Takashi Eguchi Author

Brian Ashcraft is a senior writer for the video gaming site Kotaku and a columnist for The Japan Times. He was previously a contributing editor at Wired magazine. His work has appeared in Popular Science, the Guardian, the design journal Metropolis, and many other publications. He is the author of Japanese Whisky as well as many books on Japanese culture, including Japanese Tattoos and Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential. Originally from Texas, he has called Osaka home since 2001.

Takashi Eguchi is based in Kyoto, where he curates the popular Japanese-language Sake Concierge Report website (sakeconcierge.com) in which he covers sake events across Japan, interviews brewing luminaries and contributes tasting notes. He regularly gives sake workshops and, as of 2019, has held over one hundred sake-related seminars. He holds a Sake Diploma from the Japan Sommeliers Association and lectures on sake tourism at Kyoto's Doshisha University.

World-renowned musician and DJ Richie Hawtin became a sake connoisseur after he first visited Japan in 1994. He has earned the Advanced Sake Professional Certification and was made a Sake Samurai by the Japanese Sake Brewers Association in 2014 for his efforts in promoting sake internationally. He continues to use his global influence to open up young audiences to new cultural experiences via music, concerts and sake initiatives.