Space-age brewers count down to April product launch
Final preparations are being made for the April 1 launch of Tosa Space Sake, a Japanese rice wine made with a batch of yeast that spent 10 days in space last October aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. At a March 6 press conference held in Kochi city, the labels for the space sake, which will hit shelves across Japan next month, were displayed to the public.
Each of the 17 participating brewers from Kochi prefecture has their own marketing plan. Five of the companies’ labels show an image of the earth floating in blue space. Another label was created by Dehara Yukinori, a “figure illustrator” native to Kochi city, whose design features a comical depiction of an astronaut, sake brewer, and farmer. A separate label for the Tosa Space Sake (Tosa Uchu-shu) logo is also affixed to each bottle.
All that remains now is the final taste check. Then, on April 1, the world’s first space sake will take off.
[Source: Kochi Shimbun]
[Further reading: Asahi Shimbun (English)]
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[…] Final preparations are being made in the launch of a project to develop space yogurt. The plan is a follow-up to the Tosa Space Sake (Tosa Uchu-shu) project, in which a number of Kochi prefecture sake brewers organized a 10-day space journey for a batch of yeast that was later used to produce sake (due to go on sale in Japan on April 1). Himawari Dairy, a Kochi-area dairy manufacturer, has reserved a seat aboard a Soyuz rocket for a payload of lactic acid bacteria that they hope to use to produce the world’s first space yogurt after it returns to Earth. “We are deeply interested in seeing how the bacteria will change in space,” says Himawari Dairy President Bunjiro Yoshizawa. “We hope it will undergo some interesting changes.” […]
[…] Earlier this month, Himawari Dairy began selling space yogurt, which is made using two types of lactic acid bacteria that spent 10 days in space aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket last spring. The yogurt, called Uchu O Tabi Shita Yogurt (literally: “yogurt that travelled in space”), is now available in Shikoku’s four prefectures. The space yogurt follows Tosa Space Sake, which hit shelves last spring, as the second space-related product created to stimulate business in Kochi prefecture. […]
[…] Pink Tentacle - Space-age brewers count down to April product launch Pink Tentacle - Countdown begins for space yogurt project Web oficial del Yogur espacial […]
[…] There are interesting sidebars to this story — one is the March 29, 2006 Pink Tentacle report of Japanese efforts to send LAB into space for commercial purposes. Sake brewers in Kochi prefecture banded together to send yeast into space and then use it to brew “Space Sake” and a Kochi-area dairy manufacturer purchased cargo space on the same Soyuz launch for a sample of the bacteria used in making yogurt. In both cases, the firms banked on the fact that space travel would change the bacteria and this would produce products that tasted different (or at least boosted sales). Both products went on sale in 2006 in Japan. The yogurt made from the well-traveled bacteria is said to be more full bodied on and the sake […]