In just about any educational material about sake, we read or hear that the main difference between premium grades of sake like ginjo-shu and regular non-premium sake is the milling of the rice. Specifically, for ginjo sake the rice has been milled much more, and down to a specified degree before brewing. The more the rice is milled, the higher the grade of sake. Short and sweet, and easy to remember. Yeppir.

While true, beneath the surface of that truth is another, and that is that rice milling is just the tip of the iceberg. In reality, there are a gazillion little things that are done differently in the processes used to make premium sake versus regular sake. At least a gazillion.

Of course, the milling is, in fact, very important. This removes the fat and protein that are found in the outer regions of the rice grains, leaving a higher ratio of starch, and leading to a more refined sake.

But how, beyond the milling, does brewing ginjo differ from brewing regular sake? Basically at every step of the process. Each step is done with increased attention to detail that adds a bit more quality with each successive step, leading to a significantly better sake in the end.

Concretely, what changes? For example…

Once the rice is milled, it is soaked and then washed to remove the clinging rice powder, and to adjust the moisture content. For cheap sake, the rice will be washed and soaked in fairly large vats and lots; that will get almost all the powder off and get the moisture content into the ballpark in a fairly efficient way.

Precision Soaking

But for ginjo brewing they wash the rice even more thoroughly, and soak in much smaller lots to attain uniformity of moisture across each grain in the batch, and also to get that moisture content to within a half a percent of target. While that was easy to write for me, it is not easy to accomplish. Do not let the significance of that precision be lost on you.

Doing that every single day to a ton or rice at one time takes skill, experience, and attention to detail. In fact, washing and soaking may be the one step where the difference is the most visible to us mortals.

And this lunacy continues with each step. Steamed rice for regular sake goes along a conveyor belt and cold air is blasted through it, but for ginjo, often it is spread out on straw mats to cool down slowly and naturally. The difference in the effort expended is huge. It is almost as if the sake gods conspired to ensure that the more hassle-laden the work is, the better the sake will be.

While less visible, koji-making is where it really gets nuts. Koji, that moldy rice that supplies enzymes for saccharification, as well as much so much flavor-augmenting amino acids, can be made using machines, and/or in huge-ass lots in which the moisture and temperature are not consistent throughout. But for ginjo, koji is often made in trays as small as 1.5 kilos, and then checked every two hours across the 48 or so hours it takes to make. Every. Two. Hours. This helps ensure that every single grain of rice sees the same temperature and humidity, and provides the same enzymatic power.

On to the yeast starter: Ginjo is usually made with different yeast strains, and in yeast-starter rooms that are kept much colder than average to thwart wayward bacteria from proliferating.

Next, fermentation itself. In short, regular sake is fermented in large tanks leading to large yields with large efficiency. Ginjo is always made in smaller tanks, as it is easier to keep the temperature consistent across the whole mash. With a huge tank, the temperature in the center of the mash will not be the same at the bottom, top or sides of the tank. Ginjo tanks will be jacketed too, with coolant running through those jackets at the flip of a sensor-driven switch to help keep temperature appropriately low no matter how warm or cold it is outside.

Extreme Method of Pressing: by drip

But wait! There’s more! Once fermentation is complete, the sake is pressed to remove the rice lees. This can be done in a handful of ways, some mundane yet good and some extravagant. You have likely surmised by now that ginjo is made using the much more extravagant, low-yield, hassle laden methods. Even when pressing by machine, a recent trend is to put the whole kit-n-kaboodle inside a refrigerated room to eliminate the activity of bacteria that can damage aromas.

Pasteurization for cheap sake is done roughly and quickly, with stability being the goal. Ginjo is pasteurized in one of a handful of methods each with a handful more variations that try to ensure stability but retain liveliness. Not only is the method important but the timing is paramount as well. For regular sake, such attention to detail is simply not justifiable.

Each one of these adds just a bit to the mix and that incrementally leads to better ginjo. And all of the explanations of each one of the steps above could have been expounded upon ad nauseum to further illustrate the point. But I figured readers have a few better things to read; and you all likely get the point.

Interestingly, all of this has trickled down to once lowly junmai-shu. In other words, the junmai-shu of today is brewed using the ginjo techniques described above, whereas a few decades ago it was more commonly brewed in basically the same way as cheap futsuushu (regular sake). The methods, tools, and attention to detail were the same as very cheap sake; only the milling of the rice and the addition of distilled alcohol were different.

As such, the junmai-shu of just a few decades ago rarely boasted the fine lines of distinction that much of today’s junmai offers. While it was hardly rough stuff, it was not nearly as smooth, genteel, lively or aromatic as the average junmai-shu today – which tends to push the ginjo envelope.

Gentle Pasteurization

Some less than optimal flavors and aromatics can be particularly pronounced in just-brewed sake; so a bit of maturity – like six months to a year – works wonders in mellowing and melding the various elements. Pasteurization also helps in taking the edge off. As such, the junmai of olde was rarely drunk young, or nama (unpasteurized). It just wasn’t enjoyable enough in that just-pressed state.

But these days, junmai-shu is much more light, aromatic, soft, refined and layered. In fact, of late, the term “fruity” lends itself to many a junmai-shu description. In particular, banana and melon. And much junmai – as well as ginjo – can now be enjoyed very soon after brewing, and as nama too. This evolution is a result of it being made much more like lofty ginjo-shu and daiginjo-shu, and less like plebian futsuu-shu.

Note, though, that not all brewers are making junmai-shu in these ginjo-esque ways. And there are increasingly glaringly obvious differences between the dos and the do-nots. But certainly the basic visible trend is that junmai-shu has approached ginjo-shu and left futsuu-shu behind.

In truth, it is not as clear cut as the above. Not all regular sake is made in the rough ways, and not all ginjo is made using every one of the precision-driven steps above. But in general, the differences are as laid out here.

Both junmai-shu styles and ginjo-shu styles (including daiginjo styles, i.e. “ginjo to die for”) have been evolving for 40 years, and will continue to do so. And that evolution will take place in countless small ways, mostly outside of the milling process. So yes, it is about the milling of the rice, but it is about so much more as well.

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Sake Professional Course

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Miami, Florida in September.

The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can read Testimonials from past participants here.

If you would like to make a reservation or to be placed on the notification list, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy@gol.com.

Men at Work at Rihaku Brewery

Certainly, change pretty much defines our world today, and the sake brewing world is not excepted from that truth. In particular, the changes within the sake world over the last 30 years in who actually does the brewing are pretty astounding.

There is one master brewer per brewery, and that person is called the toji. Almost always this was – and is – man, but currently perhaps 40 or 50 out of the 1100 or 1200 active kura have a toji that is a woman.

But long ago – and not so long ago – the toji in any given brewery was dispatched from his guild in the countryside. There were about 30 to 35 toji guilds across Japan long ago, although many of them are now defunct as their membership declined along with the number of breweries.

But back in the day, the toji was a seasonal employee. He may have worked at the same brewery every year for decades and decades, but each year was a new, one-year contract. Originally, the toji would receive a chunk of money from the brewery owner, and he would hire and pay everyone else, buy the rice, and just get the job done. That was not really a hard and fast rule, but even as recently as 30 years ago, most breweries in the industry were run by seasonally employed toji.

Slowly things changed. The need for year-round employment led to changes that included toji and brewing staff more commonly becoming year-round employees of the brewing company, replete with the benefits, like a paycheck in twelve rather than only six months of the year. When not brewing, other tasks could be handled, or hours could be seasonally juggled.

Another change included members of the brewery-owning family to take over the brewing themselves. Sometimes this was out of interest and passion, other times out of necessity. It is hard to run a small family business when all of the technical skill for creating your product is in the hands of someone that is but a seasonal hire, and not even a member of the family.

So what this led to is basically three genre of toji: those there are only seasonally employed toji from one of the guilds, toji that are year-round company employees, and toji that are family members. Note, too, that there is some overlap. Toji coming in from the countryside can be from the traditional guilds, but still be full-time employees (not just seasonal employees). And conversely, family members and local hires can be associated with one of the guilds in the boonies, for educational and informational exchange and support.

With that as the background, let us look at some very interesting numbers.

Thirty-two years ago, in 1986, 74 percent of the toji in the (then, much larger) industry were seasonal hires, not full-time employees. In 1996, a scant 10 years hence, that number had dropped to 62 percent. In 2006 it had dropped to 35.5 percent, and in 2016 it was down to only 16 percent of all breweries in the industry that had seasonally employed toji from the traditional guilds. Wow.

Note that this is not necessarily a bad thing; it is just … different. The industry is half the size of what it was back then, and the percentage of toji that are seasonal employees is a quarter of what it used to be. And whether or not a toji is seasonally hired or not has no direct influence on his or her skills, nor the quality of the sake. I’m just sayin’.

Looking at the other side of the toji coin, in 1986 only 12 percent of the toji in the industry had secure, year-round employment with the company. Sparing you the gory details of the decades in between, toji that are year-round full time employees went from that to 38 percent in 2016. And toji that are a member of the owning family went from a mere 14 percent in ’86 to a whopping 47 percent in 2016.

What this means, at a glance, is that almost half of the 1100 to 1200 sake breweries active today have family members in charge of the brewing operations.

Again, bear in mind there are several dynamics at work simultaneously, and that looking at the above number alone will not lead to any firm conclusion. One thing that has led to this is a very positive thing: the availability of reference material, education opportunities, and the infrastructure that allows almost instant communication. No longer does a brewery-owning family need to rely on an old codger from the boonies with a thick country accent. Just send the kids to brewing school, and keep in touch with friends running other breweries. That flow of information, and lots of patience and experience, is very commonly how sake is brewed in this modern era.

Nevertheless, it is interesting, and surely, there are at least a few out there that will feel a nostalgic pang at the decline and loss of the tradition-laden historical guilds, myself included.

Learn much, much more about toji guilds here.

For those that are interested, the brewery workers under the toji are called kurabito, the brewery-owning family and family members are called kuramoto, and the brewery itself is a kura or sakagura.

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The Sake Professional Course scheduled for April 23 to 25 in Brooklyn New York is full. Thanks to all those that signed up! The next one will be in Miami in September. If interested, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy @ gol.com. Learn more about the Sake Professional Course here.

Bad puns notwithstanding, readers may recall that when making sake, after the typically three-to-five week long fermentation period during which rice is dissolving in the tank, and the resulting sugar is converted to alcohol, the sake at that point will be a white liquid, basically pure sake and rice solids remaining from the process. The remaining rice solids, lees as it were, need to be filtered out before the sake is bottled.

This is, clearly, a filtration. But since there are other filtration steps later that remove color and rough flavors, many refer to this step as “pressing.” So the just fermented mash is pressed through a mesh to yield clear, fresh sake.

There are basically three methods of pressing: by modern machine, by traditional box press, and by dripping out of cloth bags. You can learn much more about these three methods here, here and here.

But in short, the machine does a great job, and easily more than 99 percent of all sake made is pressed using a machine. The box press takes more time and effort, and the drip press takes even more.

In short, as one goes from machine to box to drip, the intensity and expressiveness of flavors and aromas of the resulting sake increase. So does cost, appropriately so. But yields, however, decrease, which is also hardly surprising.

So going from machine to box to drip, the whole thing gets more extravagant. Based on this, one would naturally think that box pressed sake will in general be better than machine pressed sake, and drip pressed sake would in general be better than box pressed sake. So one would think that going from machine to box to drip is always better. But it ain’t.

Why not? Because things are never that simple in the sake world. Never.

In spite of the above caveat, yes, most of the time drip-pressed sake – called shizuku – is the best stuff available. Wastefully extravagant and quite impactful (sometimes even downright intense) in flavors and aromas. This is usually what is sent to contests.

And the box-pressed stuff, pressed by laying meter-long tubular bags of filled with fermented mash into a wooden box and pressing the lid into that box, is next best. But this method too takes a lot of effort. Machine pressed sake is by far the most efficient to make – just plug and play. And while this is simplest, it tends to be the most staid.

The two “better” methods take longer than the machine. And that means that oxygen has more time to interact with the sake.

However, in recent years, the use of modern yeasts that create highly volatile aromatics have skewed this logic, at least in the opinion of some brewers. One such brewer is the energetic and animated (read: study-in-contstant-motion) Kosuke Kuji of Nanbu Bijin in Iwate Prefecture.

Kuji-san uses a wide range of yeasts, but many of his sake make the most out of families of yeast that yield sake that are full of prominent apple, pineapple and licorice notes. These “modern yeasts” lead to sake that is full of esters which are quite volatile, in other words, they evaporate and disappear quickly in the presence of oxygen.

As Kuji-san puts it, “If you are going to use a modern yeast, sake like that is as good as it is going to get right out of the press. From that moment on, it begins to degrade in a long, slow downhill slide. So for sake like that, a machine is best, as it gets the job done quickly and with a minimum of oxidation. One can get it into a bottle quickly, and lock all that great aroma inside.”

He continues on to explain that more traditional yeasts, like No. 7 and No. 9, have less capricious and more placid aromatic compositions. They are less sensitive to oxidation, but at the same time extravagant methods like box or drip pressing sharpen and brighten the flavors and aromas created by the those more traditional yeasts.

“The more classic yeasts,” he expounds, “lead to sake that has fewer ostentatious aromas to lose initially, and unlike sake made using modern yeasts, they get better after just a little time has passed. So for those, the box and drip offer something tangible.”

Certainly this is just one brewer’s opinion. A very accomplished and experienced brewer to be sure! But of course there are those in the industry, just as accomplished and experienced, that may completely disagree. Who knows?

There is a bit of a spin-doctor inside every good sake brewer. And any given spin-sensei may simply not want to bother with a hassle-laden method, and so spins a reason why it is not as good as the easy method. Happens all the time. In truth, it isprobably not the case in this particulr case here, but even in a 1000 year-old craft like sake brewing, there are marketers and spin doctors.

More importantly, though, among the three main methods of separating the sake lees from the completed ambrosia, dripping is usually the best, box-pressing next, and the machine press does a fine, fine job as well. But there are various opinions. Pressing matters, indeed.

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The Sake Professional Course scheduled for April 23 to 25 in Brooklyn New York is full. Thanks to all those that signed up! The next one will be in Miami in September. If interested, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy @ gol.com. Learn more about the Sake Professional Course here.

No Sake Stone Remains Left Unturned!

Drink more what?

To open the last year of the second decade of the still-new millennium, I want to offer a somewhat bold suggestion. It may go against much you have learned about sake, but here it is: from here on out, drink more futsu-shu and honjozo. Not exclusively, mind you; just more.

I’m not issuing a challenge; it’s not like that. It is nothing more than an idea, a suggestion for this year, for those that have the willingness, and the means – as dictated by availability. Starting in 2019, drink more honjozo and futsu-shu.

As a quick, new-year’s review, amongst the handful of ways to “divide all sake into two groups,” one is tokutei meishoshu, or “special designation sake,” and the rest is, well, everything else, i.e. sake that does not qualify for a special designation. And since it does not qualify for one of eight special terms, it’s kind of just regular sake.

That “regular sake” is called futsu-shu, which means – not surprisingly – regular sake, and comprises between 60 and 65 percent of the market. As the sake market continues its rapid shift toward more premium products, futsu-shu consumption is dropping fast. Tokutei Meishoshu, or “special designation” sake, is “special” by virtue of how much the rice was milled before brewing, and further divided up by whether or not distilled alcohol was used. You can learn a bit more about the grades here, and with an at-a-glance version here.

Very often Tokutei Meishoshu is called premium sake. This is fine, and technically speaking it is basically true. This line has been drawn by the industry, and we need to make sake easily understandable and approachable the world. But such nomenclature automatically implies that anything not in the Tokutei Meishoshu club is non-premium, which implies it is not so good – and that is simply a misperception. Or at least, it’s just not that simple.

To cut to the chase, let’s just state it: there is plenty of good, very enjoyable futsu-shu out there. Lots. Sure, there are some dodgy ones in the market as well. But many kura brew simple, straightforward, unassuming, not ostentatious futsu-shu that is easy to drink and very reasonably priced.

Also, as we go up the arbitrarily ascending scale of Special Designation sake, the first one we come to is honjozo. Like futsu-shu, distilled alcohol has been added, but the allowed limits are much lower. However, honjozo also has a minimum milling rate that must be observed (70 percent), usually rendering it more refined and delicate. And like futsu-shu, there is a lot of really good honjozo out there. Tons of it. Lakes of it.

Honjozo is currently only about nine percent of the market now, but that market share is lamentably contracting very quickly, even more so than futsu-shu. Why is this? What is behind this rapid decline?

In my opinion, honjozo – which is, by the way, a full-fledged Tokutei Meishoshu – just has a bad rep. People misunderstand how enjoyable it can be, and miss its outstanding price performance. Consumers like things simple, and therefore tend to polarize things. So if someone wants to drink cheap sake, honjozo is passed over for futsu-shu. If someone wants to drink premium, just a few more coins will get them into the ginjo realm. So honjozo tends to get overlooked.

Regardless, what is important to bear in mind is that there are plenty of very good sake in each of these classifications, even though they are not the glitterati of the sake industry.

Often, we all tend to go right for the ginjo – and that includes this guy. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that. It is certainly closer to a safe bet, and it is the fastest way to get someone interested in sake – if not instantly hooked. But the truth, especially with sake, is never that simple. There is really just so much great futsu-shu and honjozo out there that is well worth exploring. And that is what I want to encourage in 2019.

But really, why bother? Ginjo is a safe bet, more easily available overseas, and the word is easier to remember, even. Why put out actual effort to drink less expensive, less ostentatious sake? Here are five reasons.

One, it will help you expand your sake horizons. The more variety you include in the repertoire of sake that you drink, the more you will learn about sake in general. If you drink only ginjo, or only junmai styles, you’ll not learn nearly as much as if you include a good dollop of honjozo and futsu-shu into the mix.

Two, by trying a wide range of styles, when you find the types and grades of sake you enjoy the most, you’ll enjoy them even more after having made the rounds and come back to them. Worded less romantically, your ginjo will taste better if you drink futsuu-shu and honjozo from time to time.

Three, there are tons of great honjozo and futsu-shu out there. Oodles and oodles of ‘em. Certainly they are not as ostentatious as much ginjo-shu – they’re not supposed to be. But they can be extremely enjoyable, quite tasty, and very well suited to simple, unfettered drinking sessions. I cannot emphasize this point enough!

And four, if you want to learn about a particularly brewery and what their sake-brewing philosophy is all about, drink their futsu-shu. Sure, ginjo is good. But ginjo flavor profiles tend to converge; futsu-shu maintains much more of the character of the individual brewery. So by tasting a brewery’s futsu-shu, you’ll learn much more about their approach to sake brewing.

There is that fifth reason too, albeit a less appealing one: you’ll help the industry. The overall industry is in decline, and that decline is led by futsu-shu and honjozo: they drop every year. Drinking more of them will help bolster the industry and help make it easier for us to enjoy our Tokubei Meishoshu from amongst the currently active 1200 or so brewers. The more of them we lose, the less we have to choose from. So we can help keep things interesting by enjoying more futsu-shu and honjozo from time to time.

So next time, at least for 2019, resist the urge to go straight for the ginjo. Tokutei Meishoshu is great; junmai and the four ginjo types are of course wonderful sake, and they deserve to be in the spotlight as they are. But bear in mind that sake that do not qualify for those grades are no less wonderful sake, and drinking a bit more of them – in particular futsu-shu and honjozo – can be enjoyable and worthwhile in so many ways.

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Sake Professional Course in Chicago
April 23 ~ 25, 2019

From Tuesday, April 23 to Thursday, April 25, 2019, I will hold the 30th North American running of the Sake Professional Course at the restaurant Sunda, in Chicago, Illinois. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries.

The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can learn more about the course here, see the daily syllabus here,and download a pdf here. If you are interested in being in the mailing list for direct course announcements, please send me an email to that purport.

Testimonials from past graduates can be perused here as well.

Al Gizzi likely never thought his legacy would live on in quite this way. And he surely never considered that he would be associated with sake. Al Gizzi does not even likely remember me.

Al Gizzi, or “Gizz-balls” as he was known behind his back in his less popular moments, was my high school football coach. He was also an English teacher, and his love for literature lent him a leaning toward alliteration that bled into his coaching efforts.

On that high school team, I was fortunate enough to have played offensive guard, where protecting the quarterback is paramount. When he drops back for a pass, we offensive linemen were taught by Coach Gizzi to take the impact of the defensive rush, and “give ground grudgingly,” referring to how we would slowly yield petite portions of the pitch, backing up to form a pocket from which the quarterback could find his receiver way down field. Give ground grudgingly. Succinct yet thorough, these words described our ideal movements perfectly.

Our team never went anywhere, although we did manage to finish a respectable 7-3, and my football career came to an abrupt if predictable halt upon my graduation from that esteemed institution. But Gizz-balls’ words have remained with me over the years.

What, pray tell, does this have to do with sake? By all means, read on.

As sake continues to grow in popularity, a handful of hitherto peripheral types of sake are getting dragged into the fringes of our collective attention. I am referring to things like sparkling sake, low alcohol sake, and even high alcohol sake. Then there are things like aged sake, kijoushu, taru-zake, and red sake. And, of course, there is that bane of my existence, sake cocktails. (It hurts my fingers to type those two words on the same page, much less in the same sentence.)

But, alas, when confronted with these less-than-orthodox types of sake out there, the handful of funky variations made using one whacky ingredient or method that surely has the toji of bygone years spinning in their graves, I have come to the realization that it is time to “Give Ground Grudgingly.”

Yes, it may be time for me to acknowledge that these types are out there, and that there may even be people that like them and want to drink them. With just a vestigial hint of a Grudge remaining, the time has come to Give Ground, recognize and even endorse these for the benefit of those that do or might enjoy them.

Why have I been so reticent to do this until now? A number of reasons, most of them centered around my intention to convey good, useful information about sake.

I am personally most fond of “orthodox” styles of sake. What is orthodox? Like, you know, regular stuff.

Fairly youthful, not sparkling, not cloudy, not red, not unusually high or low in alcohol, and not mixed with anything else. And there are plenty of these, from all walks of sake, including dry, heavy, sweet, light, aromatic, subdued, subtle, lively, soft, tart, thick, airy, smooth, textured and including every permutation of these and everything in between. There is such diversity within this realm of “normality” that it could never come to be considered mundane.

But as I pointed out, it is much, much more than just a matter of my personal preferences. It seems best to convey to those interested in sake just where the best of sake is to be found. And it tends to be more in standard sake than in the fringe-dweller sake.

Not that I am dissing these novel types. Not at all; really. It is all about enjoyment in the end, and if you like them, end of story. But if you want to know where the best of sake is to be found, the culmination of centuries of honed skills combined with modern technology, unique, artisanal sake, and if you want to enjoy sake that you know will be a viable product and part of the market as well as a dependable connoisseur product for years to come, drink the afore-defined orthodox stuff.

Actually, anomalies and variations are good, fine and useful. They keep the category interesting, let brewers push the envelope a bit, and ensure that in the sake world there is a little something for everyone out there. But it is important to have a firm grounding in orthodox stuff too. And it is important to keep such diversions just that: paths off of the main road of premium sake.

So indeed, creativity and innovation are cool and to be respected, and in fact are indispensable to the survival of anything. Which is one of the reasons I am giving ground grudgingly to their admittedly rightful place in the market.

Here is a rundown of the rogue types; hitherto offenders, henceforth contenders.

Sparkling sake

Perhaps the fastest growing of these new types, there are two main types of sparkling sake out there. One, like champagne, sees a secondary fermentation in the bottle. Another is made by jacking sake with carbon dioxide. Everything in the Universe has a price, and this includes bubbles in your sake. That price is paid from the coffers of flavor. Much of this sparkling sake has an alcohol content of about eight percent, yet others are up around 14 percent. To me, it generally tastes like spiked cream soda; it is just the size of the spike that differs. But admittedly cream soda has its appeal too, and sparkling sake can be very drinkable.

Red sake

There are several ways to make sake that is reddish in tint, a pigment that often approaches rose wine. Most common among the few of these that is exist is using red rice strains.

Low alcohol sake

A few brewers have come out with sake that is only eight to 12 percent alcohol, jacking up the acidity quite a bit to provide punch. The thinking is that some folks cannot handle a full 16 percent, so these products would appeal to them. The ones that are out there are, for the most part, balanced and enjoyable, if different from regular sake.

High alcohol sake

The newest of the brat pack here, there are a couple of sake with an alcohol content of 25 percent or more, even one at 38 percent. Note, these are NOT distilled. However, yeast cannot survive above 20 percent alcohol or so. So how do they do it? They freeze it, using one method or another, and take out the ice, effectively removing water and increasing the final alcohol content.

Kijoushu

This type of sake is made with some of the brewing water replaced by already-brewed sake. Often, kijoushu is also aged for several years. While enjoyable, it is markedly different from orthodox sake, and very little of it is made.

Aged sake

Known as koshu (old sake), or more formally and eloquently as choki-jukusei-shu (long term matured sake), something about saying that old sake is new smacks of an oxymoron. Aged sake is a topic that deserves much more attention that just these scant few lines here. Nevertheless, very little is made and available, hence its relegation to outlier status. It can, in fact, be delicious and interesting.

Taru-zake

Taru-zake is sake that has spent a bit of time (from hours to weeks or longer) in a wooden cask made of cryptomeria, or sugi, also called Japanese cedar. This gives it a very pronounced woodiness to the aromas and flavors, to the degree that often that is all one can perceive. Which is great, if you like it.

Nigori

Nigori-zake is in fact filtered, even though many like to call it “unfiltered sake.” But it is filtered with a coarser mesh that lets some of the rice solids through. Chewy and rich, but hardly refined, it is much more popular overseas than in Japan.

Sake cocktails

There are those in the mixology trade that insist that sake is a great cocktail ingredient. I wouldn’t know. ‘Nuff said.

This is just a handful of the myriad variations out there. Heck, I just had a kijoushu taruzake the other day that was outstanding. So, let me reiterate that I am not anti- anything. I am more simply for good sake and its spreading popularity. And with sake just starting to really catch on outside of Japan, it seems best to remember where the essence great sake can be found; this makes the variations that much more enjoyable.

And so, from here on out, the time has come to Give Ground Grudgingly to the various manifestations of sake that are out there. Hopefully this will help to form a pocket from which that diversely talented quarterback of the sake world, orthodox premium sake, can launch a perfectly timed and placed touchdown pass and win over the world.

Al Gizzi would be proud.

2017 National New Sake Compeition Report

In May, the 105th Zenkoku Shinshu Kanpyoukai was held in Japan. The official English name for this contest is the Japan Sake Awards, but the literal translation is much more descriptive if slightly unwieldy: the National New Sake Tasting Competition. It is the longest running competition of its kind anywhere in the world. Those interested can find more information in the archives of this newsletter (which go back to 1999!), in particular in the June or July editions for each year.

But to save you the hassle, here is a summary of the main points of this prestigious competition.

The sake submitted is not stuff you can normally buy, but rather daiginjo or junmai daiginjo made specifically for this contest. It is brewed to have a minimum of faults, but still seem unique and special. I often refer to it as “daiginjo on steroids.”

This year, 860 of Japan’s 1200 sakagura submitted an entry to the contest. Each company is allowed to submit one sake per brewing license, i.e. one per brewing facility owned. Some big companies own more than one facility so they would be permitted one for each.

Almost all of it is not junmai because using the added-alcohol step brings out more aromas and flavors. But this year, 156 of the 860 submissions were junmai, up from 139 a year ago. Clearly more brewers are interested in trying to win with junmai sake.

Koji being cultivated in small trays

Sake is tasted blind in round one, and about half (this year, 437 to be exact) make it to round two. They are then tasted blind again, and about half (this year, 242 to be exact) of these will be designated as gold, the rest that made it into the second round are designated as prize-winners (the term “silver” is not used, although the gist is the same).

This year, 242 won gold, and 215 won silver. While prestigious within the sake industry, it is not that commonly used in marketing as the average consumer has no idea this contest even exists.

For the seventh time in eleven years, and fifth in a row, Fukushima Prefecture won more golds than any other prefecture, and as has been the case for the past decade, the entire Tohoku region did very, very well. In fact, much more interesting than Fukushima – with all due respect to their accomplishments – was Miyagi, where 20 sake out of the 23 total submitted got gold! Two more got silver as well. This was an unprecedented result.

This year, brewers were whining that the Yamada Nishiki rice that is most commonly used for contest sake like this was not dissolving easily in the fermenting mash. This means tight flavor profiles with little flavor expressed. But this proved to not be too much of a problem, although flavor profiles seemed to vary quite a bit from region to region.

Much winning sake was on the sweet side, with extra glucose to balance out bitterness contributed by yeasts that give fruity aromas. This seemed especially true in Fukushima, and only slightly less so in Miyagi.

While the sake submitted is not usually sake desitned for the market, the flavors, aromas, styles and leading prefectures are a harbinger of where sake is currently headed. Therein lies the contest’s appeal.

There is so much to be said about this competition: the changes over the years, the remarkably-few-yet-still-there-to-some-degree politics, the history, the records, the reasons it came to be. Much of that can be dug up in the archives of this newsletter, (see the end of the newsletter for more on that) but more importantly it seems as though amidst today’s sake popularity, more brewers and consumers as well are showing an interest in this historically and culturally significant competition.

You can see the results in Japanese here and in English here .

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Sake Professional Course  in Denver, Colorado
August 28-30, 2017

From Monday August 28 to Wednesday August 30, 2017, I will hold the 27th North American running of the Sake Professional Course at the University of Denver, (Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality, Daniels College of Business) in Denver, Colorado. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries.
The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can learn more about the course here, see the daily syllabus here,and download a pdf here. If you are interested in being in the mailing list for direct course announcements, please send me an email to that purport.

Testimonials from past graduates can be perused here as well.

Old and new can co-exist

I recently shared a glass of sake or three with a brewer that is half my age. That itself ain’t saying much, getting up there as I am, but my real point is that he is clearly of the “changing of the guard” group of brewers in the industry. In other words, he is of the generation that has recently taken over that is chock full of new ideas.

And one of those is pasteurization. More specifically, there is a solid trend of pasteurizing sake only one time amongst many (young) sake brewers these days. To summarize the issue, sake is pasteurized by heating it to 65C or so to stabilize it. Leaving it unpasteurized (nama) leaves it susceptible to going bad. Pasteurizing it kills any suspect bacteria and deactivates the enzymes that would help feed them. If it is not pasteurized, it needs to be kept refrigerated to prevent the offending chemical reactions from taking place.

Usually this is done twice, once after brewing and before maturing for a few months, and once again after the maturing period is finished, just before bottling. However, either the first or the second can be avoided – and stability can be ensured – by either maturing in bottles so as to spare the sake exposure to the air, or keeping the sake cold during that maturation period. Either will work; so will both together.

Why bother? Because pasteurizing can in fact strip some character from the sake. The less you have to mess with it, the fresher it will be.

Basically. Yet, the other side of the pasteurization coin is that pasteurized sake can have more depth and resonance than nama (unpasteurized) sake. Some nama tastes and smells like nama – and not much else.

However, undoubtedly there is a trend toward pasteurizing only once rather than twice. And it seems more common in sake made by younger brewers with the willingness to try new things.

Still, the half-my-age-brewer in question is perhaps a bit more traditional than most. He is also technically very adept via both education at the Tokyo Agricultural University Brewing Studies department, and experience, having worked in a brewery his whole (short) life. He still pasteurizes his sake twice, knowing well that it does not need to detract at all from quality or liveliness if done properly. Also, his sake is a bit more solid and earthy than most, and therefore more tolerant of such handling. Or so I think.

And so, Half-my-age was at a conference of brewers, discussing quality and trends, run by a distributor of an outstanding lineup of sake that is not the least bit shy about sharing his opinions of how things should be, reality be damned. When Half-my-age described how he still pasteurized twice, Not-the-least-bit-shy retorted, “Hm. I didn’t know there were any sake brewers at all that still pasteurize twice!”

That must have smarted. Or rather, that would have smarted a bit to most, but Half-my-age has a temperament that lets it all roll off his back, and the confidence of one who with education and experience to know better. Not-the-least-bit-shy has neither.

His reply was, “If you keep the sake appropriately chilled for the months between pasteurizations, character and quality are one hundred percent maintained.” And he added, “one should repudiate nothing” in the sake world.

“Repudiate nothing.” That is something we would all do well to remember as we trek through the world of sake.

The above example with Half-my-age and Not-the-least-bit-shy is but one example about one small step of the brewing process. “Repudiate nothing” applies to any step in the process: new yeast versus old yeast, scales of operation, automation in brewing. It also applies to marketing methods as well. When something new comes along that holds promise, that does not automatically negate something old.

Of course, this goes both ways. Just because things have been done one way for a thousand years does not mean that a new way could not possibly better. Repudiate not the modern methods either.

Also, things cycle. What was old becomes new again. New ideas get tried, and reborn after some adjustment. Everything is valid; nothing should be discounted or rejected.

This is not a philosophical exercise; it is a very worthy effort. If we think that because a sake is made a particular way, be it yamahai or by a large brewer or using modern yeast, then it cannot possibly be good, or as good, or definitely taste a particular way, then we rob ourselves of potentially enjoying something special.

Certainly, not everyone will agree. There are those that will insist that only the old traditional ways, methods and styles are proper. And there will likewise be those that disdain anything older than a decade or so. But heed them not. Like all things sake, balance is the key. Nevertheless, to “repudiate nothing” will surely make sake more enjoyable for you.

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Sake Professional Course  in Denver, Colorado
August 28-30, 2017

From Monday August 28 to Wednesday August 30, 2017, I will hold the 27th North American running of the Sake Professional Course at the University of Denver, (Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality, Daniels College of Business) in Denver, Colorado. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries.
The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can learn more about the course here, see the daily syllabus here,and download a pdf here. If you are interested in being in the mailing list for direct course announcements, please send me an email to that purport.

Testimonials from past graduates can be perused here as well.

Announcing the establishment of the “awa Sake Kyokai”

On November 1 of last year, eight sake brewing companies formed the “ awa Sake Kyokai,” or the “Sparkling Sake Association.” On April 14, 2017, the awa Sake Kyokai had increased its membership to nine, and held its inaugural event in Tokyo.

With respect to the name: the word awa means foam, or bubbles. The official Japanese same keeps the word awa in English, with sake and kyoukai in Japanese. Furthermore the word awa is not capitalized. (Explaining this seemed better than just writing (sic) after the word awa. But I digress.)

The purpose of the group is to produce and promote high quality sparkling nihonshu. With the Olympics coming to Tokyo in a scant three years, the member brewers decided it would be good to have a type of sake that can be enjoyed in a toast much like a sparkling wine or Champagne.

Let us briefly look at the sparkling sake market as a whole, and then at the awa Sake Kyokai in more detail.

I have not found accurate numbers of how many sparkling sake products there are in awa sake kyokai certification mark

Japan right now, so the below is my own estimate. In truth, I doubt there are any hard stats, since sparkling sake is classified as sake, i.e. as far as the government is concerned, it is the same stuff. Still, I do have confidence in the numbers here, even if they are my own approximation.

There are 1200 breweries in Japan (1241 this year, to be exact.) Let’s say they average 20 to 25 products each, including seasonal variations. That is about 25,000 sake products in Japan. I think there are significantly less than 200 sparkling sake products on the market. So that means that sparkling sake, in terms of number of products, is less than one percent of the market. In terms of volume produced, it is way, way less than one percent.

The point is not to trivialize it; on the contrary, I do want to support the development of this sector of the sake world. However, it is important to point out that sparkling sake is not to the sake world what sparkling wine and champagne are to the wine world. Not even close.

Also, note that there are a handful of ways to make sparkling sake. It is legal to just pump regular sake with carbon dioxide, and fast and easy as well. As such, a good number of sparkling sake products are made in this way. It is also common to leave some sugar in the sake after pressing, and add a bit of the yeast-laden foam back into the bottle to do a secondary fermentation in the bottle, trapping the gas inside. There are variations and other methods as well.

Back to the awa Sake Kyokai, even though there are plenty of producers making sparkling sake, there are only nine members. While there are likely several reasons for this (some of which are beyond the scope of this newsletter), certainly one is the strict set of conditions to which sake made under this banner must comply.

Those conditions are:

1. Made with rice, rice koji, and water, and conforming to the legal definition of nihonshu.
2. Made with rice that has passed legal quality inspection.
3. Contains only naturally occurring carbon dioxide resulting from fermentation.
4. Transparent in appearance, with visible bubbles when poured.
5. Minimum ten percent alcohol.
6. Minimum pressure of 3.5 bar at 20C

Also, a further stipulation is that the flavors and aromas must remain stable for at leaest three months in the bottle.

So many products on the market do not meet one or more of the specifications above an so will not be marketed under the awa Sake Kyoukai organization’s efforts. It might be alcohol that is not high enough, cheap rice, methods that do not comply, or added fruit flavors (legally rendering them something other than sake) or more. In fact, there are many well known, well marketed and very visible sparkling sake that are not a part of this organization. Which is fine.

The nine breweries are: Tenzan, Hakkaisan, Chiyomusubi, Shichiken, Nanbu Bijin, Mizubasho, Kikuizumi, Fukumitsuya and Dewatsuru. The current chairman is Noriyoshi Nagai, president of Mizubasho. Some of these breweries have more than one conforming product available, while two do not yet even have a conforming product on the market. More members as well as more products from those members can be expected.

While there are various opinions on sparkling sake overall, it is a real and fast growing sector of the sake market and should be encouraged. Note, too, that relatively little sparkling sake is being exported. A bit is, to be sure, and that bit is growing. Certainly the efforts of the awa Sake Kyokai will help that.

While it may or may not rival champagne in the future, the sparking sake sector is bubbling up, and likely to come to a head at some point in time. At least, it is certainly moving in a positive direction.

What it is, and how much it’s used

If you have gotten this far – getting to this blog – then you surely know that sake is made from rice. So let’s start with that base assumption. No other fermentable material is used: no sugar, no grains. But much changes in the sake world, which is not always so proactive in presenting information to begin with. So let’s look at a handful of fun and interesting observations about rice and how it is used in the sake world.

First of all, there is sake rice and then there is everything else, rice-wise. Sake rice is known as shuzo koteki-mai, or less officially, sakamai. Often, regular rice is referred to as table rice. Shuzo Koteki-mai is a legal definition, i.e. there are officially registered sake rice varieties; not just any rice that aspires to it can in fact be a sake rice. There are physical differences.

Just about four percent of all rice grown in Japan is sake rice. And this is split across about one hundred varieties. About. It goes up and down a bit each year as new ones are tried and old ones fall off the list. And, much like grapes, if you know about a dozen, you are amongst most cognoscenti. But in truth, knowing about half that number will serve you well in eighty percent of premium sake situations you encounter.

But here is the thing: most sake is actually not made from proper sake rice.

Looking at the breakdown of the sake market, about 35 percent is considered premium, which means it qualifies for a special designation. What special designations would those be? Honjozo, junmai-shu, and the four types of ginjo. The remaining 65 percent does not qualify for those terms, and that 65 percent is considered just regular sake. Note, much of it is very enjoyable! ‘Tis not to be dissed, at least not outright. But the point here is that this 65 percent of all sake produced is not made with sake rice, but rather run-of-the-mill table rice.

However, almost all premium sake is made using sake rice. Doing so leads to much better sake with much less effort. Note, however, that this is not a law or even a rule. It is not at all obligatory to use sake rice for any sake, not even lofty daiginjo.

Why would a brewer not do so? Simple: cost. Sake rice is two to three times more expensive than normal rice, especially after some special rice-pricing breaks the distribution system allows sake brewers to utilize. So cost is huge. Another reason could be availability. In a low-yield year, there just might not be enough good sake rice to go around.

But for all intents and purposes, premium sake is in fact made using proper sake rice, whereas cheap sake generally is not.

As mentioned above, sake rice and table rice are physically different. Sake rice is larger: the grains themselves and the plants as well. Sake rice has more starch, and less fat and protein. Starch becomes sugar; sugar becomes alcohol. So more starch is good. You can eat sake rice, but that extra fat and protein make table rice taste better.

Sake rice also has those desirable starches physically located in the center of the grains, with fat and protein around that, near the surface. This makes it easy to mill away the outside of the grain and take that fat and protein away, leaving starch behind.

It is harder to grow, or at least to grow well. It calls for more effort and specific climactic conditions. And all these factors combine to make sake rice more expensive as well.

As mentioned above, there are about 100 varieties of sake rice registered. About. The most commonly encountered – and widely considered the best – is Yamada Nishiki. Other names to learn and remember are Gohyakumangoku, Miyama Nishiki, Omachi, and Hattan Nishiki. There are many more, but this small sampling will be found in much of the sake you enjoy. Still, you will encounter dozens of others if you pay attention to such things.

Rarely are they blended. Most often a given sake is made with one rice only. There are, of course, exceptions. One such exception is that sometimes Yamada Nishiki is used for the koji (the 20 percent of all the rice in a given batch that has enzyme-producing mold propagated onto it) since koji exerts the most leverage on the nature of the sake. A less expensive sake rice can be used for the remaining 80 percent, onto which the mold is not grown.

This method walks that fine line of quality and cost control, and walks it nicely. But again, it is not so commonly done. You could say that those that do it are going “against the grain.” (Sorry.)

An important concept related to sake and rice is that the choice of rice does not affect the final flavor and nature of the sake in quite the same way that the choice of grape might affect the nature and flavors of a wine. Yes, the choice of rice is very important. And yes, different rice varieties do lead to flavor profiles that can be associated with them – in general. But two toji (master brewers) can take the same rice, milled to the same degree, and make totally different sake in every way.

How? By creating the koji differently, or through the choice of yeast, or fermentation temperature or time in the tank. There are dozens of options at every step of the brewing process, and those choices hugely affect the nature of the sake. More so than the choice of rice? Perhaps; perhaps not. It depends on who you ask.

But using proper sake rice – and carefully selecting the right one for the job – is still a massively leveraging and important aspect of making great sake. Why? Because good sake rice allows a toji to express his or her skills through the sake. Proper sake rice lets the toji do his or her best work. It is predictable in how it behaves, and just which one is best depends on the style of sake, the region, and the experience of those that will handle it.

There is much, much more to be said about sake rice. There are trends, economics, politics, developments, history, culture and climate changes. Nothing ever sits still in the sake world.

But we can. We can sit still and enjoy the sake in front of us. That’s all we really need to do: enjoy sake. However, should it interest us, we can also begin to pay attention and take notes about rice types and the lore that surrounds each. It certainly enhances sake enjoyment.

Sake Professional Course in San Francisco, April 3 ~ 5, 2017

From Monday, April 3 until Wednesday April 5, I will hold the first Sake Professional Course of 2017 at Bentley Reserve in San Francisco. If interested, for more information please send me an email at sakeguy@gol.com. “No sake stone remains left unturned” in this very comprehensive course. Learn more here.

Note to readers: Just a few days after this newsletter was sent out, the government finished its open hearing, and it became official: Yamagata Sake has been granted bona fide Geographical Indication, the first entire prefecture to do that in the sake world. Congratulations to them!

The Sake of Yamagata Prefecture
…and its move toward bona fide Geographical Indication

Several years ago, in July of 2014, the Yamagata Prefecture Sake Brewers’ Association began the process of securing a designation of their sake as a Geographical Indication recognized by the World Trade Organization and various international treaties. In order to qualify for something like this, a product (any product applying for a GI) must possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin. Securing such a designation gives the region and its producers the exclusive right to an appropriate indication on the label.

Japan’s National Tax Administration (“NTA”), the branch of the government overseeing sake, opened a public hearing on the topic on October 19 of this year. It was not made clear how long this stage will take, but assuming it does pass smoothly, Yamagata Sake will come into existence as a bona fide Geographical Indication (GI) for sake. One more region in Japan, the city of Hakusan in Ishikawa Prefecture, has qualified for a GI for the sake of that region. However, it only applies to the five breweries in city of Hakusan; the rest of the breweries in Ishikawa Prefecture are unaffected. Yamagata Prefecture will be the first entire prefecture to secure this distinction.

This will follow the NTA’s designation of “Japanese Sake” and “Nihonshu” for sake brewed in Japan, which were recognized December 25, 2015. In total, there are currently seven alcoholic beverage GI designations in Japan, other five applying to wine or shochu. Yamagata would be the eighth.

Once complete, the Yamagata Brewers’ Association will oversee things, and indications are that they will create a graphic image indicating the Yamagata GI for use by the 51 brewers in the prefecture.

Here is a bit more about the sake of this great region.

Yamagata prefecture lies packaged at a somewhat awkward angle in the lower left-hand corner of the Tohoku region. Surrounded by mountains but with a stretch open to the Japan Sea, it looks like it was designed specifically to absorb the cold and snow.

There are at present 51 sakagura brewing in Yamagata. The oldest of these dates back to the Japanese “Warring States” era of long civil war, while the youngest can trace their roots to the beginning of the Edo period. Even the new kid in town is an old and dignified character.

Most of these are smallish, traditional kura. While there are a couple of large-ish brewres, automation and computers, for all their cons, pros, advocates and foes in the brewing world, are certainly not unheard of up here, but they seem to be the exception and not the rule.

Those mountains and that big pond seem to have kept things all in the family for a good number of centuries. A great deal of the sake consumed in Yamagata is made there, and a comparatively small amount of what is brewed there leaves the prefecture, oh pity of pities.

To the southwest lies Niigata in all its brewing glory, and not too far to the northeast sits Iwate. Both prefectures are the home of a “toji ryuha,” or guild of master brewers, known as the Echigo Toji and Nanbu Toji respectively.

Despite this proximity to easily accessible experience, Yamagata has long handled things by themselves. In other words, the master brewer at most of the kura inYamagata are not from the major guilds in the nearby regions, but rather were “raised” inside the prefecture.

There is great cooperation amongst the kura in Yamagata with respect to education and training of these “home-grown toji.” In an interesting contrast to the sake-brewing sphere of most prefectures, ninety percent of the “kurabito” (brewery workers) are indigenous Yamagata locals. This spares them the long winters far from home historically so common among the brewing staff of the sake industry. Furthermore, there are a great number of kura not even adhering to the semi-feudal toji system.

The climate is ideal (read: cold and snowy) for brewing. Sake-slaying bacteria don’t exactly thrive at these temperatures. What does thrive, however, are several strains of wonderful sake rice that almost seems to challenge and sneer at the harshly cold weather. Much of the sake brewed here is made with such fine sake rice strains. These include Miyama Nishiki, Kame no O, Dewa Sansan, Dewa no Sato, and a handful of other Yamagata-only sake rice types as well.

The type of sake found here is in general relatively light and clean, often (but not always) with a good sturdy acid presence. But perhaps more than any other prefecture, much of the sake here seems to have an abundance of personal character and individuality. There seems to be plenty of uniquely distinct yet almost magically balanced sake. Having said that, the term that the prefecture promoted and that the NTA embraced in defining the qualities associated with the sake of the region was やわらかくて透明感のある酒質, yawarakakute tomeikan no aru shushitsu, or “sake with softness and clarity.”

The Brewers’ Association web page, found here and only in Japanese, refers to the region as “Ginjo Okoku,” or “The Empire of Ginjo-shu,” alluding to the extremely high ratio of sake brewed there that is ginjo-shu, especially when compared to that of other prefectures.

On the whole, the prefecture is active in continuing to improve their skills and the quality of their product. There are several strains of Yamagata-only yeast, as well as a special strain of koji developed in the region as well.

All of this combines to make Yamagata Prefecture a leader amongst the six prefectures of the Tohoku region, the northeastern part of Japan that has garnered great attention in the sake world over the last decade or so.

The granting of Yamagata Sake as a bona fide GI will certainly further the region’s efforts to convey to the rest of the world just how good their sake is.

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Sake Professional Course in San Francisco, April 3 ~ 5, 2017

From Monday, April 3 until Wednesday April 5, I will hold the first Sake Professional Course of 2017 at Bentley Reserve in San Francisco. If interested, for more information please send me an email at sakeguy@gol.com.