Happy Sake Day!

13:50Marie:Yeah.

13:52Frank:The canola sprout tempura chips are very nice. it kind of melts in your mouth in the way that a good tempura does.

13:59Marie:It's very crunchy and light as normal chips, but it has that kind of green and slight bitter flavors. With this tempura, I feel like sake is highlighting the great flavors, the bitterness of this tempura. More than they're playing like equal parts. Does that make sense?

14:31Miho:With the chips, I feel like the sake tastes slightly more like citrusy.

14:38Marie:Yeah, I feel like the flavor of the tempura just came out more. I still enjoy the pickles though. Yeah, they're both great pairings, but slightly in a different way. Right, right.

14:53Frank:So Mia, though, you mentioned that you might want to warm this up. It's maybe a little cold.

14:58Marie:Maybe we should try it up later because we have to. Should we do it now?

15:02Frank:I mean, we can do it now. The information center has the facilities to warm things up nicely. So maybe let's try that.

15:10Marie:So I warmed it up to around 60 degrees. Now I think it's about 50. Hmm.

15:20Miho:it actually stands up to heat more than i expected it would interesting um i think the mouth feel is really nice it's definitely like a lighter bodied sake that you would have worn but i do feel like maybe for what you gain in the mouth feel you lose on the nose because now i'm not really smelling anything it smells a little heady obviously because it's like there's some alcohol being evaporated it got a little drier i taste less sweetness what would you pair this i'm looking up salmon grilled salmon something like shio sabak like some grilled fish but like like something maybe not quite as fatty as salmon and maybe I'm just gonna go off tangent a little bit and talk about like how hiaoroshi used to not be my favorite style of sake when I first got into drinking sake because for me hiaoroshi has like this sort of ambivalent or like slightly confusing flavor profile in that because it's only had a single pasteurization it definitely has a bit of that nama feel to it but at the same time because it's had slightly longer maturation than your standard sake there's like a bit of that matured characteristic as well which in my personal opinion sort of manifests itself in this sort of slightly gamey um slightly more bitter flavor profile so when i first got into sake i found those two sort of like managing to bring those two worlds together a bit more of a challenge and um i still do to this day find hiyauroshi sake to be a bit more not necessarily powerful but a bit more more expressive in their

17:32Marie:flavor profile in general when i have it it always tastes fresher than i expect a hundred percent and i just tried it with a cured ham and it tastes nicely because the sake has that kind of like slightly astringent, slightly melony note. Or maybe it comes out with so it's quite nice. And I just realized that Joku, Iaoroshi, this one specifically has another name. Risu no Shukakai, so the harvest vegetable of the squirrels. We're still on the first one and we should probably move on to the second one.

18:18Frank:It's been quite some time talking about a single sake. I know.

18:23Marie:I realized that maybe three was too much.

18:25Frank:But that's kind of the thing, right, with sake. I think it's probably true in the wine world and in the more professional tasting experience that you spend time with a single beverage kind of figuring stuff out and doing that testing that like trying the sake at this temperature, it's trying the sake with this food, with that food, with a bunch of different foods, which is fun in its own self, but also can take a really long time. Yeah. and fun a lot of fun anyways so the second one is mongaifushitsu jumaiginjo it's from tochigi

18:58Marie:the information center now carries 19 hiaoroshis and i want i had to pick three for this episode and i tried to pick three diverse ones um from different areas anyway so this one in particular it's the sake that i thought was delicious for the very first time uh years ago yeah my parents went on uh like a day trip and kind of stopped by at this random brewery which happened to be this one and got a really really tasty sake called and all of my family was like wow and that's really the beginning of my sake journey oh my god we're

19:52Miho:coming full circle exactly on your sake journey oh i am like doubly excited to be trying this now

19:59Marie:oh i hope you'll like it i'm sure we will it's 15 alcohol 55 polishing rate sake meter plus two acidity 1.4 and yume sasara is the rice i mean i can go first with my thoughts which

20:17Frank:ignore all of the specs again so the label says uh junmai ginjo karakuchi on it so i suspect it's going to be a little more ginjo-y than the joku comparatively it's going to have more of an aroma but it's going to be a little bit drier and then it's a pretty classic label it's just got the chinese characters on a white background so i'm thinking maybe a little more traditional of a hiyaroshi or like sake yi sake compared to the joku which is like it's very sake like but it's kind of this to me at any rate it's very refined in a going with food very thinking of the season of autumn where i wonder if this is not necessarily going to be so autumnal.

21:07Frank:It's going to be more like more of a ginjo, more light, and more maybe a little modern style, despite the fact that it has kind of an older style label. But I don't know. We have to open and find out.

21:19Miho:This being a ginjo, I would expect there to be a bit more aromatic characteristics than the first one that we tried. Perhaps a bit more floral, you know, slightly more like star anise or maybe, yeah, a bit more sort of expressive on the nose and maybe a little lighter in the body.

21:43Frank:Miha, what do you think?

21:45Marie:I always associate it with associate sake with regions. So, tochigi sake to me could be more round, smooth good amount of umami sake or

22:03Miho:prettier um one or the other to me i actually really like tochigi sake me too same yeah so let's see if this tastes like what you you imagined

22:22Miho:i'm just giving it a sniff now and i think this is like pleasantly surprising it's not very ginjo-y on the nose, or at least not initially. And for me, it's giving a lot more of the matured characteristics. It smells almost, it's sort of like nutty and slightly more savory. Kind of like dark honey, like one of those raw honey, the expensive honey that you get. or like um mitarashi dango glazing yes yes how would you translate this it's like slightly soy sauce like yeah it's sweet soy it's not your teriyaki but it's like your sweet soy

23:11Frank:so i'm wrong basically my read of the label is entirely off

23:17Miho:yeah i'm totally wrong with this one too i brought in or miho helped me bring in um fruits and for this because i expected it to be a bit more ginjo style like your classical ginjo style sake where the nose is a lot more fruity or floral but this one is very very different but very

23:38Marie:surprisingly but very pleasantly it's much drier than i thought it has a kind of like a honey like sweetness but the finish is very sharp in a way it cleans up quite fast I don't know

23:59Frank:yeah I agree with you like on the nose

24:06Miho:and then like when you taste it initially it almost has that like sort of sticky glaze like that mitarashi or sweet soy like characters but the actual dryness is like deceptively dry so it has a bit more of like a clear finish not so much like lingering around um that perhaps you might get with your um with your like standard age sake you know which can be a bit like longer which can have a longer finish interesting no i think i think i get that i think i'm picking up what you're putting down

24:51Frank:that makes sense because it does stay i you mentioned you said it has like a kira but i feel like even if most of the flavor goes away there's something that lingers kind of in the mouth for a long time it makes me want to eat something yeah maybe could you pass me the sausages the the dried

25:07Miho:yeah the dried sausages this is definitely a lot more sort of savory and matured flavor profile than i expected um yeah so maybe like you know little little these like jerky bites or salami bites might work well or i was thinking even like something with miso might work especially like your darker colored misos that have like both the saltiness but sort of that funky fermented more of an earthier flavor you can definitely do this with like maybe maitake mushrooms which is a shame we didn't bring any right

25:57Marie:I can see maitake tempura with this would be really nice.

26:04Miho:Right? I'm salivating. They're a little bit weird.

26:09Frank:Salami sausages. What do you mean? Well, they have perilla in them. So Japanese shiso. Pretty good. Normal salami would be better. The perilla, because the perilla is such like a herbally greeny flavor. It kind of goes the wrong direction, I feel like. I must record that the meatball with teriyaki-like sauce pairs really nicely with this one.

26:39Miho:Yeah, because the sake already tastes slightly like teriyaki.

26:42Marie:Yes, yeah. I'm warming up this sake now to see how the temperature changes the flavor.

26:50Miho:But the nose is beautiful when warmed up. No wonder this is your most favorite sake.

27:01Marie:how did the flavor change to you

27:05Miho:I think it brings out the mellow characteristics even more initially I thought on the nose it's you know you can you notice the caramelization quite a lot more with this sake when compared with the first but when you warm it up like this warm sort of like warm cereal notes is a lot more highlighted and then on the mouth feel it's um not too overpowering it's not a very like darker i'm doing air quotes as i say that now it's not it doesn't have that darker mature sake feel not quite but it's definitely has that like nuttier you know um Sort of more mellower, umami-driven characteristics.

28:01Marie:Yeah, I agree. I feel like the edge has taken away, in a way. And all the good characteristics are opening up. Definitely nuttier, more umami-forward. I'm somehow imagining a Hawaiian pizza with ham and pineapple and cheese. I don't know.

28:22Miho:I would normally say that's an abomination, but I can totally see what you mean here in this context. That little savory and sweet character is what we're all getting out of the sake. What do you think?

28:37Frank:So I just had another one of the perilla salamias. Much better. Much better warm. I think it has a little bit of green grassiness when it's colder. compared to when it's warmed up. I think you lose a lot of that, and then the perilla kind of comes in and doesn't fix it. It adds that back in, which I liked a lot.

29:03Marie:Yeah, this is exactly why it's always good to play around with temperature because you'll surprise yourself how drastically the flavor changes sometimes. 100%. Yeah. We should move on to the third one. Takaji. So Yamahaijunai Omachi, unfiltered, pasteurized, unadjusted. It's genshu.

29:28Miho:It's really a party in a bottle because you have all these different qualities, you know. It's not only hiyaroshi, but it's Yamaha, right? Giving it a bit more robust characteristics. And it's genshu, so the undiluted. So it probably packs a punch, maybe.

29:47Marie:Yeah, but it's only 16 % alcohol. oh does that mean it's a little sweeter we'll find out 58 polish rate what's the information

29:58Miho:all wrong i feel like let's see and it's yeah no no you told us it's 55 from the get-go 58 oh yeah okay okay i'll tell you like that three percent is going to you know destroy our theory Oops, sorry. And it's from Okayama. Well, first and foremost, I'm just going to say how much of a fan I am of Omachi Sakamai. Yes, me too. And even more happy now that this comes from Okayama, the birthplace of Omachi. Omachi, for me, has a more sort of mineral-driven flavor profile. and to me omichi can be quite juicy as well i think the term juicy when i use the term juicy

30:55Marie:i'm thinking more of like juicy meat than juicy like fruit like it makes you

31:03Frank:like it makes you keep wanting more like you're salivating juicy i'll i'll tell you if this is

31:11Marie:juicy or not. Let's try it and find out.

31:16Miho:This one is yet again very different. Actually effervescent. Maybe it kind of has the quality that makes me want to eat juicy meat. For me, I'm getting like a canned apricot-like. Sort of like that little syrupy sort of slightly more jammy cooked fruitiness but there's definitely that like grassy sort of like half dried hay um flavor profile that i personally get from like a more nama style sake interesting yeah but it does

31:58Marie:have the nama i mean this is slightly fizzy you know yeah it kind of has again like the nashi the japanese or asian pear like subtle writtenness and a little bit of acidity and kind of like

32:19Miho:oiliness to me yeah all of those things i agree 100 i think i'm willing to go on a limb and say maybe those are because it's a yamaha style it um yamaha generally tends to yield a more bigger boned sake. And I think the higher acidity that we feel here is definitely coming from Yamaha. At this temperature, what would you pair this with? At this

32:47Frank:temperature being the colder temperature.

32:50Marie:So we started with red wine temperature, but then now it's coming a little closer to room temperature. It's quite busy and juicy as we agreed.

33:06Miho:the cheesiness was definitely a big surprise to me i didn't account for that when i put together my tasting today or my sorry my pairings today yeah i would say cured ham with pineapple would be nice that's what it kind of tastes like to me i bet the pickles would probably the lactic the course would probably be nice let's try with the cheeses here um you have like several different styles yeah i just cheated right on the label so one's a gouda one's camembert one's a red cheddar

33:42Marie:and one's parmesan so this is parmesan i just had gouda with a third one it's really really nice

33:55Miho:it's not bad with parmesan I feel like they're both quite strong characters that they are like butting heads a little bit

34:03Marie:right I also warmed up this one now it's at 50 degrees celsius I'm very curious because I like warming up Yamaha

34:18Frank:so Mary how was the heated Yamaha from Takaji

34:25Miho:unpopular opinion i don't love it myself i think it tastes a little off balance like the beautiful harmony that we had when we enjoyed asaki at room temperature it was a lot more sort of well harmonized the texture and the flavor this one for me here sort of the texture's way too dry and way to sort of short it's almost like as if there's no body yeah i feel like it's surprising because you know i thought this would be great warm a hundred percent like i had prepared like our pairing and like perhaps like my my little cheat sheet here for this like banking on this to be the best sake to be enjoyed warm right at least based on the stats that you sent me for sure so I'm here like being dumbfounded because yeah like you know how at room temperature we had the beautiful effervescence and it definitely had that juiciness I don't get that beautiful juiciness anymore when it's warm

35:39Marie:it's okay but it's not amazing and I feel like without the effervescence or maybe because of the effervescence there is that not bitterness but

35:51Miho:this aftertaste that I'm not a huge fan of. Reading on the label, you would expect this to be like more fuller body, more complex. Therefore, you know, in a simple sake equation, if you will, like it merits more from being served warm or like it has characteristics which makes it more suitable to be served warm. But this one is a bit of a curveball. Yeah, definitely. You know what? It actually pairs well with this now.

36:27Frank:With what? With the shiso sarami.

36:30Miho:When I paired it, like, with the second sake, for example, I feel like it was a bit too much of, like, both worlds that they were sort of getting in the way of each other. So I didn't love that. But with this, because it's such a, like, a short palette and just sort of everything feels a bit more evaporating. it actually sort of brings out more of the shiso flavor and makes the sausage a bit more aromatic.

36:59Frank:Can you pass me the marble peanuts?

37:02Miho:Yeah, yeah. This one here?

37:04Frank:Yeah. I'm curious to see how it goes.

37:08Miho:Yeah, it might work well.

37:09Marie:I wanted you to pair that with the squirrel one.

37:14Frank:Nuts and nuts?

37:16Miho:I'm going to go back and try it.

37:22Miho:works with gouda not so much parmesan yeah with gouda is really nice you need something a bit

37:28Marie:more neutral then a bit fresher yeah because i think this is quite fresh still you know very

37:34Frank:fresh very fresh i think based on my experimentation with the peanuts the peanuts are wrong but the like mabo tofu flavor that the peanuts are coated with work so like cold the cold like a cold with mabo tofu would probably be nice interesting but the peanuts are a little too like oily and a little too nutty and they kind of get in the way the nutty notes that does have it's cold

38:07Miho:yeah i think that more sort of concentrated or condensed flavor profile that i think we call like we refer to as juicy probably benefits from like yeah like i think it probably stands up against um spices better or like heat as in like chili you know chili pepper heat better than maybe the two previous sake did.

38:39Frank:Yeah, I think it works with the spiciness. It works with the numbing from the Sichuan pepper. The peanuts, I don't need the peanuts. I just need the fried chili and Sichuan pepper.

38:51Miho:You're right. I think it has the density of flavor and the higher sweetness and acidity. for it to pair better with like like thai food for example like something that's like spicy but also slightly more sweet yeah i think it works most sake doesn't necessarily like the

39:21Frank:orthodoxy that sake doesn't go with spicy food very well but i think this works for sure i think even hot it works okay it's better it's nicer cold but even warm i think it's pretty good

39:31Marie:It really highlights the pepper note.

39:35Frank:Yeah. It's really nice. And the sweeter sort of palate plays better with, like, the heat,

39:45Miho:as in spiciness.

39:47Frank:True.

39:49Miho:What an interesting experimentation. Like, I was banking on this last one to be, like, the most bigger-boned, like matured flavorful but actually this turned out to be like not fresh in the way that it's like very light-bodied but fresh in a way that it's like very very juicy you know it has that like for me like that condensed concentrated fruit feel um and definitely the effervescence as an extra layer of freshness to it um that was which was like a total surprise to me

40:25Marie:yeah so sometimes reading a label helps sometimes it doesn't so do you wanna let's let's review the three that we tasted today the first one was joku was a jimai uh from it oh alamori well to us it tasted best at red wine temperature so slightly colder than room temperature and it paired nicely with

41:02Miho:um i'm willing to go back and test it out but i think it pairs nicely with like um maybe gouda or like amambar or something um like a fresh or like a whitewashed cheese might be nice um i did initially think it might do better with like a um um let's say like a carpaccio or some sort of like a tempura um which is a lot sort of lighter in the flavor profile but i'm not so sure if that's the case anymore because this sake joku definitely has a very unique matured characteristic that is that differentiates itself from a regular sort of your standard sake but um it's also quite light and straightforward and clean in the flavor profile so i'm thinking something that's like not too complex you know like like the gouda cheese that we had earlier or your tsukemono pickles.

42:10Miho:Something that's like slightly salty but not too complicated.

42:14Marie:Right, right, right. I agree. And the second one was mongai fushitsu junmai ginjo and it's from tochigi. And this one we liked at warmer temperature much much better and tasted amazingly with the meatballs.

42:35Miho:Yes, yes. 100%. I actually enjoyed it both at room temperature and warm. What I think sort of appealed to me the most is the sort of deceptively rich, matured characteristics that it had, despite it being only like six or eight months old. It definitely takes on a lot more of like the raw honey toffee like matured characteristics without it being like too much you know so for me it's like a perfectly pairable pour of sake especially if you are having it with a more rich main course um it works really well like with your um let's say like your teriyaki sauce-like flavor. That's my takeaway. What do you think, Frank?

43:35Frank:I mean, yeah, I think it's a classic hot sake with classic Japanese flavors, right? It's very nice. And I think going into the winter, like buying a bottle and kind of having it slowly, like keeping it in the fridge maybe, but having it slowly for the next three or four months would be really interesting, especially with playing with temperature and stuff like that.

43:56Marie:A hundred percent, yeah. And the third one was kind of like a dark horse. We thought this would be kind of more complex. I thought it would be more earthy, better warm, but it turned out to be very fizzy, juicy, quite fresh. And it, for me, paired beautifully with gouda, cheese, and ketchup and pepper, you know.

44:29Frank:i agree i personally i think i liked the takaji the best um of the three i think they all have there's something about them that i think is kind of a through line of like the hiyaroshi style and hard to describe what it is but there is something there maybe a little more caramely than like a shinshu a new sake or like a natsuzake or something but i definitely think i like the takaji best probably of the three what about you guys i personally like the second one the best

45:00Miho:um for me like a big sort of quality of sake that i look for personally is sort of like its versatility and its pairability with food and i think the second one amongst the three that we taste it today sort of lends itself more to sort of being a supporting actor role when paired with food so for me that was a big big win um also for it taking on a lot more of a matured age sake flavor with it while it while it's being only six or eight months old it's quite surprising and quite yeah like a pleasant surprise to me um so i think i enjoyed the mongai fushitsu the second one the best but i also know that it's your favorite sake so i'm willing to hear what you have to say

45:54Marie:i think it depends on the occasion so takaji the third one i would bring to a friend's pot or something you know like it's kind of like a versatile sake versatile is maybe not a good word

46:11Frank:Easy drinking?

46:12Marie:Yeah, it's easily loved sake. It's fizzy, it's juicy, it's easy to love. So I would bring it to my friend's place. But the first and the second, Joku and Mongaifishitsu, I would have them at home and drink them on, I don't know, like a relaxing night with some easy food at home. a lot so yeah i they're all great in different ways um for different occasions i would say

46:51Miho:yeah exactly i think you know coming sort of circling back to the notion of hiaoroshi which was kind of the theme for the night it's so difficult for me to categorize all these three different sakes into one single category of hiyoroshi because they all taste very distinctively to each other that to the point that if i tasted them three blind i wouldn't be able to correctly say that all three belong to the bigger theme or bigger category or genre that is hiyoroshi yeah so we should keep experimenting and don't let the label fool you. Exactly. Yeah.

47:42Frank:So to everybody who's kind of spent time with us as we experiment, show a little behind the scenes of how, I think especially Miho and Marie kind of figure out what sake to pair with what and figure out the pros and cons of a particular sake or the strengths, figure out the strengths and weaknesses of a particular sake. I hope you guys all have a safe and happy sake day.

48:03Miho:And to that, Kanpai

48:09Frank:Thanks for listening to this episode of Sake on Air We'll be back with a new episode very soon But in the meantime, please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts As always, send your questions and comments to questions at sakeonair.com Or reach out to us on Instagram or Facebook at at sakeonair Don't forget that we have a YouTube and a sub stack as well Sake on Air is made possible with the generous support of the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association and is broadcast from the Japan Sake and Shochu Information Center in downtown Tokyo. It is produced by Export Japan, and our team is Shuso Imada, Justin Potts, Arlene Lyons, Cindy Bissig, Chris Hughes, Chris Pellegrini, John Gottner, Marie Nagata, Miho Ota, Rebecca Wilson-Wai, Sebastian Luan, and me, Frank Walter.

49:00Frank:Until next time, Kanpai!