Every year, sake fever overwhelms the charming town of Saijo, near Hiroshima. Brent Hannon joins in the merriment and learns some lessons along the way in the appreciation of this incomparable liquor.
It is mid-morning in Saijo, Japan, and the sake is flowing like water. By 11am, I have already downed eight cups, with many more in my near future. But I am not the only one drinking multiple cups of mid-morning sake. It is October in Saijo, a charming town near Hiroshima, and that means it’s time for the annual Saijo Sake Festival.
The festival setup is simple: you buy a small cup for ¥1,500 (US$12.50) and refill it as many times as you wish, with fine sake from all over Japan. That, as you can imagine, is a licence to party. But the Saijo Sake Festival is more than just a booze-fest – it is also an education, with brewery tours, sake-making displays, parades and music, and yes, a whole lot of drinking.
Four of us – two writers and two locals, Tetsuhiro Murakami and Masako Okibe – have come to Saijo for the festival. It is a sunny autumn day, and the air is crisp and clean as we wander the ancient breweries with our fellow festival-goers. Saijo has eight breweries, with dozens of signature brick chimneys that rise into the blue October sky. Murakami-san surveys the happy scene. “This place has many, many people who will get drunk,” he says. As always, he is correct, and yes, I was destined to be one of them.
But the first drink we have is... water? Yes. Saijo is famous for its soft water, which lends a unique flavour to the local sake. It takes 15 years for this “crystal water” to bubble to the surface. One by one, we hold our cups to the bamboo spout and drink the famous water, which does taste pretty good, as water goes.
Then, it’s showtime: into the breweries, to drink samples and gaze at the sake-making displays. We see grains of rice in various stages of polishing – the more polished the rice grain, the better the sake. We peer into the wooden vats, look at maps of sake-making regions, and try some raw, unfiltered sake, served by pretty girls who dip wooden spoons into deep barrels. The raw sake is cloudy and sweet, with a hint of vinegar and plenty of alcohol.
And so it goes – in every alley, every doorway, every shop, every brewery, we drink more cups of the local sake. Saijo sake is more sweet than dry – they call it “feminine” sake, a mild and gentle drink, thanks to the soft water and rich local rice. “Saijo sake tastes very soft, but be careful, it will hurt you afterward,” warns Okibe-san.
The Saijo Sake Festival celebrates the start of the winter brewing season. Much of Japan’s best sake is made in winter: the cold weather slows fermentation, making the sake milder, less sweet, and more acidic. With sake, as with wine, the balance of sugar and acid is all-important, and the best sake has the same intense, rounded character as a fine dessert wine.
After the brewery tours – nothing formal, just wandering from room to room – we stroll to the main tasting area at Sake Hiroba Grounds, a leafy park filled with hundreds of stands serving sake from all over Japan. Here, you can fill your ¥1,500 (US$12.50) cup as many times as you wish. Who says Japan is expensive?
Sake has long been associated with festivals and revelry and the tasting area is more of a cheerful weekend gathering than a serious booze-fest. “In Shinto society, festivals were very happy times because most of the time people just worked,” says Murakami-san. “They lived simple lives, with little pleasure, but the festivals were different. That’s when they had fun.”
We walk from stand to stand, holding out our cups. Murakami-san thinks I’ll like the number 59, and I do. Then I have a cup of number 58, Gojuhachi, from Akita prefecture. Or was that the Kariho brand? No, Kariho brand was number 68, also from Akita prefecture, a strong sake with a nice dry flavour. All the bottles rest in buckets of ice – good sake is always served cold. Some sakes are better than others, and I discover that I like the tart, tight, astringent brews more than the sweet mild ones, although after a while, it is hard to keep them straight.
All in all, it is a fine, fun-filled afternoon at the sake festival, as we wander under the shade trees, listen to the music, and carry on with our fellow drinkers.
But there is a price to pay for so much boozing, because all sake goes right to the head. Two thousand years ago, the Japanese believed that sake helped a person get power from the gods. After countless cups of sake, I believe it too.
Our sake education continued a couple of days later at Asahi Shuzo, a boutique brewery that makes Dassai brand sake, one of the finest in existence. Dassai is made in a centuries-old building in rural Yamaguchi prefecture, an hour from Hiroshima. The experience is far more sober than the boisterous Saijo Sake Festival. We are even told to wear slippers on the factory floor – a first for all of us.
Dassai sake is made by serious workers in spotless uniforms, who go about their work with complete concentration, stirring and measuring and checking the vats. Quality control is strict: thermometers, test tubes and flasks are everywhere, as workers measure and chart sweetness, acidity, alcohol and sugar.
First, the Yamada Nishiki rice is dipped in ice water for eight minutes and then steamed for one hour. After that, koji is added. Koji is a mould that breaks down the starch for easier fermentation by the yeast, and it also gives sake its distinctive flavour. The rice then ferments for 35 or 40 days, bubbling away in big vats. “Fermented things are like living creatures, they don’t complain, but they are looking for the best living conditions where they are most comfortable,” says company president Hiroshi Sakurai, peering into the bubbling vat. Later, the mash is drained, the particles are removed and the sake is bottled.
Such careful craftsmanship doesn’t come cheap: some Dassai fetches ¥15,000 (US$125) for a single bottle. A growing percentage of the sake is exported to places like New York, Hongkong, San Francisco and Taipei. This is a trend: beer and shochu (a distilled spirit) are more popular in Japan than sake, but overseas, the market for sake is booming. “We ship more and more overseas, especially to New York,” says the president.
Dassai’s obsession with quality has delectable results, as we discover in the tasting room, where we sample three brews, each one better than the last. The first is Dassai Junmai Ginjo 50 – the 50 refers to the percentage of rice that remains after polishing, while Junmai means no extra alcohol has been added. This drink has a pronounced rice odour, a vinegar-acid bouquet, and a subtle, fresh-fruity flavour that dances on the tongue.
Next we have the Dassai Junmai Daiginjo 39, made from 39 percent of the rice grain. This straw-coloured nectar is less fruity than the 50, with a more volatile nose. Now, I am not an expert on sake – beer is my department – so I checked out urbansake.com to see what the experts had to say about Dassai. “This is my new favourite sake, period!” a reviewer gushed. “It was such a delight – it has just enough character, substance and dimension, like the Dassai 50, and just enough of the elegance and refinement of the Dassai 23. It’s the perfect marriage of the two and it’s really sake harmony in a bottle...” And so on.
The third sake, the Dassai Junmai Daiginjo 23, is a bewitching drink of perfect balance and fine aroma.
The same reviewer said this about the 23: “A pinnacle of achievement, refined, graceful and beyond smooth...” He is right: the 23 is a godly drink, neither sweet nor fruity nor acidic, with dense, powerful flavours of rice and sugar and acid and koji, all in perfect combination.
So we continue to sit in the tasting room and sip away, as sunlight shines through the windows, fully aware of how lucky we are to be enjoying such exotic brews. It is a special treat, but also a challenge: how do I capture and remember this pleasure, take home the memory of an aroma, the fragrance and flavour of a fine sake? Actually, it’s pretty easy – I open the bottle of Dassai 23 that I brought home with me.
LIQUID GIFTS
In Japan, sake is the perfect gift to bring when you are invited to somebody’s home. It can also be given to a business associate, but in the corporate world, spirits like whisky, cognac and soju are more commonly given than sake. “You could give sake to a fellow businessman, but it is more for taking to another person’s house, and for happy occasions like weddings or the opening of a new business,” says Yuko Kitade, a volunteer guide from Fukui prefecture. “You could also bring a very dry sake to a party, open it and share it.”
How much should you spend on that gift? A good rule of thumb is to look for a sake made from 50 percent milled rice, which is on the border between Ginjo (good sake) and Daiginjo (extra good sake). A bottle of good sake will cost about ¥3,000 (US$24), and if you want to make a real splash, ¥5,000 (US$41) will buy you a fine bottle of Japan’s signature beverage. And that, in turn, will show your refinement and sophistication. “Before, sake was a common drink, but now it is becoming more and more high class,” says Asahi Shuzo president, Hiroshi Sakurai.
