Artisan SakeMaker Marks 20 Years on Granville Island
and Looks to the Future of Canadian Sake
The Vancouver sake winery enters its anniversary season with OSAKE, CMC Sake + Wine Merchants, Sake & Tapas Central, BC-grown rice, Orizée skincare, and new rice trials in British Columbia
Twenty years after Masa and Yukiko Shiroki began making sake on Granville Island, Artisan SakeMaker is entering its next chapter with a tasting room, an import and education arm, a growing world of rice and sake kasu products, and an ambition that reaches from Vancouver to the rice fields of the Fraser Valley.
Founded with the belief that sake could be made in Canada with local meaning, Artisan SakeMaker has spent two decades helping people taste it beyond old assumptions. Not only warm. Not only with sushi. Not only imported. At its centre is OSAKE, the company’s small-batch sake collection, developed for aroma, texture, acidity, umami, temperature, and the way people eat on the West Coast.
To mark the anniversary, a limited-edition 20th anniversary bottle is available online and in-store at Artisan SakeMaker on Granville Island. CMC Sake + Wine Merchants, the company’s import and education division, adds the other half of that perspective, connecting Canadian restaurants, retailers, sommeliers, and curious drinkers with premium Japanese sake and shochu. Together, OSAKE and CMC give Artisan SakeMaker a rare place in the category, with one side made on Granville Island and the other grounded in the producers, regions, and traditions of Japan.
“When we started, many people still thought sake belonged in one narrow category,” said Masataka “Masa” Shiroki, founder and CEO of Artisan SakeMaker. “I wanted people to understand sake with the same curiosity and respect they bring to wine. It can pair with the food people already love here, and it can carry the place where it is made.”
Taste of place has never stopped at the glass. Soon after the sake-making facility was
complete, Masa and Yukiko began exploring whether rice could be grown in British
Columbia. Small trial plots across the province eventually led to an Abbotsford growing site that now connects Japanese sake-making knowledge with Fraser Valley agriculture, crop diversification, climate adaptation, and the future of rice cultivation in Canada.
The anniversary also comes as Sake & Tapas Central gives guests a fuller way into
Artisan SakeMaker. Opened in 2025 beside the sake-making facility, the intimate tasting room offers three OSAKE flights, a sake cocktail flight, three CMC flights, a liqueur flight, small plates, and guided pairings. The menu moves from Wagyu Meatballs and Octopus Carpaccio to signature rice bowls, all served around a three-foot by twelve-foot custom table filled with 1,000 cups of rice, a quiet reminder of the grain behind every pour.
“Sake & Tapas Central brings the education work full circle,” said Yukiko Shiroki, general manager of Artisan SakeMaker and Sake & Tapas Central. “People can come in curious, taste something new, ask questions, and leave with a better understanding of how sake can belong in their own life.”
Beyond the tasting room, rice and fermentation continue into sake kasu, condiments,
chocolate, Orizée skincare, restaurant kitchens, and local collaborations. Artisan
SakeMaker supplies sake kasu to Burdock & Co., Tojo’s, and Kishimoto, while its rice is served by Pearl Morissette, Pluvio, and Acorn. Its collaboration work includes Steel & Oak brewery, Coconama Chocolate, Fukasaku, Benton Brothers Cheese, and Oyama Sausage.
Orizée, Artisan SakeMaker’s natural skincare line, carries the same circular thinking into beauty. Made with SakeKasu, the line connects Artisan SakeMaker’s rice and
fermentation work with Japanese, Chinese and Korean skincare traditions that have long valued rice water, rice ferment, amino acids, minerals, and enzymes. Vogue has recently covered fermented rice as part of a wider beauty movement across East Asian skincare, giving Orizée a timely place in a conversation that reaches beyond beverage.
For Masa and Yukiko, the 20-year mark is also a turning point toward what comes next. Artisan SakeMaker is exploring investment, research, and farming partnerships to support dry, direct-seeded upland rice trials in British Columbia, an approach that could create new possibilities for local rice production as farmers look at water use, land access, climate pressure, and crop diversification.
“Our work has always been about more than making sake,” said Masa. “The long-term goal is to help build a future for rice cultivation and rice wine production in Canada. We want this work to contribute to agriculture, research, food security, and the next generation of people who will carry it forward.”
Come for the Game. Stay for the Sake.
This summer, Sake & Tapas Central will be part of the energy around Granville Island’s FIFA 2026 watch party programming. With matches showing on screens inside the tasting room, locals and visitors can stop in for sake flights, cocktails, small plates, and rice bowls before, during, or after the game.
Select takeout dishes and sake to go will also be available for guests heading to Granville Island’s designated open alcohol consumption areas, including the Public Market, Public Market Courtyard, and Chain & Forge Plaza during permitted hours.
About Artisan SakeMaker
Artisan SakeMaker is a Vancouver sake winery and retail-hospitality business on
Granville Island. Founded by Masa and Yukiko Shiroki, the company produces OSAKE, a small-batch sake collection developed through Japanese sake-making knowledge, Canadian ingredients, and West Coast food culture. The business includes CMC Sake + Wine Merchants, its import and education division, along with Sake & Tapas Central, BC-grown rice, sake kasu, koji-based products, condiments, chocolate, amazake, Orizée skincare, and other sake-related products connected to rice, fermentation, and circular use.
For more information visit artisansakemaker.com and cmcsakewine.com, or connect
socially at @artisansake.