Inventory for june 14th, 2015

Here’s the week that was! Sake is under threat, we’ve got a new revelation about the fabled Bloody Mary, there’s takeover talk regarding Diageo, Tanqueray have launched a new limited edition gin and Dekanta.com, a brand-new site for Japanese whiskey, has gone live. Get stuck in, booze hounds…

‘Week-icitus’. We’ve been struck by it. Yes, there’s a ‘week’ for everything these days in Berlin – for every Berlin Restaurant Week or Berlin Art Week, there’s a Berlin Food Week or a, wait for it, Berlin Art Food Week! Anyway, enough talk about this ‘week-icitus’. Berlin Beer Week is here and this is one we are absolutely on board with. Here’s two highlights: the unofficial opening of The Pier at their construction site in Mitte on the 15th June, and a night of ‘Beerlesque’ on the 19th June – craft beer and burlesque – hosted by Brewers Von Freude of Hamburg, and Le Labo, Berlin’s only liquid nitrogen bar. Check out the schedule for the entire week here.

1) Save our Sake!

The Guardian are on the march again, and this time it’s not the environment, free speech or endemic FIFA corruption – they’re worried about the twin staples of Japanese cuisine, rice and sake! Now, given our line of work, we’re particularly interested in the sake – the alcoholic beverage made of fermented rice. In this article, Phillippe Pons discusses the threat to rice and sake from a variety of forces – most notably from globalisation, free-trade deals, and the Fukushima nuclear catatrosphe of 2011. Pons claims that that the region, a big producer of both rice and sake, suffered in the aftermath, with the purity of the water needed to make the sake “being compromised”. The rise of beer and wine is also noted here, with sales surging in comparison to the stagnation of sake.

Here’s what needs to happen according to French geographer Nicolas Baumert, author of Sake: A Japanese Exception: concentrate on getting the best varieties of rice. After all, sake has always relied on strong word-of-mouth and that requires high-quality! The article includes lots of other titbits about the famed Japanese drink, so make sure to check it out…

2) The Bloody Mary: more than a hangover cure!

This is one for the frequent-flyer/booze hounds amongst us all. After a victorious battle with the hangover, reports are suggesting that the Bloody Mary is celebrating another triumph – this time against the much-deplored field of airline catering! According to a study, the Bloody Mary tastes better in aeroplanes. Published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, the report discovered that increasing the noise level of the aircraft environment made the tomato juice taste better! This also marks a victory for the savoury over the sweet, as savoury flavors were in general much easier on the passenger palette. Let’s hope the airlines remember the Tabasco sauce!
3) Is Diageo facing a takeover?

Rumors, rumors. They spread like wildfire when it concerns the world’s largest premium drinks company! Indeed, reports are suggesting that Brazil’s richest man, Jorge Paulo Lemann, is putting together a takeover bid for Diageo, valued at $71 Billion, together with buyout specialist 3G Capital and Warren Buffett – most possibly the most well-known investor on the planet. Time for a quick disclaimer: none of the involved parties have confirmed or denied this. At this point, it’s merely conjecture.

But what conjecture it is! Lemann also has prior history with big takeovers, considering his takeover of Heinz with Buffett in 2013 or his acquisition of Anheuser-Busch with his InBev company in 2008 – creating the world’s biggest brewer in the process. Look to see what the shareholders say – Diageo’s shares jumped earlier this week to a high of 18% after 18 months of slipping, so shareholder support could be gained here. And just in case this does happen, the beer arm would reportedly move over to Lemann’s Anheuser-Busch, and the spirits arm would stay separate. Let’s leave this one at “To Be Continued”….

4) Get your Japanese whiskey here!

The irresistible rise of Japanese whiskey continues apace. If you’ve been living under a beverage industry rock boulder, you might have missed the fact that the Yamazaki Sherry Cask 2013 was awarded the “world’s best whiskey” in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2015 (marking the inaugural win for a Japanese whiskey!). Or that Nikka Whiskey has been growing rapidly for years – ramping up their exports 18-fold between 2006 and 2012. Here’s some new evidence: meet Dekanta.com, an online retailer for whiskey hailing from or made for the Land of the Rising Sun.

Dekanta.com has been launched to meet the growing demand for Japanese whiskey, in particular selling collectible whiskies that as of yet are not available outside of Japan. To boot, the family-owned business are also offering scotch whiskies that were made for the Japanese market, with their oh-so-Japanese labels included too.

“We have one of the world’s largest and most varied stock of Japanese whisky,” Dekanta.com announced in a statement. “We only sell Japanese whisky or whisky that has been made exclusively for Japan. Yamazaki, Karuizawa, Nikka and Hakushu are just a few.” The J-Whiskey train just keeps on rolling…

5) A new gin of an English heritage

After such a news roundup, it’s time for a drink, and what’s better than a new product? Meet the new limited edition from our friends at Tanqueray: the Tanqueray Bloomsbury Gin. Offering up “prominent notes of Tuscan juniper”, coriander, angelica, winter savoury, and cassia bark botanicals are all blended into the libation. This is the work of Master Distiller Tom Nichols, who wanted to make “something that was completely different from our other limited editions”, finding it “inspirational to work with an original Tanqueray recipe”. Indeed, it’s been drawn from a recipe by Charles Waugh Tanqueray, the son of Charles Tanqueray – giving it bona-fide heritage to boot. Some more titbits for you: US$32.99 is the RRP, and there are 100,000 bottles available. Don’t forget also that Nichols is retiring this summer – it’s a parting tipple par excellence, one might say!