Hiyaoroshi - Autumn Sake Season is Here

0:19Welcome to Sake Deep Dive, the sake podcast for the big, beyond beginner. I'm your host Jim Ryan, writer, translator And suddenly quite chilly guy in Yamaguchi Prefecture Joined as always by my friend and co-host Andrew Russell How are you doing today Andrew? I am good Jim and I know exactly what you mean I will apologize in advance for my slightly nasal voice tonight I have succumbed to the rapidly changing season here in Japan just overnight became autumn or fall, as you would say in America. We say both. We say both. Yeah. Well, I'm afraid I have got the first of the season of the dreaded man flu.

1:12It's pretty wild. It's no exaggeration to say it was overnight. I think it was 28 degrees one day and it was 23 degrees the next day here. like literally just boom hi it's autumn so yeah and uh i i am sorry to hear that you're not feeling well uh i'm dreading the day when it when it hits me because it's only a matter of time with the child going to school in the house but um yeah take care out there folks and you know one of the best ways to take care uh in when when this cool fall weather hits is with a nice steaming tokuri full of autumn autumnal goodness because this is the season for andrew and my favorite sake of all year what's what's the season that we're in right now of course we're talking about hiya roshi hiya roshi season and yeah that definitely is my favorite seasonal sake it has been since I got first got into sake and I see no logical reason that that would ever change in the near future I have a fear I have a fear that there may be a reason it could change in the near future but we'll get to that later because I think that's going to be kind of a core part of our discussion so yeah it's it's astonishing to me honestly uh Andy and I've talked about this a few times that that we haven't had an episode about uh hiyaroshi i i mean we've mentioned it obviously lots of times and i think the kanzake one was a talk about hiyaroshi and i think maybe we've talked about it in other contexts but yes it is of all of the many various little sake topics there are to discuss the one that is nearest and dearest to my heart and and i'm i'm probably not too far off with Andy is this one.

3:15Hiyaroshi, the sake of autumn. In my opinion, what sake really is meant to be. But what is it? This is one of the few, I think, clear-cut topics that we discussed. There is a definite definition of what Hiyaroshi is. and I think Andy is probably raring to tell us about it. Tell me about it. What is Hiaroshi, Andy? So like you just said, Hiaroshi is autumn sake. We'll start with the definition or the name. So Hiya in Japanese means cool or chilled. So if you ask for ohia, the honorific term in a restaurant or izakaya or whatever, then you're going to get a cold glass of water. But the hia in hia oroshi actually refers to room temperature.

4:22And the oroshi part means to bring down or to send out. You hear it a lot when actually sake retailers are talking. They use that verb when they're talking about sending out sake from one place to another. So where does the room temperature part come from? So historically, the name derives from the point where sake has been stored over the summer in tanks. That would be the traditional way to do it. And Hiya Roshi marks the point where the temperature of the sake becomes roughly the same as the ambient temperature. So when they were releasing it, the two were matching up. So they came up with the name Hiya Roshi.

5:18So the actual product, if you want to call it that itself, a classification. We were just talking about this before we came on air. Although it isn't actually legally defined by the tax people, there are some pretty standard and agreed upon rules about when it's released and what it actually constitutes. But as we're going to get into later, those standards have been slipping in recent years. So historically, Hiyoroshi was released from September until November. And like we said, this is sake that has been brewed the previous year, stored over the summer and then released just before brewers have got their shibori tate, the first batches of the season.

6:20And I think a couple of the standards have a little bit to do with the heat treating, the pasteurization as well, right? So, you know, you've pressed and heat treated, pasteurized a batch of sake in the spring. And then you've aged it, you've let it settle and mature over the summer. now that it's cool now that it's autumn you don't have to heat treat it again when you ship it out right because the cool weather is already making sure that it's not quite as prone to to spoilage as it would have been otherwise and and so i think a lot of for a lot of people one of the defining characteristics of of hiyaroshi is that single heat treating um and now that comes into play in a couple of ways uh i think with with the way that we understand hiyaroshi because you know it's it's less intervention but it's still got a lot of that um that mellowness that comes from a not nama sake right uh you once a sake is is is no longer nama it it has been um sort of stabilized right and and so a lot of the the really um quick changes and then the the the really zippiness that it comes with a really fresh sake it's it's been it's gotten rid of some of that it's letting let some of that uh acetaldehyde and and the stuff go out so that It has become a more, I think, what do you want to call it?

7:57The opposite of assertive. It's become a more mellow, a mellower sake. And yeah, it's just really become almost culturally symbolic of the autumn eating habits, right? Because, you know, in Japan, you know, the things that people are eating in autumn are very, very seasonal. You've got lots of sweet potatoes and chestnuts and various gourds. And the fish that people are serving are a little bit different. Yeah, Sama. I don't even know the Japanese, the English name for Sama. Do you know the English name for Sama, Andy? Saori. Oh, right. Pacific Saori. Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's one of the things.

8:45And so, you know, the idea is that this more relaxed, this more umami-forward sake is going to fit a lot of those autumn ingredients better than the sort of the fresher, zippier, more boisterous sake that you get in spring that's been freshly pressed. Yeah, that's a very good point you just made about the pasteurization. So these foods that you just mentioned, they're probably not the best pairing for zippy fresh Nama. And when we talk about that, that timing of the pasteurization, I'm sure our listeners will have heard of two Nama varieties that fall under the Nama category that aren't actually really Nama.

9:32So you have Nama Chozo and Nama Tsume. Now, Hiya Roshi is done by the Nama Tsume method. So, namachozo is unpasteurized during its storage period, and then they pasteurize it once just before release, usually just before or after bottling. Namazume is done after the sake is pressed, and then it gets stored, but it never gets repasteurized the second time, which would be conventional. So you might be thinking, well, what's the difference then between Namatsume and Hiyaroshi? Well, the difference is that Hiyaroshi is released between September and November. that's really it whereas Hiyaroshi is a seasonal sake, Namazume in theory could be released at any point in the year as long as it has only been pasteurized once, stored and then released yeah, so I mean the key to Hiyaroshi is that sort of letting it sit over the summer and Namazume is a descriptive term for a process.

10:53Hiyaroshi is a descriptive term of a type of matured nama zume. Yeah, I have a theory on it. I've been studying about nama for something that I'm working on at the moment. And there seems to, it depends who you speak to that say it was actually a nama boom or not. But round about the 70s and then the 80s, nama first appears on the scene. And then by the mid-80s, they're heavily promoting it, but they still didn't have really the infrastructure in Japan to be moving this rather delicate sake around the country. And although this is completely unfounded, it's just that putting the dots together, it would seem like Nama Chozo and Namatsume, they start to go into the vocabulary of consumers around about that time.

11:47So it could be that this was just a way of getting NAMA on the label without actually having to suffer all the constraints and the extra expense of producing NAMA products. So it's just a theory I have, but it might explain why these two categories turn up round about the mid 80s. It does. Yeah, I think that that makes sense. And one of the things about the way that we are, sort of the understanding that we have personally sort of living in Japan as we do and drinking sake is that the way that we understand hiyaroshi has been very largely shaped by market factors, which is, I think, an idea worth talking about.

12:45because we associate certain things with hiyaroshi, right? The autumn colors on the labels and the way that they're displayed in shops and stuff. Our experience of hiyaroshi is modern. It is a traditional part of the sake brewing and drinking culture, but the way we see it is really the way that the market has presented it. And the way that the market has presented it is in a very, very specifically been shaped by a very specific company. The company is called Nihon Memon Shukai or Japan Prestige. It's probably a company many of you have heard of. It is – I don't even know how to explain it. It is a marketing consortium.

13:34They have worked with a lot of specific breweries to help shape the way that they approach the market and have helped those breweries become very successful. Breweries that many of you know and love. Gokyo is one of the Meimon Shukai breweries. Masumi is one of them as well. Names that you know. And so if you're in Japan and you're walking around and you see sake shops, they will have like big flags outside with, you know, maple leaves. And then they say the hiyaroshi is here and stuff. And if you look at the bottom of those flags, there will be a circle, a circular label with a very specific kind of striped logo.

14:18And that is the Meimo and Shukai logo. They set up a lot of the marketing. They help sort of like there's a shared design language that many of the particularly the Hiaroshi label have. And, you know, they're the ones who negotiate with like grocery stores to decide the timing of when the Hiaroshi gets out on the shelves and stuff. And all of that's fine. Like, you know, everybody's got benefit out of it. But there's also, for those of us living in Japan, we have noticed something that is a little bit troubling in that the Hiyaroshi comes out earlier every year. Like Andy said, one of the standards was that it was coming out between September and November.

15:10Now it comes out in August when it's still really hot. And I mean, technically, it's still really hot well into October many years. so while the hiroshi has been coming out earlier climate change has meant that the summer has been lasting longer and so just there has developed a very big mismatch between the traditional understanding and the market conditions yeah this is a problem that i've heard some very senior figures in the industry talking about that if customers no longer get these seasonal products when they're likely to be drinking them or when they want to be drinking them then it kind of defeats the purpose of it so i get the argument the the retailers are very important in this this whole setup and they have they're working on four seasons so the calendar is all powerful.

16:14The way they've set up their schedule is that at a certain time, they want the next season's sake, regardless of whether it's still 35 degrees outside. So the Hiya Roshi, not only are they coming earlier, but that obviously has an effect on the sake itself. When we come back to that definition Hia aroshi It is arosht When it becomes hia So if it's not getting That full maturation Period Then the sake isn't going to taste How people are expecting And I think the reason To pick up on something you said earlier I think the reason we were both Convinced we had done this Episode before Is I think we talked about this during the Namazaki episode and we were talking about how we'd been opening some Hiyaroshi and they still had gas.

17:21Which is crazy because that is not how the product should taste by any metrics. It's against the characteristics, the standards of that product. But if sake is getting pushed forward and forward, the release dates are coming earlier and earlier. That's just the logical outcome of that. What's interesting, though, is these same retailers just this year, actually, have really started to notice that Natsuzaki, one of the topics we've just covered, has been immensely popular. It really has started to almost, not that there is any competition, but it is almost starting to challenge Hiya Roshi as the biggest seasonal sake.

18:10Whatever these people, maybe it is, the Meymon Shoe, promoters, whoever, they've obviously done a good job of selling summer sake. And because these warm temperatures have continued, retailers are suddenly saying, no, no, no, no, no, it's too early for the Hiyoroshi. We'd still get some life out of these low alcohol fizzy sakes that you've been sending us because people are still wanting a nice refreshing summer drink. So ironically, it could be the calendar that actually starts to get this Hiaroshi more realigned with its original standards. I hope that's true. And I think that's probably the only way that it would work, right?

19:05Because, you know, all of this is driven by the retail market. And so, you know, whatever the retail market demands is what's going to start, you know, guiding the industry, despite the fact that, you know, sake brewers don't want to do that. Like they don't want to release their hiyaroshi too early. They want their hiyaroshi to come out when it's ready. But, you know, if the people who are paying them to get it on the market say that they want it earlier, there's not a lot of room to kind of resist. So yeah, if they're saying that we do want it later, good. Let them say that so that the sake has time to become what it needs to be to fulfill its life mission as an autumn sake.

19:56Yeah, because it is a waste, in my opinion. I'm thinking of last year. This year, I think it has improved already. I've noticed it myself. If you go out now to bars and restaurants, Hiya Roshi is all over the place. And that's the right time. like for once our musings about the weather at the start of the episode are relevant because it is actually starting to get quite chilly outside and so when you go into a bar or restaurant it's nice to see Hiya Roshi because for me we talked earlier about the kind of flavor profiles and things for me a good Hiya Roshi is is of course mellow but the flavors are rounded they're rich, they're complex they're not koshu they're somewhere in the middle between fresh sake and aged sake and I think that's what makes them so appealing at this time of year because some days are still a bit warm and maybe you'd still want to drink it room temperature or chilled but there have already been nights where I've come home and the only thing I would have considered is warm sake and for me a hiyaroshi should be able to do all three of those i mean i've always said my definition of a good sake is a sake that you can play about the temperatures but definitely hiyaroshi historically have been able to to do that you can you can try them chilled you can try room temperature or you can warm them up because they've been aged they're stronger they're more robust and everything has just had time to to round out and and yes the aromas are not really supposed to be pronounced either so that's also a plus point when you're when you're warming sake absolutely yeah and um i i mentioned everything that you said is is is exactly what i i think it's it's just it's the way that it's supposed to be drunk is warm and the sake that that is best drunk warm is has that depth and has that sort of steadiness to it that is opened up and expanded when you heat it up and yeah so hopefully we can kind of avert that trend of of hiyaroshi that still tastes like it just it was just pressed um you know and i i come to realize that we we kind of skipped a thing because we're talking about aramisake and we're talking about hiyaroshi which is the Aram Sake.

22:41But it's not the only Aram Sake because there's another contender in the arena, someone from up around your old sopping grounds, the good old Akiagari, which is a term that I struggle to really, really sort of pin down. Obviously, it has to be different from Hiyaroshi because it exists from a time when Hiyaroshi also existed. There must be something else going on there, but what is the difference? And I'm hoping that you can save me as the resident nada expert. I probably get asked this question more than any other, and that's been the case throughout my whole time in the sake industry. so Hiyaroshi and Akiyagari they're interchangeable nowadays at this time of year there's as much of a chance that you're going to pick up a bottle of Akiyagari as there is Hiyaroshi and there doesn't seem to be any difference between them but in actual fact they're two completely different things so Akiyagari it is not a classification or a labelling term originally.

24:07That's just something that's happened quite recently. Aki agari is a state of a particular sake. It's a condition. And there's a whole historical element to this, which probably more than any other region, as you just said, is closest to nada. so really if you've got aki agari on a label what you're basically saying is we've aged this sake over the summer and guess what it really worked whereas hiyaroshi is just saying this is an autumn sake released between september and november that's the difference so Akiagari or even sometimes Akibare these are actual terms from which you sometimes hear in conversation, the original meaning of it is the clear autumn skies which is something that is a phenomenon that happens the skies in Japan in autumn tend to be quite settled the typhoons are finished and it's very common to get nice, quite chilly, sunny days.

25:27And that's the original meaning of the word. But this has been ported over to the sake industry at one point and it specifically refers to sake like a hiyaroshi that has been brewed the previous year, that has been aged in a cool brewery over the summer and then at the point of autumn it has improved with that age now it also has an opposite if it's a condition and that opposite is aki ochi that is sake that hasn't improved over the summer so why would nada be so renowned with sake that improves with age historically saying aki agari it was heavily linked to otokozake or masculine sake. And aki ochi was heavily linked to onnazake.

26:29This is feminine sake. And of course, just to recap, we have covered this in previous episodes. The difference really is the water hardness or lack of. So otoko sake is typically sake that's made with hard water, like Miyamizu in nada. Now, obviously what that does, that gives a very vigorous fermentation that adds a certain richness to the sake. But if you look at Nadasaki's profile, a sake that's quite high in acidity, low in amino acids, and very mellow. Whereas if you've got Onnasaki made with softer water, then you tend to get a much lighter profile. and of course the other thing there would be kimoto so the the acidity part of that nada and kimoto are synonymous whether people want to acknowledge that or not kimoto has kind of been appropriated by small breweries the image of small breweries in the country making jizaki and things kimoto is a nada technique and of course it does produce higher acidity so back in the Edo period when you've got sake being made in this kimoto method probably a much higher level of technique than outlining regions so it's got quite high acidity and it's also being made with this hard water it's a very vigorous fermentation and so Nadasake was famous at that time that it wasn't particularly nice when it was fresh and for that reason Nada Brewer's the orthodox method was to let sake mellow before it was released and of course this rougher flavours, the harshness they mellow and they rise by the autumn so that's where this term Aki Agari or Akibari really comes from so that is the very distinct difference between these two terms but of course nowadays that nuance has kind of been lost and they've just become interchangeable and it's really depends on the brew as none of them are legislated in any way they're not labeling terms legally by the tax authorities breweries are free to choose whether they put on hiyaroshi or akiyagari yeah and i i'm interested i'm intrigued because i just realized that the two breweries here in Yamaguchi that use Akiyagari are both very sort of Kimoto influenced.

29:22Like it's Nakashimaya Saka Shuzojo and Horiye Sakaba which both have excellent Kimoto labels and they're the only two that use the Akiyagari name on their autumn sake. Interesting. Yeah. It shows you how important going out and trying Sake is because I'd Heard that explanation and for some reason I just couldn't sort of process It and it was only When a brewery I Absolutely love And I was convinced I would like all of their sake Which is Kiku Masamuni This was actually during my first season at Kembishi and I Saw they had a poster outside That said we have our Our first sake Of the season or Shibori Tate And I quickly went in and bought a bottle And it was one of the most disappointing Bottles I've ever had from them And it was only after Someone said yeah Nadasaki is not that good for Shinshu They never have been And of course there's very obvious reasons For that The orthodox Nadasaki does tend to be A bit rough on the palate And you see that in literature Throughout the Edo period And throughout the Meiji period And it's still to a certain extent true today.

30:43Of course, nowadays with modern technology, there's ways they can get around that. But in that example of Kiku Masamuni, they basically made it in the same way they would make their Kimoto. So it was Kimoto and it had been done in this very traditional way, but they'd released it as Shinshu. And for me, it just doesn't work compared to sake that they've let mellow. And of course, the brewery I was working for at the time, Kenbishi, they never release Shinshu. There is no Kenbishi Shinshu anywhere on the open market. It doesn't exist. And of course, Kenbishi being one of the most traditional breweries, that should tell you a lot about how they view it.

31:26Again, that didn't really register until I heard the owner talking about that they never send their sake off to the Shinshu Kampyo guy. I wonder why it wouldn't hurt to do it it's no representation of our brand so there's literally no reason to do so all Kenbishi is aged for a minimum of a year that is the traditional nada way and that is why it's so heavily associated with Akiyagari and bless him for that and yeah I believe that that is all you need to know about Hiyaroshi and Akiagari it brings us I think to the highlight one of the things that I've been thinking about for the past month is which Hiyaroshi should people try now that we are in the season, now that they're out there what's your recommendation Andy?

32:29I had so many to choose from and I really wanted to get this one right as well Because like we said at the beginning This is probably both of our Favourite seasonal sake And I think now listening To you It's probably not just our favourite seasonal Sake but our favourite Style of sake altogether But I'm going to go with one Which is fresh In my memory, no pun intended Which is the last One I drank, which is Minami by Minami Shuzojo So they are down in Akigun, right on the eastern, the southeastern tip of Kochi Prefecture. It's a beautiful part of the world. I actually passed the brewery when, back when I did the Hachiju Hakashomeguri, the 88 Temple Pilgrimage, and I'm kicking myself now because at the time I wasn't really interested in sake, but I just liked, I thought it was a pretty looking building, but the brand always stuck in my my conscience after that and it was years later when I got into sake and I thought ah that's that brewery that I saw and but I tried their hiyaroshi for the first time the other night and it's fantastic it could do with maybe just a little bit more age that's my only criticism but it has that lovely kind of mellow juiciness quite interestingly as well it's not made from kochi rice which is quite rare to see that these days it's made with dewa sansan from yamagata they've brought that rice in they obviously really were keen to use that particular rice variety and and yet it's just a nice palatable hiyaroshi that served me throughout the night with lots of different foods some of which were seasonal autumn fare so you can't ask for more than that with a hiyaroshi.

34:27Absolutely. Yeah, cannot overemphasize the food, the meal sake element of hiyaroshi. It's not one that I've heard of, but it's one that I'll keep an eye on the lookout. For my recommendation, I had to sort of pinch myself to keep myself from recommending gokyo, because I always recommend gokyo. The hiyaroshi, the toratan hiyaroshi, is always a winner. But there is one that I, there is a brewery that has an excellent, excellent, excellent Hiyaroshi that I don't talk about nearly enough. And that is Yamagata Honten, the very confusingly named Yamagata Honten, which is in Yamaguchi, not Yamaguchi, prefecture, different kanji.

35:13I think some of our listeners may know them from the brand Bochotsuru or Kaori. I think they're particularly well represented it in new york if you're out there but their uh hiaroshi is is typically released on a label moriko moriko uh it's um i think it's it's a mostly a local label although uh you know i think they're changing their their plans for all of their different sub labels but um it's just a it's it's your your very very sort of center of the bullseye junmai hiaroshi it's not over polished it's it's allowed to age and mature to bring out all of that that nice ricey umami and depth all of the corners have been rounded off smooth as silk and um it they they write right on the label you don't don't cool this down warm it up drink it at least nudukan uh room temperature if you have to and it's it's just it hits every button it flips every switch it it does exactly what a Hyoroshi should do, which is soothes and warms as you slip into the coldest part of the year.

36:33Fantastic. Yeah. It's a good one. So that brings us to the end of another Sake Deep Dive. Thank you for listening with us so far. I want to send a special thanks out to all of our patrons on Patreon. We are still up there, patreon.com slash sake deep dive all one word uh your support really does help keep this thing moving we've been at this for four years now right andy it's crazy it's crazy yeah one of one of the many pandemic uh podcasts we've we've made it i think longer than a lot of them do so uh yeah Thank you for helping to keep this going as it slumbers through our increasingly wild schedules.

37:26So you can find me at my website, www.jimryan.com. That's J-I-M-R-I-O-N. I'm decreasingly active on social media, which is better for everyone. I am trying to blog and write more on my webpage. Although you may find I don't write a lot about sake these days. I just sort of sit around and sip it every once in a while. Unlike my wilder past. Andy, where can they find you? They get me on my website, www.originsake.com. Yes. And so, while you're out there enjoying your hiyaroshi, keep your tokuri full, but drink responsibly. And kanpai! Bye-bye.