We describe it as part sake museum and part tasting bar. Sake Nomi means ‘sake only.’ We were the first and still are the only ones in the US that combine retail with a bar. Now we have a couple of Japanese beers that we serve at the bar, but mostly for people who are afraid of sake.
A Sake Education
The most basic thing about sake is for people not to be afraid. Good sake is really what you like; what tastes good to you.
Misconceptions
The biggest misconceptions are that sake is always served hot, that it's high in alcohol and that it’s like rocket fuel that you have to drink out of small glasses.
Grading
It doesn't really matter grade-wise. Some of my favorite sakes are not necessarily the highest grades. That being said, the grading is based on the milling of the rice. There are three main categories: Junmai, Junmai Ginjo, Junmai Daiginjo. Basically, the more highly milled the rice is, the more refined the sake becomes. When they mill the rice, the outer part of the grain is ground away, which removes the fats,? proteins, and things that can cause the rougher flavors. Junmai is milled to 70% or less, Ginjo and Junmai Ginjo is milled to 60% or less and Daiginjo and Junmai Daiginjo is milled to 50% or less.
Within the three grades of sake, there are two styles. One where they do not add brewer's alcohol during the process and one where they do. For example, in the middle grade, in Junmai Ginjo, they milled that to 60%. If it just says Junmai, which means pure rice, they have not added alcohol to it. If it says Ginjo, it means they have added alcohol. Something like 88% of all sake that's made has had brewer's alcohol added to it. It's not necessarily a bad thing, especially in premium sake, because they do it for technical reasons. It lightens the flavor of the sake and it also allows the brewer to retain some flavors and aromas that they might have lost when they pressed the batch.? Through trial and error over many years, they found out that some of these flavors could kind of be unlocked by adding a little bit of distilled alcohol to the batch before they press it.
Kikijoko -- The Traditional Sake Tasting Cup
Photo Credit: Find. Eat. Drink.
Drinking Vessel
We serve sake more like wine. On our menu there are the prices for a four ounce pour which we serve in traditional tasting cups, called Kikijoko. This is what they use at the brewery when they're assessing the sake at the end of the brewing process. The spiral image in the bottom of the cup is called the snake eye. It’s there so you can see the color and the clarity of the sake against that background.
Serving Temperature
Temperature really depends on the sake, but the easy answer is to serve it at a temperature similar to white wine -- somewhere between 45 and 60 degrees.
In Yokohoma, they drink warm sake all year round because they feel like it is better for their bodies. That’s how the tradition of warming sake started. It came from China to Japan where they thought it was better for you to eat and drink warm things, because your body didn’t have to fight to adjust to the temperature. Sake was also a lot rougher then, so it would have taken out some of the rough edges and made it easier to drink.
They served sake at a little over 100 degrees, which is a comfortable temperature. That’s how I try to serve it warm at the bar. But there are different gradations. For every few degrees of temperature, the Japanese have a different term for how hot it is. The one that I like to do is hitohada, which means the skin temperature, which is basically body temperature.
When To Drink Beer vs. Sake
On my first excursion in Japan, every drinking party that I went to started with beer. ‘Toriaezu biiru’ which means, ‘Let’s start with a beer.’ It was usually served from big bottles into small cups and you would toast with the beer, and that got things going and opened the palate. After that, we would switch to sake and I still feel it’s a good way to go. With Izakaya food, which is a lot of fried food, beer is great.
Sake with sushi is generally traditional. For me, there’s not a better pairing. I’ve heard very opinionated things about, ‘Oh, you don’t drink sake with sushi because that’s rice with rice.’? When I lived in Japan, the only thing they offered at sushi bars was beer and sake.
Ramen tends to be at the end of the night and that’s a good beer pairing. The other thing was--it depends on the circle that you’re running with. When I lived in Yokohoma I was doing aikido with a bunch of old people. I was in my 30s and was the youngest one in the group. Then another American guy joined our group and we would go out drinking afterwards. We’d start with a beer and then we’d switch to warm sake. At the end of the night, my buddy and I wanted to have a cold beer to finish things off and they thought that was insane. It was so crazy, they almost ridiculed us bad enough to where we would sneak off at the end of the night and go to another bar on the way home.
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