When you hear the word "Sake," what comes to your mind?
Party drink (Sake Bomb, Beer Pong) that you have tried at college?
Fancy drinks served at Sushi restaurants?
For most people, Sake is probably something new and foreign but not sure what exactly it is and "nice" if I can try someday. Here, I would like to explain why you "should" try Sake and hopefully after reading the article, you are going to put "Sake" in your todo list because I believe you are missing out a lot by not experiencing amazing world of Sake!!
Only alcoholic beverage that can enrich the flavor by heating up
Just as lukewarm beer tastes bad, temperature has a great deal to do with the taste of alcohol or food in general. While most alcoholic beverages must be drunk at room temperature or chilled to enjoy, sake is a very special kind of alcohol that tastes even better when warmed and has been enjoyed that way for a long time. In fact, there is even a title within Sake Sommelier for those who specializes warm sake called, Kantsukeshi.
If you are curious, adventurous type for eating, I think warm sake (Atsukan) experience is going to blow your mind. (it certainly did mine!!)
Goes well with any kind of food, so you can enjoy food pairing casually
When you drink alcohol, you probably need some snacks or meals to go with it, and it's rare that you enjoy alcohol on its own. And when you do, you probably drink beer just for the sake of it. It is certainly an easy choice because it is cold, carbonated, refreshing, and doesn't fight with many dishes, but it doesn't necessarily make your food tastes better. If you can learn to eat with complementary alcohol, your daily eating experience can be more enjoyable.
When you think of an alcoholic beverage that can make a meal taste better, most people think of wine. Of course, wine is a great drink to enhance a meal, but pairing it with a meal (pairing) is not easy. There are many pairings that end in a fight, which is why there is a profession called sommelier.
Sake, on the other hand, can be paired with almost any meal. Putting aside the difficulties, an intuitive image that is easy to understand is to think in terms of ingredients. In other words, does it go well with rice or white rice? Steak is a classic pairing for red wine, but it also goes well with sake. You can imagine a roast beef bowl or grilled meat with white rice.
Sake goes well with almost any meal without any conflict, and it has a lot of flavor components that make the food taste better, so it is the perfect sake to try out pairings with. It's hard to make new dishes, but just buying sake with pairing in mind will take your standard meal enjoyment to the next level, so give it a try!
From the perspective of pairing sake with food, it can be approached not only as a "flavor pairing" but also as a "temperature pairing," which is a different dimension.
Craft Sake simply tastes great. If you don't agree, you probably haven't tried "Real" Sake yet
Like I myself had been, I think the sake that most of you have encountered so far is probably the mass produced, second-rate Sake in terms of taste. If I were to use an analogy, it would be like comparing cup ramen to ramen from a top-notch restaurant. It's not that one is better than the other, they are simply different, so I would like you to experience good, real sake once. In your hobbies and what you like to do, isn't it possible that your encounter with the real thing is what got you hooked?
Some people may say, "I've had expensive or famous sake, but I didn't think it tasted very good. In such cases, I think it just means that it didn't suit your taste.
For example, I like ramen, and I especially like thin, crunchy pork bone ramen. So even if I went to a popular seafood-based thick noodle tsukemen restaurant, it would of course be delicious in its own way, but it did not make me feel like I was hooked or wanted to go back, so it is important to be able to find something that suits your taste.
I don't know if ramen is a good example, but sake has a pretty wide range of flavors as well, so please try to find something that (1) is a real product that has been designed to be "delicious" and (2) you like. I'm sure you'll come across some amazingly good sake!
Conclusion
What did you think? Have you become a little more interested in sake?
The most important thing I want to say here is that sake is not a hard drink to drink. It is easy to match with food, can be enjoyed at various temperatures, and can be drunk in any way you like. There is no other sake that can be enjoyed in such a flexible and casual way, so why not enjoy some real, delicious sake with your dinner tonight?
By the way, "Sake" in Japanese means all alcohol drinks, so technical word for Sake is "Nihonshu". (It's like "meat" = "Sake" and "beef" = "Nihonshu" but for most people Sake means Nihonshu, so I will use the word "Sake" as Nihonshu).
Also, a lot of people confuse Sake with "Soju" (Korean distilled alcohol) but Sake is actually brewed alcohol, so alcohol content is much lower, similar to wine. I know they are both Asian transparent alcohol and sounds similar, so it's difficult to tell but if you could just remember they are different, that's a great start. (There is Japanese distilled alcohol called "Shochu" as well but that's another story..)
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