Long time no see, everyone!
After a long hiatus in which we re-imagined our site and had it rebuilt by Michael Slaven to be mobile friendly we are back with a new and improved layout, new features, and new writers. Below you can see the old v. new banners. Graphic designer extraordinaire, Ian Bradley, is responsible for both.
You may notice that KAMPAI.US has been changed to KANPAI.US. This was at the request of my fellow shochu nerd, Christopher Pellegrini, who has lived in Japan for nearly 20 years and taught English composition to Japanese college students for nearly as long, so who am I to argue about how to spell this word? Christopher, who authored the first ever English language shochu guide, The Shochu Handbook (2014, updated 2018), has now joined me as co-editor of this site and will be contributing content very soon.
In this new and improved edition of our website we are going to get lots of new shochu and awamori information up very soon with new writers including some certified shochu advisors from around the world. Since Christopher also manages the SHOCHU.PRO website, we will focus KANPAI.US on content for drinkers and SHOCHU.PRO on content for drinks professionals so please check out that site as well.
When I started KAMPAI.US back in 2011 (before mobile optimization was a thing) I was based in NYC. I have now relocated to Fukuoka, Japan, which is the unofficial capital city of Kyushu where 90%+ of shochu is made, so I have access to more and better stuff than ever before. There are so many new stories to tell!
Kanpai!