Iki beer on YouTube Here's an inscrutable Iki beer advert. We sell Iki only by the case, but twenty-four bottles don't be long going.

Labels: advertisement, beer, iki, samurai

  ¶ Tuesday, April 24, 2007

  Choya sake on the list In the next few weeks I expect to mostly be posting about the new introductions to our list.

Here's one of the more exotic feathers in our cap to be going on with. We have become agents for Choya, who make plum wine and sake. Have a look at their website and learn how to ask for your Choya product in Japanese! There's a lot of interest in sake in Ireland at the moment, and plum wine's not far behind because of some award-winning cocktail mixing from Irish barmen developing an established theme. Saketini, anyone?

This is as good a place as any to return to the Thirsty Travel(l)er's trip to Japan, for those of you who missed it first time around. Nobody does artless, exuberant inquisitiveness like a certain kind of American. Get this - how sake is made.

I must confess to not having tried the Choya range yet. I'm a bit sampled out at the moment because we've finally been catching up with our backlog of tasting new suppliers' offerings and checking new vintages from established suppliers. If I get around to the Choya products, I'll post my two penn'orth in due course, though I can't help feeling the sakes &c. need a whole new vocabulary I don't yet got. Here's a press-release-looking page, aimed at the USA, that may or may not encourage you to give the stuff a try:



It's great to find new customers because of selling sake - it's better still when sake is a foot in the door while we tell people about what else we're proud of. Our newly nipped'n'tucked list of wines is looking radiantly spring-fresh; no, really.

And as for iKi beer - when we chose just one beer to represent, it looks as though we chose the right one! It's proving really popular, and because there's a story to tell (green tea, marketing with a thick Japanese accent, &c. &c.) people talk about it. And, unless you're all being unreasonably polite, that's what keeps you coming back to BB: the story, feeling involved, making an informed choice, the human side.

Labels: beer, choya, cocktails, iki, plum wine, sake

  ¶ Saturday, March 17, 2007

  Back to square one Haven't done a jazz birthday for a bit. Charles Kynard today, rare groove fiends. Nice.

I don't see our wines mentioned too often on the Supervalu blog (because there isn't one, ahem - (picture of Glenda the greengrocer for the Blogorrah boys on the Supervalu website, though)), but in anticipation of that happy day, I'm getting my retaliation in first. What was probably the very first post on this blog mentioned a tasty but pricy

Bordeaux Supérieur offered to us by Château Pierrail, which I had to politely decline. Anyway, to cut to the chase, lo! and behold, there it is in Supervalu, smashed down from twenty euro to fifteen ninety-nine. Now I don't know what got it there: if it was Mme Demonchaux's persistence, or the supermarket buyer's reckoning that a big hefty red with Bordeaux on the label couldn't hurt - but at the sale price it's value, I reckon.

In other news, we're working hard on the consequences of our trip to the Loire wine fair, with samples turning up from day to day and restaurateurs gnashing their teeth to get new wine lists put together.

Iki beer is looking more and more exciting as we go along. There's a container coming in next week, and the press are starting to take an interest now that customers in Dublin are enjoying the refreshing change, &c. &c.

Labels: beer, bordeaux, gnashing, iki, ireland, Supervalu, wine

  ¶ Tuesday, February 20, 2007

  Time for a brew We acquired a licence to import beer last year (my post at the time is here), and the main reason for this was so that we could work with new-and-exciting, green tea and yuzu fruit-spiked iki Beer. Them's yuzus there on the left, and the picture links to the very attractive Japanese photo-blog it came from by way of acknowledgement.

This afternoon, in the latest instalment, we had the pleasure of a visit from Arjen Hemelaar and Diederik van den Biggelaar of iki Beer here at the ol' Wine Depot. In the photo, from left to right, Billy Forrester of Bubble Brothers, Arjen and Diederik, doing their best to look cheerful in the damp but icy winds howling around the country at the moment. I gather the discussions were interesting and good-natured, and the three stooges are meeting up later on at the Franciscan Well, where iki is already on the menu.

To judge by the iki website, these are the kind of people who would be sympathetic to some fun promotions. Let me know if you've any suggestions, as I'm sure the chaps will be reading this and it would be good to get some fresh ideas.

Labels: beer, iki, japanese, supplier

  ¶ Thursday, January 18, 2007