My earliest exposure to sake was memorable though not very pleasurable. You see, the
Tatsumoto clan always hosted a New Year’s Eve party for my Mom’s co-workers
from Kahaluu Elementary School, Dad’s University of Hawaii football tailgate
crew and assorted “calabash” family in the neighborhood as well as my
grandparents. And just after the stroke of midnight, Ojiichan always insisted family members take a shot of sake heated in that gold anodized
aluminum teapot that I’m sure most Japanese families kept on their stovetop. And
the sake that Ojiichan heated probably was from that bottle Mom kept in the
pantry strictly for cooking purposes so it probably was months if not years
old… and heated to a point just below the sun’s surface temperature. So we
always had to take a shot of scalding, insipid sake just to prevent any illness in the New Year. Which is why I
never revisited sake as a beverage
again until I was well into adulthood.
Well, time moves on and things change. And though sake was only a fringe beverage back in
the 70s only found on the bottom shelf in gallon-sized bottles at the
supermarket usually marketed just to consumers born in the Motherland, it now
has a regular place alongside of Western wine. Just visit Marukai Wholesale
Mart and you’ll see that their sake
section is actually larger than the beer section. Or visit The Sake Shop in
Kaka’ako where Nadine and Malcolm Leong operate the only store dedicated only
to sake. Or simply look at the wine
list for any restaurant serving Asian or Pacific Rim cuisine and you’ll invariably
find various sake on their menu.
The Basics of Sake Production
For brevity’s sake (pun intended), I’ll oversimplify sake production. Short grain rice is
first milled or polished to remove the outer coating containing bran residue,
cereal germ, fat and protein to obtain a granule that’s mostly starch with a
little protein. The rice is steamed then inoculated with a koji starter consisting primarily of Aspergillus mold to break down the starch to simple sugars and
proteins to amino acids. More koji starter
is eventually added then more rice, yeast and water forming a mash or moromi with the yeast fermenting the
sugars produced by the koji molds
creating alcohol. The fermented mash is then filtered then bottled as finished
sake. Sometimes distiller’s grain alcohol is added before filtering to extract
more flavor compounds, sometimes the mixture is simply filtered without any
additional distiller’s alcohol. Often the mixture is completely filtered
producing a clear sake, sometimes
it’s lightly filtered producing a cloudy sake.
And the finished sake is usually
pasteurized, once or twice but sometimes there’s no pasteurization creating a nama sake.
Types of Sake
For starters, while you’ll still find the usual
supermarket brands of sake like Sho
Chiku Bai and Kiku Masamune readily available, most of the sake sold at specialty or wine stores are considered premium sake (accounting for about 25% of sake produced) and there are three basic
varieties. Starting with the most refined is daiginjo where at least 50% of the outer coating of the rice
granule must be polished off leaving just the inner primary starch core. There
actually are daiginjo sake that have granules polished down to
about 20% of their initial size and these sake
usually have an elegant, floral bouquet and are very refined on the palate.
Just below daiginjo are the ginjo sake that are required to have at least 40% of the outer coating
polished off though once again you’ll find many ginjo sake that exceed
the minimum standards and legally could be classified as daiginjo sake. Finally,
rice that has been polished at least 30% is classified as junmai and these sake
usually have the most umami qualities
as most of the protein in rice is found in the outer layers and the koji starter converts these proteins to
amino acids, namely alanine, arginine, glutamic acid and aspartic acid. Yes,
that same glutamic acid that’s in monosodium glutamate or the chemically
created umami. Because of the
pronounced umami qualities, I find
that while junmai sake isn’t considered as refined as daiginjo or ginjo sake, they pair
with the widest assortment of foods from seafood to beef and pork to vegetables
and even strong cheeses.
Sake also is
produced either with a small amount of brewer’s alcohol and these are termed honjozo or without any added brewer’s
alcohol and these are prefaced with junmai.
So sake produced with rice milled at
least 50% and no added brewer’s alcohol is a junmai daiginjo whereas sake
produced from rice milled at least 30% with added brewer’s alcohol is simply
called a honjozo sake.
WSET Level 1 Award
in Sake
For those who consider themselves a little more than sake enthusiasts and are interested in
formal education, the Wine & Spirits Education Trust or WSET, an
organization based in the UK offers formal education in wine, spirits and sake with network providers in more than
70 countries including the 50th. Therefore, I recently enrolled in
the Level 1 class taught by Young’s Market sake
educator Victor Huynh in collaboration with The Sake Shop. This half day
session went over the basic production of sake,
different sake classifications and
their Systematic Approach to Tasting SakeR (SAT) including sampling several
different styles of sake and
concluded with a 30 question multiple choice examination. If you achieve at
least a 70% score, you receive a diploma of your achievement along with a lapel
pin noting your Level 1 status in sake.
Of course, I’m already planning the next Level 3 which originally was slated for
August but since then was scheduled for September 17th through the 19th.
Since it is the Level 3 class, the written exam is both multiple choice and
short essay questions and it also includes blind tasting two different sake, and spans out over 3 days. I
intended on taking the Level 3 class but the day job called and said “nope, you
can’t take off of work on those days” so I’ll simply have to wait until it’s
offered again.
The Sake Shop
Run by husband and wife team of Malcolm and Nadine Leong,
The Sake Shop has been in their current location for almost the past year
though it took about a year to finally get relocated after the original
location off of King Street closed. But it was worth the wait as their current
location is a lot larger and has a separate room for WSET Level 1 classes or
private tastings. And of course, they stock the largest selection of sake in the state, all properly stored
in refrigerated units. And perchance you’re looking for a specific bottle of sake that you can’t find elsewhere
including The Sake Shop’s chill chests, simply ask Nadine or Malcolm if they’re
willing to place a special order for you – I asked about a bottle of Watari
Bune that I previously purchased over 10 years ago at Marukai but haven’t been
able to find since then. Nadine made a couple of calls with the distributor and
had an order piggy-backed on to a local restaurant’s order so I received my
special order within a couple of weeks.
The Sake Shop also hosts free sake tastings about once a month on Saturdays and the cost of
bottles that are sampled are usually reduced just on those Saturdays. Perfect
to sample before you actually have to make a purchase! Though whatever you
purchase, remember two of the tenets of sake;
store chilled and drink young! You see, sake
isn’t like western wine that’s meant for aging. So don’t hold on to your sake for that perfect special occasion
somewhere in the distant future. Unless you’re like me and every weekend is a
special occasion as sake is meant for
instant gratification!
The Sake Shop
575 Cooke St, Unit B
Honolulu, HI 96813
(808) 947-7253
Monday to Saturday 12:00pm – 8:00pm
Sunday 12:00pm – 5:00pm
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