Hachidori means hummingbird, and the brand takes its name from the idea that if a bird that small can hover, anything is possible. It is the project of Stuart Morris, a Bostonian who spent 25 years chasing sake from a sushi bar in the U.S. Virgin Islands to San Francisco and Napa, passed the Kikisake-shi sommelier exam in Tokyo in 2010 entirely in Japanese, then spent three years cleaning and working unpaid in Japanese breweries before apprenticing under master brewer Masanobu Shindo at Shindo Brewery in Yamagata Prefecture, a tenth-generation family house set among mountain water and its own rice fields. Morris eventually earned the rare chance to brew alongside his mentor, and Hachidori is the result, launched in the United States in 2024 by John Anthony Wine & Spirits, the Napa company of John Anthony Truchard, who conceived the brand with Morris after a 2023 meeting.

The three bottles share one label and one hummingbird and are told apart by glass: pale blue for the Junmai, light and bright with cucumber, green apple, steamed rice and citrus zest; cobalt for the Junmai Ginjo, fuller, with honeydew, white raspberry, green banana and jasmine; and black for the Daiginjo, the most polished and complex, with crisp apple, cantaloupe and Asian pear over hazelnut and fennel pollen. All three are brewed from premium sake rice grown at the brewery and pristine Yamagata mountain water.

Browse our full Hachidori collection with fast nationwide shipping delivered straight to your door.