True Newsletter - The History of The “Beau Zone Layer”

What were you doing 235 months ago? Me, I was goofing around in a new retail store dedicated to sake, and all the while preaching the sake gospel. I was meeting sake souls one customer at a time, and I started to create a memory list of people’s faces if I couldn’t remember their names. In a word, I was creating a family, the True Sake family, and you know who you are! 

It was a very active time in my life, as I was a new father twice over, and I was learning to juggle my two families. Lots of times I had the little ones with me in the store, but I couldn’t be in two places at once, and often one of my families got less of my attention. And when you are the face and voice of a new business, you need to be there – always! And I tried my best. I never felt it at the time, but looking back there was a ton of responsibility on me and my role as a sake educator and promoter learning the ins and outs of a libation that most of us knew very little about. I loved this time, and wouldn’t trade all of the hard work for anything. It was the first 5 years of True Sake that made this business and movement work. 

But it was a lot of work. And I soon realized that I needed to take some of my hats off. I needed to create a team of awesome sake peers, who could help me spread out all of the work and still do a spectacular job for our customers and True Sake family members. It was loco in a way. We were on the CBS TV Morning Show with Charles Kuralt (doing a Nigori tasting of all things!). We were in Time Magazine. We had a New York Times recommended book (“Sake – A Modern Guide” – Chronicle Books). We were on in-flight airline TV programs in Japan when they used to do those things. We had Mike Rowe do an entire Sunday Road Trip show with us. We went Dining Around with Gene Burns on CBS Radio. And we had a two day photo shoot for Wallpaper Magazine – that they never published. And all the while we did at least three sake tastings out at different locations each month. And we created this crazy True Sake Newsletter. 

As our family grew, I tried to withdraw a little because our True Sake Team was awesome and getting better. And to be honest, it felt great hearing when customers wanted the attention of others and not just me. So, I actively tried to put the Team first and this manifested new articles and sections in the Newsletter that didn’t feature me or even require my input. And that was fantastic! True Sake is, was, and will always be a family and not one person, and the Newsletter became a vehicle for others to find their voices. And I stepped back! 

We used to have a section called “Ask Beau” where I would answer selected questions, and this was sort of my voice in the Newsletter. This eventually faded out, and I was asked by customers and Team members alike to pick a sake each month to recommend and feature for the education side of things. And the “Beau-Zone Layer” began as a quick blurb on brews and breweries of note.