Hanami season is not only a wonderful time to check out cherry blossoms, but it also gives us a great excuse to drink sake in broad daylight guilt-free. But most of us are not sake experts, and it can often be difficult to choose one given the variety of choices out there. But Sakelife can be a solution for many facing this dilemma. The service is a monthly subscription commerce for Japanese sake.

It began back in Feburary of 2012 by collecting its initial funding on the crowdfunding website, Campfire. The project succeeded in just three hours and gained four times the amount of funding they had asked for.

Sakelife curates quality bottles of sake for its users every two months, including a sake glass as well. The subscription also comes with an informative weekly newsletter about sake. The curation is the responsibility of Masanori Takahashi, the 25th representative of a long-established sake maker whose roots go all the way back to the Muromachi period (1336).

Sake subscription is available in two types of plans starting at 3150 yen (about $33) including the shipping fee. We’ve heard rumors that the startup is planning to launch outside of Japan, so we will let you know if and when it’s available to overseas users.

Speaking of sake, we recently came across a project called Shuzo-Meigara Note (which translates as ‘sake brewer notebook’) that aims to promote sake culture. Shuzo-Meigara uses unused sake brewer’s cardboard and makes it into a sleek hand-made design notebook.

There are fourteen kinds of notebooks availabe on an ecommerce website, but shipment is limited to Japan for now. Shuzo-Meigara note can be a nice gift for friends who enjoy sake, and and it also helps promote the sake brewery. The traditional and powerful font of sake labels makes the notebook very unique and original.