Sake - it’s saccharific!
Let me preface this post by saying something obligatory about sake. I know it isn’t “wine.” People call it “rice wine,” but sake ingredients and manufacturing processes are quite different from winemaking ingredients and processes. Still, sake has alcohol in it, so I think it’s okay to talk about it here. Also, I like sake and this is my blog, so buckle up.
I have consumed more sake than normal lately, in part because I got a bottle of my favorite sake as a birthday present. Ken, my favorite sake, is fragrant and delicious, and I usually cough up the $10 per glass to have some at Nishino. But when you can get an entire bottle (720 ml compared to 750 ml in a wine bottle) and enjoy Ken at home…well, that’s just lovely. It turns out that my WineKeeper “Keeper” works out just fine for big bottles of sake, so I am able to keep my Ken preserved and cold until I’m ready to have some.
But what is sake, exactly? I’ll use Ken as an example. Ken is a dai ginjyo sake, which means the rice is polished to within an inch of its life: 50% or more, to be exact. Every grain of rice contains starch, protein, oil, and other stuff. The polishing (or milling) process removes these external elements of the rice grains, leaving behind a purer, starchy bit of rice. At least that is my understanding of the process after reading a bunch of vague sources. But trust me, you don’t want to taste albumin and lipids in your cup of sake.
First-class sake is served chilled or possibly as warm as room temperature, but never hot. Imagine serving hot Chateau d’Yquem in a mug. Not quite what the French had in mind, I suspect. Sure, mulled wine is good, but you would never boil really good or expensive wine. I hope. If you do, remind me not to come over to your house for dinner. Anyway, the point is that hot sake is usually tasty, but it’s not the best grade of sake available.
As I said earlier, sake shares little in common with wine. One big difference between the two is something you might not have heard of before: Aspergillus oryzae. The Japanese call this stuff “koji.” Technically a mold, this little fungus is responsible for the “saccharification” process that occurs when people brew sake. This is the process by which the starch in the rice is converted to sugar, which is then converted to alcohol thanks to the sake yeast that is added soon after saccharification. Multiple fermentations occur, another key difference from the winemaking process.
In the end, sake is really a combinaton of rice, koji, water, and yeast. Sometimes small amounts of alcohol are added into the final blend or bottling of sake to enhance the aromas. I think sake is a fascinating form of alcoholic refreshment, and it’s certainly one of my drinks of choice when I eat Japanese food. It goes well with other foods too, but I typically drink good old-fashioned wine with other national cuisines.
So how does really good, chilled sake taste? It’s really damn good. For example, Ken smells of apricots and cherry blossoms, among other delicate bouquet elements. The taste is ethereal: The flavor shifts to match the food you happen to be eating at the moment. On its own, Ken is quite good, but it certainly tastes best when paired with food.
As another example, I recently shared a bottle of Mu (”nothingness”) with some friends over dinner. This sake is sweeter than Ken, with a slightly more pronounced flavor profile. Sake is measured in terms of its sweetness or dryness; in the industry, they use a scale from about -20 (very sweet) to about +10 (very dry), but the ends of the scale are somewhat arbitrary. Ken is probably a +1 or +2, maybe, straddling the line between sweet and dry nicely. Mu is a +2 so it’s also not as dry as some other types of sake, such as Harushika or Katana. I prefer the slightly sweet and slightly dry types of sake when I eat sushi.
The next time you find yourself at a good Japanese restaurant, and if you’re in the mood for something different, I recommend trying a chilled junmai dai ginjyo. It’s worth the cost, although if you want something cheaper I recommend Kurosawa sake. It’s a good standby and you can find it for about $20-$25 in stores.