Special 5 Sake Tasting & Sale with Ajitama Musubi Pop-up!

For the first time with our Special 5 Sake Tasting & Sale…we have a food pop-up at our store! And it’ll be on Friday, April 10th, 2026 from 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM at The Sake Shop, 575 Cooke St. in Kaka’ako. Sake is complimentary (Must be 21+) & Food is a separate purchase.

Please give a warm welcome to Ajitama by Mao & Mike, who you can usually find in Kaka’ako/Ward making one of the most awesome food combos: Marinated Shoyu Eggs (Ajitama) inside a Musubi!

They even flavor their musubi too, from their classic Sweet Shoyu, Shiso, Furikake, and special limited time flavors. (You can even dunk them into some warm miso soup ?).

Speaking of which, we’re very happy to say you’ll be able to buy THREE different flavors of Ajitama Musubi at the tasting, while they last:

• Sweet Shoyu
• Black Sesame (Limited Time Flavor! Not in photo)
• Wasabi (Limited Time Flavor! Not in photo).

And, don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about the rest of our sake, which even features some high-end ones!

So please give another warm welcome to Bella Pearson of Vine Connections who brings in all the ono sake you’ll see listed below for our complimentary tasting! Including two sake from the Toko brand, that you may have seen in a certain HI Now Daily segment on Yamagata Prefecture.

HI Now Daily?! Yes, Nohealani “Nohea” Shozen had visited our sister city and interviewed various local crafts, including a famous sake brewery, Kojima Sohonten. Their Toko Ultraluxe ended up being one of her favorite sake, which you can try for yourself at the tasting and it will be on sale too!

One of the many unique things about Koijima Sohonten, besides being one of the largest and oldest sake breweries in the Tohoku region, is that they love to brew their sake using the Gravity-Drip Pressing Method or Shizuku Style! It’s a both labor intensive and time consuming process compared to other methods of separating sake from its rice mash (moromi) so you won’t find many sake made like this outside of competition sake.

This is much gentler on sake overall and is one of the final steps before bottling and aging, resulting in an incredibly smoother sake than others in the same grade. Both their Toko Ultraluxe and their Toko Divine Droplets (our other high-end Toko sake we’re tasting) are made in this method, as well.

Not to be outdone, we have three more sake: Fukcho Moon On The Water Junmai Ginjo, brewed by a female brewmaster in Hiroshima. Another from Kyoto that’s become a restaurant-favorite, Konteki Tears of Dawn Daiginjo. And a classic Ginjo Genshu sake that’s bright, fruity like pears and raspberries, and a quick tart finish that matches perfectly with some black sesame musubi, it’s Bushido Cup Sake!

If you want to learn more about each of the 5 sake we’ll be featuring, get a quick peak into some of their breweries, the tasting notes, and more,

then please check out the link to our newsletter (which you can always join to find out the latest news ?) where we do a bit more of a deep dive!

We really hope to see you all there to support another locally run small businesses like Ajitama while enjoying and learning more about sake!

Mahalo & Kanpai,

Nadine & Malia