Sake

Rain

I'm looking to pick some up this weekend. Anyone have any info they can give me? I've only read a little bit about it..kind of confused about sweet/dry and if you have to heat it up or not.

Rob1110

This is one alcohol I've only dabbled in and need to do more experimenting with. Actually just bought a few new bottles the other night. Sake is a Japanese Rice Wine (although it does not have to be produced in Japan - word on the street is that there will be a Sake brewery opening up in NH pretty soon), fermented with a specific strain of yeast to Sake production. It can vary from sweet to dry, filtered to unfiltered, served hot or cold.

Traditionally, good Sake is served slightly chilled, while cheaper, less flavorful Sake would be served warm or hot. Sweet Sakes can be cloudy/unfiltered, leading to a slightly chalky mouth feel. Generally not as sweet as a Port or Ice Wine, they will have more tropical fruit notes and a bit of an alcohol bite. Dry sake can run from earthy and slightly grassy to floral with tropical fruit notes and the good brands will typically have a very clean, crisp finish.

As far as brands, I'd recommend starting with Momokawa, simply because they're widely distributed, nice packaging, reasonably priced and a respectable product. They also offer Sake in each category with a little sweet-to-dry scale on the back of each bottle. Their diamond is the driest of them, while the Pearl is their sweet offering.

Wish I could be more help here but I'm still learning with this stuff.

Cheers!

Rain

This is great! Thanks a lot. I would have bought a sweet one, I'm looking for as little burn as possible.

[Deleted User]

I will get you some information. We did a sake event a few months ago and everyone had to bring a bottle. One of those bottles was almost like maple syrup and it sounds like that taste is what you're after. Give me a few to dig it up sir.

webmost

Rob1110:

Traditionally, good Sake is served slightly chilled, while cheaper, less flavorful Sake would be served warm or hot.

I don't buy that. Traditionally, it's served hot. In a tea pot, in fact. The deal is that hot saki goes straight to your brain. It's all about rapid inebriation. Try it both ways and you will see.

Rain

webmost:

Rob1110:

Traditionally, good Sake is served slightly chilled, while cheaper, less flavorful Sake would be served warm or hot.

I don't buy that. Traditionally, it's served hot. In a tea pot, in fact. The deal is that hot saki goes straight to your brain. It's all about rapid inebriation. Try it both ways and you will see.

Well I don't have a little sake cup set..so..haha.

Rob1110

Do some research and think about it a bit. Yes, hot will enter your blood quicker and will have a quicker effect. If you're looking to enjoy Sake, serve it chilled. Cheap Sake was served warm to bring out the flavors and to warm people up on cold nights. High quality Sake would be served slightly chilled to dull the alcohol and allow the drinker to appreciate the subtle flavors.

If someone hands you two bottles of red wine, one goes for $100, the other goes for $7, which one are you going to use to make your Sangria or Mulled (spiced) Wine? I hope you wouldn't use the expensive bottle.

Rob1110

http://www.sake-world.com/html/hot-or-cold.html

jgibv

Rob, you seem to know your drinks pretty well brother. I gotta say I'm impressed by your knowledge.



But sake, I don't know squat about it.

Last time I had it was at a little place in NYC on 34th St.(?) The wife (at that time she was only the GF) was out there doing an internship one summer during college. I flew out on a Friday afternoon got checked in at the hotel, and she was going to leave work early that day whenever I got in.
My hotel wasn't more than a couple blocks from her monstrosity of an office building so I called her up said I was at the hotel, she said to come on over to her office, she'd leave in a minute and meet me out front. It was a big a$$ skyscraper, she was on the 50 something floor, and there were still floors above her, I don't do heights ... could not do that everyday, it would freak me out.
But anyways, she finally made it down and my hotel was one direction, her apartment was the other. Her place was a bit of a hike in Ohio distance, but in NYC distance it was "close", too close to take a cab she told me. I was tired but I'd been sitting on a plane and in a cab all afternoon and it was a nice day out so we figured we'd walk to her place, she could change and we could figure out what we'd do the rest of the day.
On the way there we both started to get hungry, and figured let's stop and get a drink for happy hour and get something to eat. So we stopped at this real small Asian "fusion" restaurant, it had maybe 15 tables, max. And we were about the only people in there because it was the middle of a Friday afternoon, too late for lunch but almost too early for happy hour.
I had a few beers, she had a few cocktails, we had a couple appetizers and I think a sushi roll or two .... we were talking about trying sake but neither of us knew squat about it and had even less of an idea about what would be good. So I said let's ask our waiter next time he comes back on what he'd recommend ---- well I don't know if he overheard our conversation, or if he was just being nice since we were the only folks in there at this point and had a pretty $$ tab going ... but he brought us a pot/kettle of hot sake, with two glasses before we could even ask him for a recommendation! Awesome!
I couldn't tell you what brand it was or even what it tasted like but I remember I did not like it being hot like tea, since it was a pretty warm afternoon. It was quite a shock after drinking cold beers up to this point --- but I powered through it and drank a couple shots worth since the waiter was nice enough to bring it. And my wife tried it, but she did not like it at all, I thought she was going to spit it out. But for some reason, she thought that if she mixed in some soy sauce with it it'd taste better...not so much, I remember that making it worse.
Anyways, we got the bill and they had comped us the sake --- it was probably the low end stuff, but hey it was cool they did that and worth trying.
I gotta try it again sometime, make sure I order a kind that's not served hot though.
Cool little restaurant, don't remember the name but if you're ever in NYC you gotta check them out, if my memory serves me correctly they're on the north side of W 34th, not too far from a church,, I think.

[Deleted User]

Going in order of bottles drank - We did not pair this with anything
http://www.truesake.com/sakes/DG21_Chokaisan_.php"

We paired this with Sashimi and White Fish
http://www.truesake.com/sakes/JH36_Aramasa_Rokugo.php

We paired this with Sashimi and White Fish
http://www.truesake.com/sakes/JG26_Kokuryu.php

This is the desert and super sweet sake I mentioned.
http://www.truesake.com/sakes/SP01_Hanahato_Kijoushu.php

Rain

Thanks for all of the info guys. I'm just gonna dive in and figure it out on the way!

Heavy

All I know is that I knock back whatever they continue to bring me at the sushi joint and a few hours later I float out of the place on a soft and wonderful cloud of ****. Hope that helps :-)

Rain

Heavy:

All I know is that I knock back whatever they continue to bring me at the sushi joint and a few hours later I float out of the place on a soft and wonderful cloud of ****. Hope that helps :-)

THIS is what I want!!!!

xmacro

Heavy:

All I know is that I knock back whatever they continue to bring me at the sushi joint and a few hours later I float out of the place on a soft and wonderful cloud of ****. Hope that helps :-)

What size cups are we talking here? A or C?

On-topic: Great info, thanks Rob! Never knew anything about sake beyond the Gekkeikan they sell at grocery stores, but always wanted to break into it and try the better stuff. Will give that Momokawa for sure

Bigshizza

Rain:

Heavy:

All I know is that I knock back whatever they continue to bring me at the sushi joint and a few hours later I float out of the place on a soft and wonderful cloud of ****. Hope that helps :-)

THIS is what I want!!!!

That's all I ever need!!

Heavy

Bigshizza:

Rain:

Heavy:

All I know is that I knock back whatever they continue to bring me at the sushi joint and a few hours later I float out of the place on a soft and wonderful cloud of ****. Hope that helps :-)

THIS is what I want!!!!

That's all I ever need!!

LOL ain't that the truth. Sorry to derail a thread with some great info with my otherwise useless post, however truthful it may be :-)

Thanks for the info Rob and all who posted above. I'll keep this thread in mind if I ever explore sake more. But seriously, drinking whatever they bring me at the sushi joint is probably about as deep as I'll delve into sake - that's the only time I think about drinking it.

Amos_Umwhat

webmost:

Rob1110:

Traditionally, good Sake is served slightly chilled, while cheaper, less flavorful Sake would be served warm or hot.

I don't buy that. Traditionally, it's served hot. In a tea pot, in fact. The deal is that hot saki goes straight to your brain. It's all about rapid inebriation. Try it both ways and you will see.

This is the way I learned it. Haven't drank much and know even less, all I know is that's the way I've always had it, and I love it that way with hot tea and japanese sea-food.

Rain

Picked these up for about 12 bucks.

Bigshizza

Drank a whole bottle...not good.

Rain

I just polished off the Pure. Good stuff.