Farm to Bottle

Particular products conjure specific places. When it comes to bourbon, Kentucky is king, and California claims the most well-known wine region in the U.S., Napa Valley. Why wouldn’t Arkansas—the number one rice producer in the country—stake claim as the sake capital? That’s the goal of Arkansas natives Matt Bell and Ben Bell, founders of Origami Sake in Hot Springs.

Origami Sake is served chilled in a wine glass and is more fruit-forward as opposed to drier, more bitter warm sakes.

Sharing a last name but no relation, Matt and Ben met in 2016 after Ben had returned from two years in Hanamaki, Japan, the sister city of Hot Springs. He received a sponsorship there to immerse himself in the brewing process at Nanbu Bijin, a longstanding sake producer. That experience ignited a fire in him to bring the time-honored methods back home.

Meanwhile, Matt, a Little Rock native, was running a successful solar company following graduation from the University of Arkansas. He had no interest in sake until he met Ben and a story started to emerge about the Japanese drink and its uncanny connection to the pair’s home state. At its most basic, sake demands quality water and rice—two things The Natural State has in spades. 

“When I learned that, I thought, OK, this is more interesting, because at the time, I was not a big fan of sake; the sake I’d had before was not premium,” Matt says. “But I started investigating further and found that premium sakes were a whole different experience.” 

Read the full story at Plated: The Arkansas Dining Guide.