Annual Sake Tasting: King Koji

In 2024, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated the “Traditional Knowledge and Skills of Sake-Making with Koji Mold” as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This recognition focuses on Japan’s centuries-old tradition of koji mold cultivation and its use as a crucial ingredient in sake production. In honor of this, Japan Society’s Annual Sake Tasting has a specific focus on koji this year, including a koji lecture from sake educator John Gauntner and a rare chance for audiences to sample the miracle mold itself.

Join Japan Society and the Sake Export Association to celebrate Japan’s UNESCO-recognized koji mold and taste about 30 sake from around Japan and New York. Only for attendees 21+.

Participating Breweries

The full list of participating breweries will be shared closer to the event. Attendees will be able sample sake from Japanese breweries including:

• Nanbu Bijin (Iwate Prefecture)


• Oku no Matsu Brewery (Fukushima Prefecture)


• Tentaka Shuzo (Tochigi Prefecture)


• Hakkaisan Brewery (Niigata Prefecture)


• Tenzan brewery (Saga Prefecture)

And from New York City:

• Dassai Blue


• Brooklyn Kura


• Kato Sake Works

John Gauntner

John Gauntner is a world-leading sake expert. He has been writing and lecturing about sake since 1994, beginning with an eight-year stint penning the Nihonshu column in The Japan Times, Japan’s most widely-read English-language newspaper. He followed this with a weekly column on sake for The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s most widely-distributed Japanese newspaper. He has published over five books on sake across two languages, hundreds of articles and has been quoted in countless publications including The New York Times, Newsweek and Rolling Stone. He has spoken at Harvard, Yale, Columbia University and many more prestigious institutions across the U.S. and Japan. Gauntner has received the very difficult Sake Expert Assessor Certification from Japan’s National Research Institute of Brewing and won the Accomplished Sake Taster Award from Japan’s Pure Sake Association. He has further been awarded the Sake Samurai designation by the Japan Sake and Shochu Producers Association.

Sake Export Association 

The Sake Export Association, known in Japanese as Nihonshu Yushutsu Kyokai, is a nonprofit organization created by approximately 30 sake breweries in Japan. The Sake Export Association looks to help people learn about the finer aspects of Japanese culture through sake and spread sake awareness and availability around the world

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Japan Society’s 120th anniversary initiatives and related programs are generously supported by Champion Sponsor, MUFG Bank, Ltd.; Advocate Sponsor, Mizuho Americas; and Friend Sponsor, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas).

Japan Society programs are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Additional support for cultural programs is provided by an anonymous donor; Sendon and BuyJapon; the Sandy Heck Lecture Fund; and Anime NYC.

Japan Society Food Events are sponsored by Kikkoman Corporation.