With the arrival of May, we're eager to celebrate the end of those April showers, an all new #GGBookClub, and Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We are extra stoked to highlight some of our favorite authors and producers whose heritage is rooted in 75 countries throughout Asia, as well as the Pacific Islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, and who share that rich heritage with people around the world. Geonbae!

Excavations by Hannah Michell
Eigashima Shuzo Akashi White Oak Blended Japanese Whisky

A journalist turned stay-at-home mother, Sae is waiting for her husband, Jae, to come home from work when she learns of a horrific disaster – the collapse of a massive skyscraper where Jae is an engineer. Days pass full of speculation of North Korean terrorism and structural instability as possible causes of the Tower’s collapse. When things start to not add up, Sae leaves the children with her estranged mother, and sets out to uncover the truth of what happened to her husband. Blended in the Scotch tradition, with Japanese precision using malt and grain whiskies, this wonderfully soft, lighter style whisky offers notes of vanilla, warm spices, and toasted cereal.

Oh My Mother! By Connie Wang
Hobo Wine Company Parts & Labor Red 2022

In Chinese, the closest expression to ‘oh my god’ is ‘wo de ma ya’. It’s an interjection, a polite expletive, something to say when you’re out of words. Translated literally, it means oh my mother—the instinctual first person you think of when you’re on the cusp of losing it, or putting it all together. In each essay of this hilarious, heartfelt, and pitch-perfectly honest memoir, journalist Connie Wang explores her complicated relationship to her stubborn and charismatic mother, Qing Li, through the “oh my god” moments in their travels together, while also revealing another story: the true story of two women who finally learned that once we are comfortable with the feeling of not belonging—once we can reject the need to belong to any place, community, census, designation, or nation—we can experience something almost like freedom. Designed to make the most of any occasion, Parts & Labor 2022 delivers notes of brambly strawberry, olives, and peppery spice. 

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
Tozai Living Jewel Junmai Sake

History is told by the conquerors. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now. Will Chen plans to steal them back. A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son who has always been his parents’ American Dream. But when a mysterious Chinese benefactor reaches out with an impossible job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago. His crew is every heist archetype one can imag­ine, with their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans. Tozai Living Jewel is a light and easy drinking sake, named after Japan’s colorful koi fish that represent good fortune and have earned the nickname “living jewels.” It has delightful notes of citrus, white pepper, and fresh herbs. 

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Oka Brand ‘Little Sumo’ Junmai Genshu Sake

Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady, who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to. Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand is a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer. This easygoing sipper packs stunning notes of melon, plum, Asian pear, and almond, in a small package.