One of the eminent beliefs of the Booze Whisperer is that life is too short to drink the same thing over and over. Exploring wonderful new beverages regularly is extremely rewarding and one of life’s greatest pleasures. With this in mind, I’m writing about sake – Japan’s most treasured beverage (along with cha – green tea).
I must admit I’m a novice in the field of sake – having mostly tried low quality heated varieties served at Japanese steak houses. While some may view a lack of expertise as a bad thing – I relish
my current relationship with sake as each and every bottle provides me with a new, unexpected adventure. As such, a whole new world is being opened up to me. Japan was closed off from the West for centuries before an adventurous American admiral, Matthew Perry (no relation to the Friends actor) finally opened up Japan to the West.
From my novice perspective, let me give a brief history of the beverage. Sake is a very old tradition in Japan, but nobody knows exactly when people started brewing it (it is brewed). References to sake appear several times in the Kojiki – Japan’s earliest written history (compiled in 712). Earlier Chinese texts describe drunken Japanese revelries and these benders are most likely attributed to sake. What is more important is that sake is the alcoholic beverage of samurai and ninja during the glorious era of Feudal Japan and remains the iconic Japanese contribution to the world of alcohol. How many other beverages can claim a history that includes samurai and ninjas?
And now some quick tips for your sake. High quality sake should not be heated up – that is okay for a nice warming sensation with low quality brews, but the good stuff should be chilled when served. There are two types of sake: Futsū-shu 普通酒 and Tokutei meishō-shu 特定名称酒. The first is the equivalent of table wine and is lower quality stuff that you can heat. The latter is the good stuff that should be enjoyed the way one would enjoy a fine wine. These are special designation sakes and need to contain a certain percentage of high quality Koji rice and have a certain percentage of polished rice utilized (I’ll spare you the technical details here.)
Needless to say, there are a plethora of designations within the realm of high quality sake. For your first experience, I would recommend a Junmai Daiginjō-shu 純米大吟醸酒, Daiginjō-shu 大吟醸酒, or Junmai Ginjō-shu 純米吟醸酒. These are all great examples of fine sake.
In terms of individual producers, I have tried Kurosawa and Mu. Both were excellent with Mu coming in a beautiful blue bottle and being slightly more refined while Kurosawa came in a very cool box at a slightly better price. Both are great entries into quality sake with prices around $20 to $25.
One final tip before you set out on your Japanese sake adventure – good sake does not improve with age. Quality and freshness are everything, so aim to purchase from better retailers or people who seem generally interested in sake (instead of placing it on that shelf with all the other freak wines).
Kampai! (Cheers in Japanese!)
