In this Freestyle Friday episode of WWTV, I take you to Japan. We explore the national beverage Sake. This is part one of a two-parter. Today we cover history and basic production. Next week we go deeper into history, related beverages, the nitty gritty of production, and a lot of terms. I taste two sakes today and I’ll taste a 3rd sake next week. The sakes for this episode are the Miyashita Sake Brewery Mighty Peak and the Higashiyama Brewery Konteki Pearls of Simplicity. This is a long one, so get comfortable.
Links for the show:
Serious Eats article on Junmai Sake
YAMADA NISHIKI: THE KING OF SAKE RICE – From the Japanese Bar website
Sake entry from Wikipedia
GuildSomm – This is one of the best online resources for people like me. This link is for the general website since its Sake page is paid content
Ibaraki Guide – A general website of the Ibaraki Prefecture. This is an English link
Vine Connections – Importer of Konteki – Direct product page of the Higashiyama Brewery
Sake Brand Tatsuriki from Honda Shoten – Link to a page on the Sake International Association website that contains a video about Chairman Takeyoshi Honda
A Comprehensive Guide to Sake – From 2011, but nothing has really changed in how sake is made or the regulations
National Research Institute of Brewing (English page) – The Guide linked to above is also available on this page along with other resources
How to Pronounce Japanese Like a Native Speaker
LCBO – Want to see what the RS (Residual Sugar for a wine is? Well, LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario, a Canadian state-ran wine shop), among other ones in Canada, lists it in the product details for most of their wines.
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