A New Dawn for Sake in Singapore

More Singaporeans are entering sake breweries and shaking things up. The Peak explores how these trailblazers are reimagining the age-old drink one grain at a time.

- BEN CHIN

As sake brewer Yamamoto Yumika sprinkles koji spores onto sheets of rice, her movements methodical and unhurried, the air around her is redolent with the sweet, nutty aroma of the koji. The brewery's atmosphere is still hazy and rich with microbial activity. As she looks out the window, the view that greets her isn't the lush, mountainous region of Niigata in Japan, or the golden rice fields of Hyogo prefecture, but the bustling seaport in Jurong, where Singapore's first sake brewery, Orchid Craftworks resides..

Co-founded by sake sommelier Oh Reuben Luke, the brewery quietly whirred to life in May, guided by brewers from Tokyo's Konohanano Brewery. "I used to think brewing sake in Singapore was particularly difficult or even impossible due to the water quality. But after visiting Japan and finding breweries in metropolitan cities like Tokyo, I realised that water can be filtered (to remove fluorides) and fortified with minerals."

Oh first became acquainted with Hosoi Yosuke, the owner of Konohanano Brewery, in the summer of 2022. He was in the Land of the Rising Sun by invitation of the Embassy of Japan in Singapore after he was named the Young Sake Ambassador by London's Sake Sommelier Association in 2021. Conversation blossomed, and soon, "even though it didn't make financial sense, we wanted to see if it was possible in Singapore, of all places," Oh admits.

They got their answer when the first bottles of uTama sake started rolling off the production line. Named after Sang Nila Utama, the legendary founder of ancient Singapore, with "tama" also meaning "spirit" or "soul" in Japanese, the sake is brewed with Japanese rice, koji, and yeast, at least for the time being. There is a shortage of sake brewing literature on Southeast Asian rice, so the team have begun experimenting independently. "Jasmine rice didn't work, but Thai black rice seems promising," he divulges.