Read Japanese? Know about sake? Can you tell me about mine?

October 6, 2008 7:32 AM

Japanese/SakeFilter: I found a sake I like! Can you tell me about it? (Japanese description/website)

http://nissin-shurui.co.jp/shopn/11_37.html

I know very little about sake, though I've been skimming through the wikipedia article. What I do know, is that usually I don't like sake, and I had this one in a Tokushima yaki-tori bar, at room temperature, and it was really good.

I get a bottle of it tomorrow in the mail, but for the future, can you tell me what sort of sake I like, for the next new sake I try? ("Hello Sake shop owner! I'm looking for a XXXXX-type sake, with a YYYY acidity and a ZZZ brewing process. Do you have something that is [insert appropriate sake adjectives here]?")

(Here is a somewhat amusing babelfish translation: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnissin-shurui.co.jp%2Fshopn%2F11_37.html&lp=ja_en&btnTrUrl=Translate )

Oh yeah, and can you tell me what the romanji would be for the name of my sake? As I understand it, the brewing company is Hisagotaiko (or maybe 2 words with those phonemes), and the specific sake is called 本醸造, which I have not yet heard aloud.

Thanks!

posted by sirion to Food & Drink (4 answers total)

Seems to be an Honjozo sake. This is how "本醸造" is read, honjozo. It's not a name but rather a type of sake:

Honjozo is sake to which a very small amount of distilled ethyl alcohol (called brewers alcohol) has been added to the fermenting sake at the final stages of production. (Water is added later, so that the overall alcohol content does not change.) Honjozo, like Junmai-shu, is made with rice that has been polished (milled) so that at least 30% of the outer portion of each rice grain has been ground away. This, plus the addition of distilled alcohol, makes the sake lighter, sometimes a bit drier, and in the opinion of many, easier to drink. It also makes the fragrance of the sake more prominent. Honjozo often makes a good candidate for warm sake. Note that most run-of-the-mill cheap sake has an excessive amount of brewers alcohol added to it, which is not good. Honjozo has only a very small amount of added alcohol

The brewing company is indeed Hisagotaiko, so this would be the Hisagotaiko Honjozo sake. I think the page refers to it as being a light, bright and dry sake (淡麗辛口). It is made from Yamada Nishiki rice from Tokushima prefecture. The rice is polished to 65% of its mass. Can be served at room temperature or heated.

That's about all I can get with my basic Japanese skills.
posted by splice at 8:21 AM on October 6, 2008

This is Hisago Taikou's (瓢太閤) Honjouzou (本醸造) sake.
Honjouzou is not actually a brand name per se, but rather an indication of a type of sake. But in this case, the type has been stuck on to the maker's name to create the name of this product. Sometimes sake is given a fancy name, but it's not uncommon to simply append the type to the manufacturer in the case of well-established varieties.

Honjouzou refers to sake that has had a small quantity of food-grade alcohol mixed into it, along with less than 70% of clear, polished rice. So it is rice wine mixed with alcohol. There are apparently strict stipulations as to what % of alcohol and what % of rice actually constitutes honjouzou. Anything above a certain threshold cannot be named as such. Honjouzou has a comparatively clean color (as opposed to, say, more viscous, murky varieties) and a good aroma.

In a sense, this is what the 本 of 本醸造 refers to -- it's the "real" stuff, that meets a certain specification of quality.

As for the stats, they are as follows:

Alcohol content: 15.5%
Type (flavor): Crisp and dry (淡麗辛口) <> Sake content: +3.0
Acidity: 1.4
Amino acid content: 1.4
Main ingredient: Tokushima yamadanishiki (yamadanishiki is a type of rice grain)
Polished rice content: 65 (as opposed to brown, unpurified rice)
Fermentation: 7

Recommended method of drinking:
Drink at room temperature, in a tepid kan or heated-up kan.　(This thing)
Characteristic of this sake:
Clear, crisp taste combined with umami (this is a worldwide flavor term now, no?). A slightly dry flavor that doesn't get tiresome.

I don't know how you would interpret some of those numbers - 1.4 acidity? what? But the type of flavor and mouthfeel is good to know. If you like this style, honjouzou, then maybe that is what you want to go for in the future, maybe trying different brands.
posted by softsantear at 8:32 AM on October 6, 2008

Oops, I screwed up the HTML tags by trying to make an arrow up there. Next to the flavor: crisp and dry part, it should read: this would be a good thing to know about what kind you like.

Also, here is the manufacturer's page for this booze.
posted by softsantear at 8:35 AM on October 6, 2008

Response by poster: Hey, thanks! I noticed there's a fair bit of discussion of various brewing methods and the difference in resulting sake in the sake wikipedia article; is there any way to determine what Hisago Taiko uses for this one?
posted by sirion at 5:45 PM on October 6, 2008