Vancouver Businesses Capitalize on the Tap-to-Glass Trend

Masa Shiroki of Artisan Sake Maker, restaurateur Brandon Grossutti of Pidgin and Steve Thorp of Freshtap
Masa Shiroki of Artisan Sake Maker, restaurateur Brandon Grossutti of Pidgin and Steve Thorp of Freshtap

Three Vancouver businesses bring Canada’s first sake-on-tap to Gastown.

If you can’t beat ’em, as they say, you join them, and that seems to be the Vancouver restaurant industry’s mantra when it comes to offering libations straight from the keg.

The latest to capitalize on the tap-to-glass trend is Canadian Chef Makoto Ono’s highly anticipated Pidgin restaurant, which has paired with Granville Island’s Artisan Sake Maker and Vancouver-based Freshtap, Canada’s first custom keg packaging operation, to offer Vancouverites the city’s first sake-on-tap.

Along with chef Ono, restaurateur Brandon Grossutti spearheaded the project to bring this innovative approach to Japanese wine to market, approaching both Artisan Sake Maker Masa Shiroki and Steve Thorp, co-founder of Freshtap to collaborate on the initiative.

The partnership is exciting, says Shiroki, because it “embraces great things fresh, hand-made and local.”

At Pidgin, Artisan Sake Maker’s premium unfiltered and unpasteurized Osake brand (a rice wine), will be dispensed via 19.5L Freshtap stainless steel kegs, which seal the sake from contact with oxygen so that it’s fresh right to the bottom of the keg.

Artisan Sake Maker launched in 2007, while Freshtap was founded in 2011. The much anticipated Pidgin, expected to open in 2012, finally threw open its doors in Gastown (350 Carrall St., Vancouver) early this month and specializes in simple staples skewed and polished with Asian elegance (Japan, Korean), with a focus on shared plates.