Kanpai! That’s the Japanese version of cheers. On a trip to India to promote the country’s national drink, Hiromi Iuchi, who manages the overseas operations of the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association, offered a how-to on sake etiquette, and helped decipher the nuances. Meanwhile, Ashish Arya, general manager at Mohan Brothers LLP, a company that imports sake, tells us what he’s learnt over the years. He has spent over 10 years in the liquor industry after a degree in hospitality, and runs the Sake Club of India, a group on Facebook.
Sake is about 2,000 years old and is a bit of a celebratory drink, even being offered to the gods during the Shinto festival. You’ll get it in a restaurant in Japan of course, but in a regular home, it’s usually served on an occasion.
Japanese sake has the Geographical Indication (GI) tag, declared in 2015. To be called ‘Japanese sake’ ( Nihonshu , where Nihon means Japan; shu is rice alcohol), the drink has to be brewed in Japan, with Japanese-grown rice and local water. But this does not mean foreign producers cannot use the term ‘sake’, just not ‘Japanese sake’. However, the Japanese may use sake to denote all kinds of alcohol.
All about technique Polishing of the rice plays a big role in determining the quality of sake
It is usually made out of sakamai (sake rice), a hybrid rice that has over 100 certified varieties, all bigger-grained than table rice, and never eaten. The rice is planted in May-June and harvested in September-October, the same time as the other rice, but the land is left barren for the rest of the year, for it to ‘recover’. However, because sakamai is three times more expensive than regular rice, a number of brewers may use the latter. Unlike wine though, the tradition doesn’t speak about a terroir.
Water is the most important ingredient; it constitutes 80% of most sakes. Breweries source water from springs or underground sources and make sure that there is no iron or manganese in it. Nada has the best water, called Miyamizu .
Sake is ranked according to how well the rice is polished, called seimai-buai . There’s a minimum of 70%, which means 30% of the outer part of the grain is removed. This refining can go upto 30%, but the rice should not break. If you’re buying in Japan and don’t know Japanese, look for the percentage on the label that’s in numerals.
However, for what’s imported into our country, all labels are translated into English, as the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has mandated this.
Koji is the yellow mould used to convert starch to sugar. Yeast added to the process converts the sugar to alcohol. A different family of koji is also used to make soya sauce and miso . It was once harvested in the wild, and while it is still found growing in Japan’s moist weather, brewers prefer to source their spores from the cultivated variety, so they can control the product better. The spores are allowed to grow on the rice.
Every brewery (and there are over 1,500 in Japan) has its own technique, and the aim is to be as true to what the style is: fruity, aromatic, dry, light, full-bodied. Some years, if the rice is different, say it’s smaller, or harder, or drier, the technique will even out the differences, because they don’t want variations each year. The top three producing prefectures are Hyogo, Kyoto and Niigata.
It has an alcohol content of 13-17%.
You always drink it with food.
Etiquette demands that you pour a glass for the person you’re drinking with, and she’ll serve you too.
Historically, hot sake was more common, but now that there are many different styles, a full-bodied sake may be good warm, while a fruity one may work better cold. You could pair a hot dish with warm sake (55 degrees C), and a cold dish with cold sake (9-15 degrees C). To heat sake, simply dip the bottle (at room temperature) into warm water, to preserve its alcohol content.
Tokkuri is the decanter that it is brought to the table in, and ochoko are the little cups, but if you don’t have these, just serve it in white wine glasses.
Sake is made in October, and takes a couple of weeks to brew. Unaged sake is drunk immediately after brewing ( arabashiri / shiboritate ), but most are matured over the year and drunk the following year.
Japan is so serious about its sake they even have a Ms Sake, who promotes the drink both within the country and abroad.
