh I quit cooking.
- 45:15SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 45:16SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't dare to start those new techniques anymore.
- 45:20SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 45:21SPEAKER_00: Uh so this is still for a few years, the business you have now?
- 45:27SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's going to stay like this, yeah.
- 45:29SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really?
- 45:30SPEAKER_00: Don't you have other dreams anymore?
- 45:33SPEAKER_01: I'm no, yeah, I'm I'm writing a book book about sake now.
- 45:36SPEAKER_00: Really?
- 45:37SPEAKER_00: Oh, we didn't talk about your recipe book you wrote.
- 45:40SPEAKER_00: It's nothing to do with sake, or it's just it's about Japanese food, is it?
- 45:46SPEAKER_01: It is about a Japanese home kitchen.
- 45:48SPEAKER_01: It's uh hokai.
- 45:49SPEAKER_00: Hokai, yes.
- 45:50SPEAKER_00: What does hokai mean?
- 45:51SPEAKER_01: Uh it means uh North Sea fish, basically.
- 45:54SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's about uh recipes about fish, North Sea fish.
- 45:58SPEAKER_01: No, uh uh mostly.
- 46:00SPEAKER_01: Uh but the chef of the restaurant of the company I work for, he made the recipes.
- 46:05SPEAKER_01: I wrote the rest.
- 46:07SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's Japanese food, in fact?
- 46:10SPEAKER_01: Totally.
- 46:11SPEAKER_01: 100%.
- 46:11SPEAKER_00: So it's raw.
- 46:13SPEAKER_01: Uh not just, not just.
- 46:15SPEAKER_01: No, they have they make a lot of chews and uh they cook a lot.
- 46:18SPEAKER_00: It's okay it's more than sushi, I think.
- 46:21SPEAKER_01: The home kitchen is uh a lot broader than sushi only.
- 46:27SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 46:27SPEAKER_00: I will stop here because you have to go and do a masterclass.
- 46:30SPEAKER_00: I wish you all the best.
- 46:31SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be uh a priest in a second.
- 46:34SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 46:35SPEAKER_00: Have you got a costume for that?
- 46:37SPEAKER_01: No, but I have some hostaes with me, so I'm really gonna have an expression now.
- 46:46SPEAKER_00: Well, not with the word god, but uh.
- 46:48SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hallelujah.
- 46:49SPEAKER_01: I think we just got to that, huh?
- 46:53SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 46:54SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jorit te weer.
- 46:55SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
- 46:59SPEAKER_00: This was het dan voor deze aflevering.
- 47:02SPEAKER_00: Bedankt dat je erbij was.
- 47:03SPEAKER_00: We hadden het goed samen.
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