Sake Memories – Riley Timken The First Kid Of Sake
On August 7th True Sake will celebrate its 12th year of officially pushing sake. I say officially because the store took well over a year to open – thank you city of San Francisco! And during that year I would often sit in that wonderful empty space and play with my two-year-old daughter Riley – my first partner at True Sake. As the daughter of a crazy man who decided to open the first dedicated sake store outside of Japan she basically became the first baby of sake!
Fast forward to June 4th when my awesome daughter graduated with honors from 8th grade and officially became a High School gal. (Congrats Girl!) Why do I mention this? Because quite simply Riley has watched the evolution of True Sake from the beginning and now she is readily available to comment on the state of sake from her unique perspective – and yes she comments quite often!
Not sure if we have broken any laws along the way, but Riley has unofficially worked at the store and perhaps has even helped one or two of you amazing readers, customers, and friends! She certainly has rung up a lot of you. She has wrapped for you (Notice I didn’t say rapped for you – she can’t rap! Like her sister or her old man! Wait what? You have never heard my sake raps? Wha?) And she has endlessly smelled sakes that I taste at home for all of the reviews that I have written over the years (I’m currently on 1660!) Riley is also the biggest fan of this here True Sake Newsletter and she always comments on each issue!
So in honor of my glorious little gal, who is not that little anymore, especially at graduation when she was wearing something called “heels,” I have decided to let her select a Top Ten sakes list from our inventory! Does this mean that she has consumed each of these sakes? No not at all! In all these years she has probably tried a handful of sakes on special occasions – holidays, etc. - but this may change now that she is officially a high school student. Joking! (Yes, I really am!)
Riley has had the honor to wrap sakes, unpack sakes, put stickers on sake bottles (Yes my idea and my own mark that has been ripped off by other people in the industry), write up receipts, deliver sakes, carry sakes, bring sakes to events and so many other contact spots with sake so she has a unique view of certain brews and that is how she created her Top 10 list.
Congrats kid! Thanks for helping me out all of these years! You and your sister are the best! And I look forward to doing this again when my youngest graduates from 8th grade, because she REALLY loves working at True Sake