Sake Bars - Drinking in Japan

0:19Welcome to Sake Deep Dive, the sake podcast for the beyond beginner. I'm your host, Sake writer translator and uh general man about Japan Jim Ryan joined as always by my friend and co-host Andrew Russell how you doing Andy I am good Jim just uh hunkering down for the the latest Kampa Japan is being blanketed in snow again so that's about the biggest excitement I've got in my life right now is worrying about cold weather you know it we got a brushing of snow this morning it looks like it's it's gonna be a cold one for the next few days but then hopefully when we get into march things will warm up a little bit march is of course it's the end of the season for you right that's when i mean things are probably winding down a bit but um it all it all sort ends in march doesn't it it does it all comes to a very abrupt end when we do our last steaming obviously that's not the the job finished we still have to take care of the remaining tanks that we have and obviously we have to press and that kind of thing and there's a lot of cleaning up but of course we don't have to get up at silly o 'clock in the morning and the pace is a little the pace is substantially different to be fair and yeah everyone just kind of relaxes a bit and it's actually quite a nice time to be in the brewery so yeah just looking forward to that in the next few weeks good to hear and I I'm looking forward to maybe tracking you down and uh we can do a little bit of a uh a kampai or a kakeuchi kakeuchi to uh to celebrate the end of the season Yeah, that's a brilliant idea, Jim, because you've said the magic word.

2:17I think probably by now that the listeners have learned what we established during these little chats at the beginning, that was Jim's segue into tonight's topic. So Jim, what are we talking about? What are we talking about? Tonight we're talking about going out and drinking. We're taking it easy. I don't know how deep we can dive because the cups are only about 90 milliliters usually. but uh yeah we're gonna we're gonna have a fun little chat about the ins and outs the real the real stuff when you're going out for a drink in japan because the way the news tells it there's a whole lot of people coming over here and getting drinks in japan these days it's it seems to be quite the thing we were just talking before we came on air here that sake has really picked up for inbound tourism.

3:14You can probably sense it. I'm getting a lot more chatter in the circles that I deal with for my tours. Osaka has solidified its position as a must-do when you come to Japan, and that can only be a good thing. But I think also we've spent the last... I checked this recently. We've spent the last three and a half years doing this podcast, and we've covered some pretty serious topics and I think although this is a very important topic I think it's time that we deal with something a little bit more laid back and let's face it the most important part of all this all the stuff we do all the all the study all the brewing or the promotion or the retail and everything it all comes down to drinking the stuff that's what it's all about that's its purpose is once you've opened that okan it's to to help people enjoy social interaction or to take their mind off things for for a few hours so yeah this is maybe our most important episode we've ever done and thank goodness we've we've spent a few years building up the expertise to be able to bring you the inside scoop on drinking in Japan.

4:42So seriously, seriously, I've left brain cells all over this country studying up on this particular topic. So yeah, let's get into it. Now, you know, I think probably there's going to be, you know, the listeners to this podcast are probably relatively keyed in on some of what we're going to be talking about. Hopefully there's still something interesting and new for it. But let's start at the base. Let's start at sort of the most Japanese of Japanese drinking establishments, maybe. The izakaya, which, I mean, literally the name is just a place to be and drink. Like, that's literally what it is.

5:27place to drink. So, I mean, it's one of those words where there's really no good way to translate it with just one word. People talk about it being kind of like a pub. It's not quite like a pub. I mean, it is, I think one of the key sort of cultural lessons that the izakaya holds is that yes, it is a place to drink, but it is also most assuredly and wholeheartedly a place to eat as well. Because in its truest form, sake is there for meals. It's what it's for. It's a meal drink. And the izakaya is sort of the platonic ideal of drinking in Japan. It's alcohol and food and loud talking and boisterousness.

6:23Absolutely. And the roots of the izakaya are closely linked to, like you just said there, to food. And that's where the izakaya, the concept comes from. Apparently in the 17th century, I mean, a lot of things, a lot of the Japanese culture was born in the Edo period. and a lot of the sources that I found there's a few sources that is that it might have been a lot earlier than this in the the medieval period the late medieval period so the the Muromachi period this at 15 16 centuries then they would they'll talk about Sakaya in Kyoto these are very small breweries that existed and hundreds of them that existed in Kyoto they say there was a probably by the 16th century, there was about 600 of these.

7:18So you can imagine the kind of competition there would have been in these places. This is all just in Kyoto. And they made sake there. And a lot of the historians that have studied this say, well, probably to attract customers, and while they were preparing their sake to take home, they probably started to lay on very basic foods but if you look at the concept of an izakaya to what it was in the Edo period there's there's a big transformation from from what could have happened in the Kyoto period to what did happen and the Edo period and it seems to be there was I mean there was a lot of fires and Edo that was something that was a big problem for everyone packed in together and therefore there was a was obviously a lot of construction went on anyway because it's a very young city but when they had these big fires there was big rebuilding projects and one of the sources i found puts that these events to to the birth of izakaya where establishments would be set up for the the workers and initially this would have been tea probably the the name that they had it's literally like boiled foods and teas niyuri chaya i think is the name in japanese but from from that that gets replaced to niyuri sakaya that's so that the tea has been replaced by sake and that's when they start to take on this or sake becomes quite integral to the to this description of them Yeah, and I think we probably have all seen this idea of like in Kurosawa movies or something, people, the Toshiro Mufune sitting in there at a dusky table with a tokuri of sake in front of him.

9:18And, you know, it's just really ingrained in the culture that this is a tradition that has long, deep roots of the place where you go when you want something to eat and drink. It's just the izakaya. You're talking about Yojimbo, are you? The image in my mind is specifically from Yojimbo, right? Yeah, he's sitting in that and the old man is talking to him while the guy is making the coffins. And yes, yeah, that's the izakaya. Great film and there's so much reference to Saki in that film. I think I read somewhere that you got into Japan through Kurosawa and that was also one of my early interactions with Japan and one of the reasons that I wanted to come here as well.

10:07but that film particularly has a lot of reference to sake in it and the izakaya does look i mean it's supposed to be like grim and dingy but now of course for japanophiles like ourself it looks fantastic it looks like the place i'd i'd very much like to go absolutely yeah and you know it's funny that like i've been to izakaya where in in in many ways the design is not particularly different you know you've got the low tables with the with the floor seating but the what they call the hoodie in the middle where sort of it goes down and under the floor so that you can you're not sitting cross-legged on the floor you're sitting on the floor with your feet dangling down and uh yeah you know the the atmosphere of an izakaya is is its own thing uh obviously you You know, in modern Japan, there's lots of chain izakayas with bright lights and the same menu across the country.

11:05But you still have plenty of little neighborhood places with their own distinct characters and their own distinct ways of sort of putting their menus together. And I think, you know, like searching out a good izakaya is probably one of the great pleasures of visiting any new city that I go to in Japan. Tell me honestly, though, did you find it quite intimidating at first? Absolutely. Yeah, because it's, you know, one of the things about it is like it's it is very much like particularly the local ones. You know, it's very much just I don't want to say it's not welcoming to newcomers. But like, I think the the idea is it's for people in the neighborhood or it's for people working at the local companies.

11:52It's for people who are sort of not just passing through. And so I think there are a few assumptions that things like the menus can be completely inscrutable. Lots of them are handwritten in Japanese that, I mean, I've been here for 20 years. I'm a professional translator and I can't read a lot of it. It's just, yeah. Yeah. So it can be quite difficult to sort of break in and sort of get through the door and actually feel comfortable ordering. So, you know, a few things that maybe can help you out. There are some patterns, some commonalities that you'll find. And one of the things that maybe I think you might see mentioned in guidebooks and stuff, but is actually a thing to be aware of is the otoshi.

12:49When you go to an izakaya, usually they'll give you a little dish of something that you did not order. It's a food dish. You may not have any idea what at all it is, if you can eat it or should eat it, but it is there and they will charge you for it. It's basically a table charge. i mean you know when you sit down they'll want to get something there it's typically you know i i haven't done a lot of drinking in say tokyo so i can't speak to that but like the local places i go to it's never anything crazy it's usually maybe three to five hundred yen yeah the otoshi was one that really used to annoy me because i mean sometimes i mean let's be honest quite a lot of the time it's something you probably wouldn't order and there's there's a lot of the time as well where you get like cabbage and you think okay i really don't want to eat that and it just sits there sort of festering for the for the rest of the night and then eventually you have to kind of make the effort to to eat it so you don't look rude and uh so the the otoshi thing used to really annoy me but i i know kind of i've come to terms with it it's just something that you have to do and and also the fact that they are so reasonably priced in japan you have to bear that in mind that to eat the way you do in these izakayas is phenomenal you can't do that in my in my home country for for example i mean it's a completely different culture there anyway i i was brought up in in the uk and it took me a while to adjust to this way but now when i go back to the UK I kind of struggle when I go out with friends actually I don't know how it is in America I guess maybe it's it's different from state to state but in in the UK eating of the evening and the drinking are very much two separate phases yeah so of course if you're going on a typical night out you will go to maybe a restaurant and this is quite expensive obviously to do that and particularly in Edinburgh where I'm from and of course you'll have a beer or a glass of wine or something like that but the proper drinking is not done at this point you kind of get the meal out the way and then everyone goes for drinks and then you don't eat again so it I don't know now I used to take that for granted and think that was normal but I've been exposed to izakayas and the systems I now struggle to drink without something in front of me without some food thing in front of me so So I do think that that system is an improvement of what I was kind of raised with.

15:29And that is the izakaya, isn't it? It's small dishes, lots of them, everyone shares them, and you drink as you go along. And maybe, I guess, when you get to Sankenme, if it reaches that, the second or the third place that you go to that night, then of course the food starts to dwindle and you start to getting more onto just drinking alcohol. But it's definitely, it's an ever-present thing on the Japanese drinking scene is something to nibble on. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, like food, it really is just integral at every point. And so, you know, some of the things that, like, izakaya, I think, I don't know that I've ever been to an izakaya that didn't have certain dishes, which, you know, if you keep in mind, they'll have some yakitori, right, the grilled chicken skewers.

16:29they'll have fried rice yeah typically with various additions you can get it with kimchi or you can get it with like pork or uh edamame is of course a standard at pretty much every one i've been to can you think of any others you know things that you don't have to be able to read the menu to be to pretty much always be able to order at an izakaya yeah so right so what okay while we're on this let's let's get into this then so my my thing with sake and we should point out the the name for all these things that we're going through when you drink when you eat something like a light snack with with sake is called sakana and this is quite this is quite can be quite confusing because obviously sakana is also fish but it's it's a it's a different kanji it's Yeah, the pronunciation is the same.

17:23So if someone says, do you want sakana? You need to kind of check. Yes. Yeah, they will more than likely be meaning, do you want a snack, not just some random guy going, do you want some fish? That would be quite weird unless it was a fish restaurant. But sakana historically are extremely simple. This is the roots of pairing sake with food, if there is such a thing. and this is something we'll have to get into a bit later as well the concept that Westerners have about pairing things is completely different here and some people think that's a negative I think this is a positive that you don't have to think too much about your pairings but for me to answer your question the most simple ones are the best with sake typically if you go way back salt was was one of the most common pairings and they would they would put salt and the in the corner of a masu and obviously you're drinking from the from the edge of it rather than the corner and so the salt would be in the corner and you can just kind of take a little bit of salt as you're drinking that's actually a fantastic pairing as is a lot of alcoholic beverages you think like tequila and that type of thing but one that is i see it a lot in izakaya's is a cucumber and miso i think that is a fantastic uh sakana to have with your sake and i don't know if it's just me but it seems to be on a lot of the menus in izakaya's if you if you look um miso obviously that goes without saying that's going to be a good pairing but there's something nice about having something really fresh like a like a cucumber and of course Japanese cucumbers are are quite different from probably the ones you get in America and they're definitely different from the ones I get in the UK we tend to think of cucumber as something that you put in your gin and tonic maybe if a fancy version of a gin and tonic but the ones in Japan are they're much more they're much more savory at home as well that's my kind of go-to is a curry and miso so when you're talking about kuri and miso are you talking about like miso or are you talking about mono mi mono kyu just plain old miso yeah okay so but yeah just straight up miso um the the kuri into thin strips and it's just a nice little dip you know the the danger obviously when you're when you're drinking sake is it's so good with foods that what i used to do when i was and when I first really got into sake is I would go to cheese.

20:05That would turn into cheese and crackers and stuff like that. But it's not good. It's not good to sit at home drinking sake, which is highly calorific anyway, and eat a ton of cheese after you've already eaten a meal. Trust me, cucumber and miso is definitely the more healthy option. Absolutely. I got to agree with that. But I'm a fan of the cucumber with miso moromi, which is sweet. It's like a sweeter miso and it's chunky. Like it hasn't totally gone through the fermentation process. So it's more sort of a koji kind of feeling. Most of the izakaya I've been to call it morokyu. And kyuuri is the Japanese for cucumber.

20:51And moromi is, you know, in sake, we call it the fermentation mash. and miso, I suppose it's still a fermentation mash, although it's not going through alcoholic fermentation. So that's a favorite of mine. Another favorite of mine that, I mean, you're almost guaranteed to find it on izakaya is hiyakko. Hiyakko is basically a block of tofu with a few things on it. They'll typically have some grated ginger, some chopped scallion, a bit of ponzu, over the top. It's light, it's fresh. And again, it's not heavy calories like cheese would be. So yeah, it's got a little bit of variety of flavors, right?

21:40A little bit of spiciness, a little bit of that gingery freshness, a little bit of acidity that I think goes with pretty much all the sake that you're going to be drinking. So definitely something to think about when you're out of the izakaya so yeah izakayas uh they're sort of the baseline right they're they're they're your ground floor entry into drinking in japan uh try not to be intimidated by the uh rough and rowdy atmosphere that many of them have just dive in and enjoy the the stuff but um you know like we mentioned at the top there's another game in town and if you can find a decent one uh a kakuuchi is probably a good way to go right game was a good word to use there because for me these these were the game changer i have to admit and maybe this will upset a few fellow japanophiles but the first time i came to japan and the first time i lived in japan and for a few years that i've lived in Japan this time I would tell anyone that would listen that New York was the best place to go drinking that I'd ever been to I just love I still think it's a fantastic atmosphere system that they have there to me it was that it's the best drinking culture I've seen anywhere in the world and the reason for that although I rated Japan highly is I don't know I'm not a big fan on omotenashi and this kind of thing I need I need that sort of interaction with the staff to have a bit of banter with them and things and it can be a little cold sometimes in Japan omotenashi and things are great for when you're in a shopping center or something when you're going into the department store and you know everything's going to be efficient and what have you but I've been into quite a few bars in in Japan I'm talking about bars more than than anything else and I don't know you just you just feel like you're sort of intruding on someone or something sometimes they can be a little they can be a little cold that was the only thing really holding me back but my my discovery of kakuuchi has changed them I said at the start of this episode I absolutely love these kakauchi now and I actively seek them out everywhere I go now and I've got a little circuit actually in nada they're they're notoriously difficult to find sometimes you could you could actually go in one and wouldn't even realize it was a kakauchi sometimes because the atmosphere and the setup in the day is completely different from the evening so this this part of this episode then i guess is for anyone that hasn't been to one hasn't experienced one or maybe like like me i was before maybe a little intimidated to uh to use them properly and to encourage people to go and find these things because there's some absolute hidden gems among this this particular category of establishments i mean at heart really i mean basically what a kakauchi is it's a liquor store right it's a suck a shop that also lets you drink like it the you they've got the stock on the shelves you can buy it or you can see what they've got open you can buy it by the glass they'll typically have some snacks uh i mean you'll you'll occasionally run across some that have kitchens so they actually do cooking but some of them are just have like you know bags of chips or whatever um and it is just absolutely far and away the most casual public drinking i've seen and anywhere like i i mean i i used to go drinking at squats in berlin and random basements that somebody just threw bottles in in in saint petersburg russia kakuuchi is just like just the the the the lowest bar for entry like it's it's so fun and so cool and yeah it's it's it's the greatest yeah they are fantastic i don't think they're unique i i was i was convinced they were this is kind of a japanese concept and but i i watched it's quite an old series now but it's James May and Oz Clark they did this like wine adventure but they also did one Oz and James drink for Britain I think it's called you watch it on YouTube it's really old and they go back to Oz's ancestral home in Ireland and there's a very similar set up there it's literally like a hardware store and they're in there in the day and sure enough by night time there's like someone playing a fiddle in the corner there's it's absolutely packed full of people everyone's drinking guinness and there's all kinds of shenanigans going on and i thought that's a kakauchi so there is kakauchi elsewhere so maybe if any whatever our listeners have experienced that in their home country that would be the best analogy to to give them but yeah like like you said there it's it's literally just a shop and she you can just so you can't pull up a chair most of the time you have to stand somewhere but to varying degrees they have an area where you can just take a beer or a bottle of sake or one cup or whatever you want take it over to a table and pick up some snacks that they've usually laid out for you and just start drinking and talking to customers and things i mean it sounds a really bizarre concept until you've been there and you think why isn't it normal why don't more places do across the world across the world do that in liquor stores it's just such a natural combination you've got alcohol you've got customers that want to drink it let them drink it when they're in the shop it's a win-win i you know what i find interesting is as you mentioned it's usually standing and i think that's that's really important there's something about the fact that like they're usually really quite cramped uh because you know it's just it's just part of the shop like it's it's wherever they've got space to put a table and there's no space for chairs and because of that it forces people together like there's no like you're not like out with your mates and and you've got a table and it's just you get you you talking to your friends or whatever like you're cramped in with strangers who've all been drinking uh there's not like loud music like a club it forces all kinds of barriers to come down like it really like i've never been to a kakuuchi where people were like oh you're american like no it's it's really quite friendly and open and uh it's it's a really interesting atmosphere so if it was seating it wouldn't work yeah if they put seats down for people it just wouldn't be the same the a good example would be the one that we went the last one we went to together in me can you yeah me kagi is a is a very popular place to live in nada it's one of the five villages of nada there's a fantastic kakuuchi at the station there it's very popular it's very traditional looking and that to me would be the a great representative of what everything a cuckoo which you should be you go in during the day and it just looks like a shop you go back at night and you think is this even the same place it's it's crowded all the time the the staff are really friendly the customers were speaking to us and like you said it okay there was a there was one guy that was sort of doing the whole what you where are you from when are you going home all these kind of silly questions but most of the other customers were just talking to us like normal and asking us what we liked about sake and you know these kind of things and what we did for a living and and all that kind of things and it was it's so typical of the kakauchi style we even had this sort of sassy obachan the you know obviously the owner's mother and they gave us a bit of jib at the start but she was obviously just teasing us and she ended up being really sweet within about five minutes so you know these these are all part of the experience you're not going to get politeness nope i can't remember what what she said i can't remember what that but that was kind of our icebreaker i think i don't know we we ordered a beer and kind of she looked at us as if like go and get it yourself kind of thing uh and i think that might have been what it was it It was something along those lines.

30:53So, yeah, don't be expecting bowing and kimonos and all that kind of thing. This is just real people that open up their shop to, like you said, a very local, localized customer base. And everyone just shoots the breeze for a few hours and enjoy some food. And very importantly, it's very often Nihonshu that they're drinking. yeah i i mean i i think you could probably say that your average kakuuchi is is pretty seedy like it's it's pretty like earthy i think a good word for it yeah yeah there's some yeah there's it's it's it's the bottom it's the absolute minimum level of service although people like like you said it's not politeness but it's just friendly it's just like you know jibes and yeah good times you like i i have to say like the the best drinking experiences i've had like out in public with with you know at restaurants or everything it's always come down to the kaka uchi they've always just been so much fun just so much fun yeah and the the one takeaway from the kaka uchi is and if you're coming to japan you're going to start looking these out which you should do is don't judge a book by its cover you said CD these places did they look some of them look ramshackle from the outside they just look but there's a there's a perfect example there's one I know another one initial Mia and it really doesn't look much from the outside at all it's an old building and you go inside and it's actually lovely this complete transformation once you get inside and it's just like one we just mentioned in Mikage this is is the same idea this is just an old couple that runs the place they've got fantastic sake from all over Hyogo prefecture they've got lovely otumami which I believe are made by Kiku Masamuni but they're these are snacks that are they're all tinned and things so don't be expecting high-class gourmet cuisine or anything they're just little nibbles and cheese and that kind of thing but they were they were made by kikumasa money and they were made for otumami in kakuuchi so the kakuuchi is is a definite uh recommendation and um i will say that linguistically it's probably uh going to be a little bit trickier because um like you know there's not going to be a lot of set menu stuff but a few words will probably get you across like andy just said otumami Otzumame are, yeah, they're just nibbles.

33:37They tend to be packaged snacks to go with drinking, as opposed to sakana, which is cooked dishes or prepared dishes to go with drinking. but yeah it's it's it's one of those experiences that like if if you figure out a place and if you find one of these places it's it's absolutely going to be worth your while to stick around in the evening and get some drinks at the local sake shop i guess then the logical thing to talk about them would be tachinomi tachinomi and kakuuchi can be interchangeable i guess and i've had conversations with Japanese people and I said like what is the difference and I think someone someone told me in fact someone told me in that Mikagi Kakauchi that the difference is in Kansai they say Kakauchi and in other parts of Japan they say Tachi Nomi but I don't believe that I think no yeah so Tachi Nomi literally just means drinking while standing up there's there's Tachi which is eating while standing up so there's places that is more about food and you could get like noodle places that don't have seats for example these are usually at train stations and that kind of thing they're for a quick bite before you catch the last train or something like that but there are very sake specific tachi nomi as well but for me the difference is the kakauchi is just that it's a it's a liquor store yeah where you stand up typically and consume sake and snacks whereas the the tachinomi can actually be quite up market they can be they come in a number of different guises but they they rarely the ones that call themselves a kakauchi sorry a tachinomi they they rarely sell liquor they're not yeah they're just they they're like a bar right like they're that's their thing is this is they are there to drink only yeah yeah yeah that's one distinction but they are both worthwhile but just know that if you go and you see that it's there's no seats or anything that's not necessarily a kakauchi that is maybe just a tachi nomi but they they are fantastic as well and some of them can be like i said some of them can be quite high-end and you can get some really good sake in these places there's one in himiji for example quite close to the train station and that is what I would call a tachinomi it's it's not a liquor store they don't sell alcohol in that way it's on two floors so there is actually seating upstairs but on the ground floor it's just a standing bar it doesn't have a door it's actually it's actually a plastic norin rather than one of the really fancy ones and we should we should You mentioned Noren are a good way to find some of these drinking places, that's the very ornate curtains that they hang from the doors of these izakayas and tachinomi and sometimes kakauchi as well.

36:51Its purpose in the Edo period would have obviously been to keep out insects and things from flying in, but also allow the aromas to spill out into the street and attract customers. But yeah, that's the tachinomi, another worthwhile addition to the Japan drinking experience. yeah so i think probably the the last sort of piece of the puzzle when you're you're talking drinking in japan is is the modern sake bar right it's probably the one that i think people are going to be most familiar with because it's it's it's the kind of thing that gets picked up in most of your guides and it's the kind of thing that i think um gets on you know instagram or whatever that is the stuff that people find.

37:44And, you know, the experience is going to be a little bit more upmarket in general. You know, there's probably going to be low lighting, spaced out seating. Prices are going to be a little bit higher. They'll have a little bit more focus on premium, so-called premium sake, you know, the expensive stuff that they'll usually, not always, but usually serve out of wine glasses. and you know I think anyone who's listened to our our our our podcast for long is probably thinking oh these are the things they don't like them that's not true at all because there's a couple of drinking establishments that fall into this category that I absolutely love but yeah it's it it is just it's it's the modern experience and and it has its place uh yeah i'm a big fan as much as i can't afford to to frequent them too often yeah on a brewer's salary either and the one i'm going to recommend is actually one such modern establishment they they have these are the places that are going to scour the country for the really hard to find premium sake and you're going to get yeah you're going to get wine glasses of course that's that seems to be the way sadly that the industry is going in that that seems to be the default glass for for people drinking that kind of high-end sake and usually the modern sake now the ones that are trending and things nearly all of them are actually better off in a wine glass anyway the the trending style right now is this kind of aramasa sort of light low alcohol spritzy aramasa doesn't have high aromatics but a lot of people that are are trying to copy aramasa are are using more modern strains of yeast they're not using number six you add lots of aroma to aramasa and that that's the kind of trending style that's actually very well suited for for a wine glass but i don't know that the difference is with with these places is you're going to get a much more upmarket experience if you think of the place that probably a lot of people that listen to our podcast are going to have on their their list is eureka in tokyo This was Maria Achiba that was very famous for her time at Genbaimoto, which was a very upmarket place and sometimes very difficult to even get a reservation towards the closing years of its time.

40:17She's started her own bar in Tokyo. It's absolutely fantastic. It's a great experience. but of course it's all hard to find brands and things they're they're all of a very similar ilk but she just does magic with them and does these fantastic pairings and things so yeah that's I guess that's one end of the spectrum of these and there's more casual places I guess as well you can actually tell them what kind of glass you want in some of these places as well you can say no no I don't want a wine glass I want a gooey nomi or something like that and they'll have these as an option which you're you're not going to get much luck if you start requesting different glasses and kappuichi you you take what you're given in those places that's right yeah i uh i think i i'm now wondering if perhaps sandy and i are having some of the same ideas about recommendations because one of the places that i was thinking of recommending is is is a is one of these modern types of atmospheric bars that focus on that premium drinking thing that I've actually only visited with Andy.

41:25So yeah, that's, that's awkward. It's for the first time ever, then we're going to come up with the same one. No, no, no. I've, I've, I've, I've got others. Okay. I was prepared for this. Don't steal my thunder. You know how much I want this place. I won't steal your thunder, But yeah, and I think personally for me, they're a good thing sort of either first or last in the evening. They're a nice, very, very calm kind of introduction. They're a nice, very, very calm kind of come down after the hustle and bustle of a Kakuuchi or even an Izakaya. you know and even these bars will have some food they may not be as food centric as an izakaya but there will definitely be something to eat there because it really is just inevitable in a japanese sake drinking establishment to have food you know it's maybe not in like a whiskey bar or or a beer bar as much but um if if a place is really putting an emphasis on nihonshu they will have food yeah yeah i just want to add as well the the one thing that i guess one of the big benefits to going to one of these more up market places is okanban for anyone that doesn't know what this is this was something that would have been an absolute integral part of the drinking experience in japan This is someone whose job is to warm sake.

43:05And it's been fined to an art form. And it's starting to get a bit more common. I don't know if that's just me. I'm starting to see a bit more focus again on kanzake. And if you get a really good okanban, it can really be an eye-opener as to how, well, two things, to how difficult it actually is to warm sake up to these expert levels and also how it can elevate your your drinking experience i mean i i went i was lucky that a friend of mine took me to to meet someone who who's just obsessed with with kanzaki i won't say her name because i haven't for permission we went to a bar that had been closed for us for the evening and she she was teaching us about how to do this and she's done okanban many times at events and things like that and it was just incredible we what we would do is there was four of us there and we would all take a turn of heating up the same sake so we would they would put one sake down on the table you can imagine we drank a lot of sake that night but we we would all have a go at heating up the same sake and it was different every time but every time she did it it tasted best that was the unanimously that was the favorite from from the three the three novices that she was um she was showing how to do it so if you get a good okanban then that is really that's that's a place to treasure and keep going back and support them.

44:52And the other end of the spectrum is a lot of the time at izakayas you're going to get maybe quite a bad experience with Kanzake. I guess the less Nihonshu focused places, a lot of the staff nowadays probably don't drink sake, they're probably not interested in sake. A lot of them are very young as well. I mean some of these places you're going to get people like high school students that are that are just doing a bite or a part-time job and stuff and I've had a few bad experiences recently we say can you warm that to such and such and it comes back and it's lukewarm or boiling to the point where you can't you can't even touch it for 10 minutes and so that that I guess is one of the big advantages when you go to these specialist bars is if they do have someone there working as Okanban, then you're probably likely to get a very premium experience.

45:50Yeah. You know, and this is, I think, you know, the real mark of sort of the modern, I don't know, the balanced sake market in the modern sort of era is where you're seeing this trend of both of, like Andy was mentioning that Ademasa style, like the really, really super premium aromatic stuff. But you're also seeing, I think, almost a reaction to that where people are sort of also pulling back and thinking about the actual tradition of drinking sake in Japan, the kan sake, drinking it from local ceramics and guinomi and things as well which is exciting to me you know because it seeing that there is room for both of those in the market is is is uh is encouraging to to me as someone who's who's really sort of more oriented towards the tradition rather than the the modern kind of uh trends so It can only be a good thing for sake if we have this diversity of drinking establishments.

47:07Absolutely. Yeah, the only pet peeve, I guess, the one that would be remiss not to mention this, is Mokkiri. Ah, yeah. This is the one that divides people. you are going to encounter this particularly more likely i think probably are fair to say more likely at the cheaper places than the higher end places but this is something that you're going to see in a lot of promotional material actually and i get the feeling that we're not going to see the end of this anytime soon with more inbound tourism coming it seems to be on the rise but this is the practice of they will put a small kind of saucer like dish underneath your your glass or sometimes it's a masu and they will pour sake into the point that it overflows into this this um auxiliary container and you have to kind of pick your glass out of it and it's obviously covered in sake at this point and then I guess the sensible thing to do is actually to wipe it down at that point but it just kind of lingers there doesn't it you've got this plate yeah masu of sake towards the end so i don't know about you jim but i'm i'm putting my hand up to say i'm not a fan please get rid of it japan i know the whole point that is sure that they're being a generous host and everything i'm not really sure how traditional it is i can't find any records or anything you know I have resources that I looked for tonight some very in-depth ones and there's a book I've been reading Izakaya no Tanjo so the the birth of Izakaya it's focuses heavily on the Edo period and the obviously that's where this this culture comes from and I can't find any mention of Mokiri anywhere in this so it's probably actually quite a recent thing I don't know maybe you know more about it than me but yeah i'm not a fan i haven't found any like i i think it's probably it's it's it's it's it's one of those things that probably just started happening somewhere like it just see it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would be um rooted in any kind of custom particularly uh clear like there's no you know shinto roots or there's there's no like court customs like you get with some things but it's probably just a thing that just started happening and somebody saw it it's like oh that looks cool and it spread and and that kind of meme-like became part of the sake drinking culture but yeah i have to agree i don't like it um i'm i'm a little bit particular about things like sanitation and hygiene and stuff and it just strikes me as messy and sticky and unnecessary like it gets like it gets sake on your hands and it gets suck it you you can't help dripping right because you're bringing the glass like the glass is over full and yeah not a fan i'm not a fan of drinking out of a masu actually they have their time and place but there's there's there's four or five vessels i would or drink out of than ambassador.

50:22Yeah, I'm with you on that one. Yeah, so yeah. It's not one of the great things and it's definitely the kind of thing you see at places that I think are easily accessible by tourists. I think, you know, because it has that visual flair and it has that easily recognizable kind of action. Like you said, you will see it in a lot of promotional materials because it does, you know, it looks good, I think. to and it has that kind of charm i guess i don't know and it's just not practical like i just don't think it's a practical way to drink sake we'll blame tiktok let's blame tiktok it's very tiktok able that's true yeah so so i i think at this point andy um i'm eager i'm eager to hear your recommendation myself because i want to know if it's if you're thinking of the bar that i'm thinking of so uh yeah i think that brings us to to the point like you know god who knows how many drinking establishments there are in japan so you know our recommendations of two of the tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of places to uh to drink sake in japan probably not hugely meaningful but um i'm i'm definitely interested to see what's your what's recommendation well you shouldn't be surprised him you know where it is it and I'm almost certain I know where it is I've said this for four years ever since I first set foot in the place my favorite drinking establishment anywhere in Japan is a place called Kai folk yeah in okayama this is gonna be a very personal thing I'm not expect some people that I've mentioned this to and things they've gone and they've loved it and things but it's it's probably got more to do with a time in my life where I was.

52:12I was a first year sake brewer. I actually knew of it before that when I was a student in Okeyama, but I really got to know the place and the owners and everything when I started brewing there. And I said it before, out of the three prefectures that I've worked in, Okeyama was by far the most welcoming. They loved the fact that I'd come to their prefecture to make sake of all things they're treasured product of okayama husband and wife ownership I've mentioned it before the the wife tends to do the front of the house the husband tends to do most of the cooking the the wife in particular is very skilled as an okan ban she's superb at warming sake they have a beautiful copper vessel it looks very expensive and they're just they're both brilliant at warming sake they're both into warm sake as well I think she had some other job in Hiroshima or something before it was connected to that so that's obviously where she she learned this but I could be wrong it's actually quite light it isn't a dimly lit bar or anything like that it's quite a bright place it's very open to the elements which is just fantastic in the summer you can hear all the hustle bustle the street outside and what can i say fantastic sake fantastic food fantastic customers they have fantastic vessels they've got bzenyaki they've got wine glasses they've got some other sort of funkier styles and it's just a great little place and it's been my little sake haven for nearly 10 years now so yeah it was never gonna be anything else as much as I love some of these kakauchi I'm falling in love with these kakauchi and nada but I can never give up that number one spot to anything other than Kai Fork I should say that the translation of that is liberation zone so that should tell you a bit about how they view it that you're you're going there just to enjoy yourself and take your mind off things for a few hours and that's exactly what they do very well yeah i i i had a sneaking suspicion that that was going to be the place and i had toyed with it myself but uh yes i have been there with andy a couple of times and it was wonderful wonderful every time great guests great great uh staff great owners loved it my recommendation is uh it's going to be mostly symbolic because i don't think anybody is going to be able to get there and i have only ever been there once but i think it's an illustrative of one of the things that i love about searching for izakaya and it's a place called hularito hularito in tajimi city gifu prefecture which you know people are probably thinking what was Jim doing all the way over in Gifu?

55:12I was on a trip sort of meeting potters and Tajimi is over by the Seto area. It's one of the great pottery centers of Japan. And I was staying at a hotel right by the station and I just went to Google and I said, listen, what's the nearest sake bar? And it pointed me to this place and I'm so glad it did because, you know, I'm traveling on the other side of the country i don't know anything i don't know anybody i'm looking for a place to to to enjoy some of the local flavor right and it was exactly that it was this it was it was a really young feeling izakaya um really sort of bright and kind of you know had you know modern music playing but very very very good selection of sake not only like really trendy stuff you know they had like denshu or whatever.

56:07But also they had very, very local stuff. They had local futsushu that they served with a proper kang. And all of their dishes were local pottery. So I was eating off of one-off setoyaki and minoyaki and oribeyaki. I was drinking kang's futsushu out of an oribetokuri. uh it was fantastic it was wonderful um you know and it was it was one of those places where like it was right by a station so you expect it to be lots of you know foot traffic or whatever no no no it was locals it was people bringing their kids um oh yeah i would you know i was your your brother's teacher in elementary school or whatever like it was it was super super friendly.

56:58And it sort of really, I think, encapsulated to me what a neighborhood izakaya should be. Not only hyper-local clientele, but hyper-local food and drink. Even the dishes were hyper-local. So yeah, that was one of the most memorable izakaya drinking experiences i've had and um if you ever do find yourself near tajimi station in gifu prefecture look it up hularito h-u-i h-u-l-a-r-i-t-o good stuff i think we should we should have some honorable mentions because like i think probably if john puma is listening he's probably thinking what about katoya in hiroshima and uh i definitely thought about recommending Katoya in Hiroshima, which is a very good modern sake bar.

57:57We went there together, didn't we? Yeah, we did go there together. And they have great food. I still think about their potato salad sometimes. So, you know, Katoya is an honorable mention. But yes, there are great places to drink in Japan. And there are places to sort of serve every kind of urge you might have for atmosphere, whether it be super seedy or hyper modern trendy. Well, it's good you mentioned that then. So my honorable mention of Confessions Now have not been, but a good friend of the podcast, Mr. Julian Hausman. Oh, that. Yeah. He's just increased Japan's number of sake bars by one when he's opened up his own sake bar called Sake House.

58:48You see what he's done with the name there? Because he's the houseman. He's the houseman of the sake house. So it is on my list to go to, hopefully this month. And it's in Umeda, nice and central. You don't have to do any kind of silly trains when you get to Osaka or anything. It's right near Osaka Station. And it looks fantastic. so yeah definitely check that on instagram i guess you could get it from julian's instagram or saki house that's a congrats good for him julian's uh been a been a friend of the podcast i think is something we could say i know he's we don't have guests but um yeah and uh wish him all the success with that and next time i'm in osaka which is not entirely uh out of the picture in the next few months.

59:35I will definitely be visiting there. Right. So I think that brings us to the end of another Sake Deep Dive. Thank you so much for listening. Our Patreon is out there, www.patreon.com slash sake deep dive, all one word. And we are eternally grateful for everyone who supports the podcast. It does help to keep things going. So if you want to be a part of of keeping Saki Deep Dive a going thing. And like Andy said, three and a half years, it's gone by so quickly. So yeah, thank you all so much. You can find me on my website, www.jimryan.com. I've signed out of most of the social media. I'm still on Blue Sky, but yeah, trying to de-digitalize a lot of my life.

1:00:25So if you want to find out what's up with me, see all my crazy, weird translations, jimryan.com. Andy, can people find you around? Originsake.com or Instagram. Just search Originsake and it will come up. As always, we hope you stay warm and keep ready for the spring. Spring is going to come and it's going to be better for everybody. I'm sure of it. Keep your tokuris full and drink responsibly. Kanpai. Kanpai.

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