Ramen World was one of the first events that let us know we were on to something. Ramen World is a food expo event where the best Asian restaurants in DC have different booths and feature a dish inspired by ramen. The event usually attracts about 500 ramen fanatics yearly (our target audience). We were lucky enough to be allowed to have a booth at this event through a recommendation from a chef that we used to work for.
Getting ready for this event was a real challenge, at that point we had never produced sake lemonade for this many people. Thanks to Reddit and friends smarter than me, we figured out carbonation, kegs, and dispensing in two weeks. Over that time, we bled (we had to peel over 500 lemons), burned our eyebrows off (restaurant ovens can be tricky), and were seriously sleep-deprived.
We were nervous at first after the first couple of pours of sake lemonade, the nerves wore off. The biggest compliment was from employees of the embassy of Japan. They thanked us for showing sake in a new light. Although we bought enough sake for 500, we ran out of sake before the event was over. The success of this event gave us the steam we needed to push through all of these years. If our first event didn't go this well, I’m unsure if we would still be on this journey today!
