The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks - by Stephen Lyman & Chris Bunting (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

**2020 James Beard Award Nominee**
**2020 Gourmand Cookbook Award Winner for Japan in Spirits Books**

Drink your way through Japan (even from home) with the help of this book!

Japan is home to some of the world's most interesting alcoholic beverages--from traditional Sake and Shochu to Japanese whisky, beer, wine and cocktails that are winning global acclaim and awards.

In this comprehensive survey of Japanese drinks, experts Stephen Lyman and Chris Bunting cover all the main types of beverages found in Japanese bars and restaurants, as well as supermarkets and liquor stores around the world. The book has chapters on Sake, Shochu, whisky, wine, beer, Awamori (a moonshine-like liquor from Okinawa), Umeshu plum wine and other fruit wines. There is also a fascinating chapter on modern Japanese-style cocktails--complete with recipes so you can get the authentic experience, including:

• Sour Plum Cordial
• Sakura Martini
• Improved Shochu Cocktail
• Far East Side Cocktail

Thorough descriptions of the varieties of each beverage are given along with the history, production methods, current trends and how to drink them. Detailed bar and buyer's guides at the back of the book list specialist establishments where readers can go to enjoy and purchase the drinks, both in Japan and cities around the world, including London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Shanghai and more!

This is an indispensable book for anyone interested in brewing, distilling, new cocktails or Japanese culture, travel and cuisine. Kampai! Cheers!

Review Quotes

"[This book] presents a vast quantity of practical and cultural information in a very engaging way, and provides a clear outline of the (sometimes complex!) technical aspects of shochu production--something that is hard to find in English. Anyone seeking a route into shochu (and the other Japanese beverages) will find in this guide everything they need from detailed explanations of their production and history, through to practical advice on what to purchase, and how to explore these delicious beverages...Very helpful." --Antony Moss, Director of Strategic Planning, WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust), WSET Certified Educator

"Everything you need to know to understand and enjoy sake today is explained in The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks. Production, grades, varieties and even culture and history are concisely presented in just the right measure, giving the reader a quick but comprehensive guide to the greatest beverage on the planet." -- John Gauntner, Author, Sake Handbook

"Following Brian Ashcraft's excellent Japanese Whisky, Tuttle has brought out this compendious guide to the full range of Japanese beverages...Written in an easy, flowing style, it covers a lot of ground in a short space of time...a beautiful, carefully put together coffee-table book full of insights, anecdotes and thirst-inducing pictures that leaves the reader yearning not just for a warm cup of sake or a stiff Yamazaki, but for individual titles devoted to each type of drink."-- The Japan Times

"I absolutely loved The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks. Stephen Lyman is clearly a gifted writer, able to tackle a subject as serious, complex & wide as Japanese beverage, while injecting a meaningful backdrop of thorough historical perspective. But it's his palpable enthusiasm for the subject which spills out onto every page, which makes this book exciting and easy to understand all at the same time. I was very thirsty the whole time I was reading it!" --Michael Skurnik, CEO of Skurnik Wines & Spirits

"Japanese beverage traditions are some of the most misunderstood in the world--and they really shouldn't be! It's a good thing that we've got the words of Stephen Lyman and Chris Bunting, consummate experts on all things drinkable from Kyushu to Hokkaido and all things in in between, to help set us all straight." --Jeff Cioletti, Author, The Drinkable Globe, The Year of Drinking Adventurously, Sake-pedia

"Perfect for the traveler or epicurean, [The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks] reveals the secrets of Japan's varied alcoholic beverages. Written in a conversational yet informative voice, every chapter delivers valuable insight into how these drinks evolved, found favor at home, and are often misunderstood overseas." --Christopher Pellegrini, Author, The Shochu Handbook

"Profusely illustrated throughout with full color photography, The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks is an extraordinary, unique, informative, and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library Contemporary Japanese Culture collections in general, and Japanese alcoholic drink supplemental studies reading lists in particular." -- Midwest Book Review

"There's nowhere I'd rather drink than Japan, and no one I'd rather have telling me what, where, and how to drink than Stephen Lyman and Chris Bunting, whose bibulosity is matched only by their curiosity." --Matt Gross, formerly the New York Times Frugal Traveler

About the Author

Stephen Lyman was minding his own business, enjoying life in New York City as an Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Medical College when he was unexpectedly introduced to Japanese shochu at an izakaya in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Over the next decade he visited Japan more than twenty times, visiting more than a hundred shochu distilleries, sake breweries and other alcohol producers in more than twenty Japanese Prefectures. In 2013 he began interning at a small shochu distillery in Kagoshima Prefecture. He subsequently became the first graduate of the Sake School of America's Shochu Adviser Course and a kikisakeshi (sake sommelier) through Sake Service International. In 2016 he was named the first Honkaku Shochu Ambassador by the Japanese government through the Cool Japan program. He now spends about half his time in Kyushu in Southern Japan where he can be found cycling around and exploring local food, drink, and culture.

Chris Bunting has worked in London and Japan for publications including the Asahi Shimbun, Times and Independent. He developed his love of Japanese alcohol while living in Tokyo and is the author of Drinking Japan. He currently lives in Yorkshire in the UK.