“Kanro Shoyu” Soy Sauce – A double-brewed Japanese soy sauce

I love soy sauce. I’m also a bit of a salt addict so it comes naturally to me. I love it on rice, meats, in marinades, and on vegetables.

I grew up on Kikkoman low-salt soy sauce. It’s a pretty standard grocery store condiment available just about anywhere in the USA in bountiful quantities. As I grew older and I wanted more flavor I went to the full salt version and it was good.

Then I was in a Chinese restaurant having a beef & broccoli dish and on the table they only offered La Choy soy sauce. Another very common fare in the local grocery stores. I could literally taste the difference. Kikkoman was dead, long live La Choy. And La Choy has been the staple soy sauce in the house ever since.

Or at least until now.

We strive for unique or at least interesting condiments here and I wanted to find something that isn’t stocked on the local shelves. So I searched, learned more about soy sauces than any non-maker of soy sauce should ever know, and eventually I found Kanro Shoyu and decided to give it a shot.

I ordered, I received, and I tasted.

Well, that was the end of the off-the-shelf soy sauce debate. Kikkoman dead. La Choy dead. Kanro Shoyu is the new king of soy sauces in my house. It is bold, it has great flavor, it tastes like what you always wanted a soy sauce to taste like.

Next time you marinade, or are having a rice & meat dish that would normally enjoy a bit of the soy sauce, try Kanro Shoyu. It is a masterpiece of a condiment.

“Pepped-Up” mustard from the Old Brooklyn Cheese Company

Today, I am sending a mustard. This is an unground whole mustard-seed mustard. It is called “Pepped-Up” and has the slightest amount of spice, but any condiment lover will probably find it to be extremely mild. It looks gorgeous and will definitely be a conversation starter.

You can buy it from the Old Brooklyn Cheese Company directly (unsponsored).


I was sitting in a wine shop having lunch in between meetings one day and while conversing with the proprietors a salesperson came in with both of Old Brooklyn Cheese Company’s flagship mustards. The IPA and the Pepped Up. The proprietors declined to make a purchase as they exclusively sell wine, but they allowed me to try some of the mustard.


I was hooked! It was the best mustard I’ve ever had and its whole seed appearance is so unusual it always garners comments from those who see it.
There was no local Columbus place to buy this mustard so I looked up the company. They were in a suburb of Cleveland, oddly enough called “Old Brooklyn”, so the next time I went up to Cleveland I stopped at their shop and picked up multiple bottles of each of their mustards and met with the company owner who was kind enough to give me a tour of their cheese cellar.
Since then, Mike the owner has been kind enough to have given me great shipping rates off the normal website prices when I am running low.
It is (or at least was) featured in the top 10 of all mustards in the National Mustard Museum located in Middleton, Wisconsin (I forced my family to go there while driving to Minnesota one time).


It is my pleasure to now share this mustard with you.
I enjoy it most on brats, burgers, and dips (such as for pretzels). The appearance is a big seller so I try not to use it when the mustard will be hidden such as in cooking applications.