Artisan Sakemaker At Granville Island

Masa got into the sake business after working with a BC trade commission to Japan in the late 1990s. At the time he was helping troubled sake producers in recessionary Japan try their hands at Canadian style microbrewery beer production. Ironically, after the commission was shut down, he ended up doing just the opposite: starting his own operation to sell a traditional Japanese product to Canadians. “I’d been in Canada for over three decades and I wanted to do something culturally meaningful, to leave some legacy,” he says. “And besides, I was 50 years old and too young to retire. I had to do something.”

There are few sake-makers in North America, and Masa sets himself apart by producing nama style, which means “uncooked” or raw — that is, unpasteurized. “There’s a tradition of nama sake in Japan, but it isn’t widely distributed,” he says. “Like ours, it’s a localized, limited-release, fresh sake. We only make a thousand cases a year and we sell out of everything we make.”