S’pore has its first sake brewery & it started from beer tanks, dimsum steamers & pure stubbornness

Orchid Sake Brewery is the first-ever sake brewery in Singapore, featuring sake with local flavours

In Japan, there’s a saying that goes: brewing sake is like running a marathon and playing Japanese chess at the same time.

It’s a line that sounds poetic until you realise what it actually means — extreme physical endurance paired with obsessive, almost neurotic precision,

Leave it to the Japanese, as Orchid Sake Brewery co-founder Reuben puts it, “to create such a complex process”.

“It’s very f***ing precise,” he adds.

And yet, against all odds — and perhaps a bit of sanity — that same process is now happening in Singapore.

Tucked away in an industrial space at Jurong Food Hub, Orchid Sake Brewery is the country’s first sake brewery of its kind, quietly proving that a drink so deeply associated with Japanese winters, water, and tradition can be brewed in the tropics — if you’re stubborn enough.

From directionless to doubling down

Its co-founder, Reuben Oh, didn’t grow up romanticising sake. When he was a young man, sake was a beverage drunk cheaply and in high volumes at parties.

“I come from a Peranakan family of big drinkers,” he says. “Alcohol was background music.”

At 26, he quit his marketing job feeling lost, vaguely wanting to be a writer, and unsure where his life was headed.

He went back to the books to get a degree he never finished — and, almost as an afterthought, signed up for a sake course because his SkillsFuture credits covered it.

“[It was] just purely to drink over a weekend,” he admits.

But something clicked. Unlike everything else he’d tried – poetry, journalism, marketing – sake stuck.

“I’ve been really ADHD and mediocre at many things,” he says with refreshing honesty. “When I found something I could be good at, I doubled down.”

That decision eventually took him to Sake Labo as a sommelier and then Japan, where he spent nearly three years immersed in its brewing culture after being named a Young Sake Ambassador.

What fascinated him most wasn’t just the drink, but the people.

“I made so many genuine and hardworking friends who loved what they do,” he says. “I guess I can say my biggest Japanese-adjacent interest is the people themselves.”

Brewing sake in the tropics: a (not so) impossible endeavour

Contrary to popular belief, the biggest question wasn’t whether sake could be brewed in Singapore. Reuben already knew it was technically possible.

Breweries exist in cities, he explains, and temperature control exists everywhere.

The real question was: why do it?

The answer, it turns out, was a mix of “respect and insanity”.

“[I have] incredible admiration for the brewing industry across all realms among the Japanese,” he says. “I wanted to try the same thing, although I knew how hard it’d be.”

That ambition eventually converged with Yumika, Orchid’s co-founder and head brewer, who had already spent close to eight years working inside sake breweries in Japan.

While Reuben came from the tasting, storytelling, and strategy side of sake, Yumika’s passion lay deeper in the process itself, particularly in koji, the living heart of sake brewing.

“We share a common desire to bring the culture around sake out to the world,” Reuben says.

“We really just want to get everyone else drunk on what we love.”

With very limited capital — and some help from his mother — Orchid Sake Brewery was born in a way few traditionalists would approve of.

Early batches were brewed in beer tanks with the lids cut off, rice steamed in dimsum steamers, and sake pressed using oversized cooking pots weighed down with literal gym weights.

Almost no other sake brewery in the world operates like this.

Most breweries, he says, would normally import everything from Japan, necessitating a million-dollar budget.

“I didn’t want to wait,” explains Reuben. “I felt like 2024 was the perfect time, and any later would cause the concept to land flat.”

More than a year on, Orchid Sake Brewery has renovated its space, retiring the makeshift equipment that helped the brewery get off the ground.

Looking back, Reuben says simply: “Now, I’m actually glad I did that.”

A Southeast Asian sake, by design

Despite following the same brewing rules as Japan, Orchid’s sake isn’t trying to be Japanese.

It’s Southeast Asian at heart.

“Our recipes follow the exact same rules; we just adjust the ratios,” Reuben explains. “We make it creamier and more acidic, so it pairs better with heavier foods like curry.”

That balance — between respecting Japanese brewing standards and adapting to local conditions — reflects the founders themselves.

Yumika brings a deep sense of responsibility to ingredients, process, and precision, shaped by her upbringing and professional life in Japan.

Reuben, on the other hand, approaches the brewery with a Singaporean instinct to adapt quickly, problem-solve creatively, and accept that change is the only constant.

They’ve experimented with regional ingredients too, including Sarawak Bario black rice, though adapting Southeast Asian rice — which isn’t polished like traditional sake rice — comes with its own technical challenges.

Their lineup reflects this philosophy: a refined “Classic”, a locally rooted “Native”, and a “Craft” range that plays with ingredients that sake has never seen before.

And surprisingly, they’re not targeting hardcore sake snobs.

“Most of our customers consist of people who just love to drink… so we keep prices reasonable, and flavours easy-going,” Reuben says, adding that Orchid keeps its narrative focused on building a community of like-minded alcohol lovers.

Built as a bridge between two worlds

Reuben is firm on one thing: Orchid is not “Japanese sake made outside Japan”.

It’s something else entirely.

Singapore, he believes, is uniquely positioned for this moment. Long before K-pop and bubble tea, Japan was one of Singapore’s earliest business partners, shaping infrastructure, industry, and culture in ways many people don’t fully realise today.

“This brewery was built as a bridge between both cultures,” he says.

“For a place Japanese [visitors] can come and see a myriad of cultures, and for Southeast Asians to see what the innately Japanese culture of a sake brewery is like overseas.”

That approach seems to be working. Orchid’s sake has been blind-tasted and mistaken for Japanese imports more than once.

Into the future: more friends, more parties, more sake

Ask Reuben what success looks like, and he doesn’t talk about export numbers or global domination.

Instead, he talks about people.

The dream is a permanent brewery space with a vinyl-playing bar, a large event area, and constant celebrations in Singapore and Japan.

“As many parties as possible, as many friends as possible, as many life connections being made on a daily basis.”

They don’t claim to have “made it” yet. There’s no grand declaration, no victory lap.

“We’ll let you know when we do,” he laughs.

But in a city that often waits for permission before trying something new, Orchid Sake Brewery already feels like a quiet rebellion, proof that sometimes, all you need is respect for tradition, a willingness to adapt, and the mental stamina to run a marathon while playing Japanese chess.

Also read: Become a sake tastemaker without leaving S’pore as Sake Matsuri’s The Jewel Edition brings Japan to you

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Featured image courtesy of Sake Matsuri Singapore.