Episode 108. What happens when you bend the rules of sake brewing? You can certainly end up with sake that some would call extreme. Case in point- there is some traditional thinking around how to treat “nama” or unpasteurized sake. The often repeated golden rule is to ‘keep it chilled’ and ‘drink it young’! What happens if you decide to long-term age this kind of sake? Today we’ll find out! Aged Nama is a new frontier in the world of sake styles. If funky, fun and umami-driven flavors speak to you, you may very well want to check out this unconventional style of sake for yourself. Let’s explore the newest trend in older sake: Aged Nama! #SakeRevolution

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Skip to: 00:19 Show Opening
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy

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Skip to: 03:27 Extreme Sake: Aged Nama

From Zev Rovine Selections Website:
“Most sake brewers buy their rice – some from contracted farmers, most from unknown sources. “From our own fields to bottle” is the motto of Akishika Shuzō, where 6th-generation kuramoto Oku Hiroaki made a decision to take the brewery as close as it gets to being self-sustained for rice production.

At present, the brewery farms 25 hectares of biodynamically grown rice, sacrificing high yields for superior quality and taste. Breaking with the production methods of postwar Japan and going against the trend of the time, Oku-san was one of the initial pioneers of junmaishu, sake made without any additives; and in 2009, he achieved the goal of the brewery’s entire production being made that way. Akishika ages a big part of their production until it reaches perfect drinking condition, allowing them to offer an unrivaled variety of matured sake.

Using their unique fermentation method of dissolving a very high portion of the fermentation rice into the brew while maintaining low amino acid levels, Akishika’s sake is medium-bodied yet very flavorful, complex, and layered.”

Web: No website
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/okukasumi.akishika/

Video Tour of Akishika Shuzo: (Japanese only)
This video tour of Akishika Shuzo is only in Japanese, but you can get some glimpse into the rice fields and inside the brewery.

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Skip to: 14:01 Sake Tasting : Akishika Okushika Junmai Muroka Nama Genshu Yamahai 2015

Akishika Okushika Junmai Muroka Nama Genshu Yamahai 2015

Alcohol: 18.0%
Classification: Genshu, Junmai, Yamahai, Muroka, Nama
Prefecture: Osaka
Rice Type: Yamadanishiki
Brewery: Akishika Shuzo
Acidity: 2.1
SMV: +18.0
Brand: okushika
Yeast: Kyokai 7

View on UrbanSake.com:
https://www.urbansake.com/product/akishika-okushika-junmai-muroka-nama-genshu-yamahai-2015

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Skip to: 30:32 Show Closing

This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!

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John Puma: 0:21
Hello everybody. And welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America’s very first sake podcast and I am your host. My name is John Puma from the Sake Notes. Also the guy who runs the internet sake discord. It’s a fun place to talk about sake and sip with people on Thursday nights, you should have joined us some time. And, uh, on this show, I’m the guy. Who’s the regular sake guy, not the professional sake guy.

Timothy Sullivan: 0:51
And I am your host, Timothy Sullivan. I’m a Sake Samurai. I’m a sake educator and I’m also the founder of the Urban Sake website. And every week John and I will be here tasting and chatting about all things, sake and doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand.

John Puma: 1:09
Hmm. No, it, uh, I got to say, I do love my role here as the enthusiastic amateur that I get to enjoy every week with you, especially on weeks like this one, where we get to do one of the more interesting series that we do on this show. It’s always exciting.

Timothy Sullivan: 1:30
I feel like we’ve been playing it a little safe lately and we have to get back up on that tight rope and on the knife’s edge.

John Puma: 1:39
Take it some chances today is that you’re

Timothy Sullivan: 1:40
saying? Yes, we’re going to roll the dice.

John Puma: 1:42
oh, all right then. Uh, can we, can we please let the wonderful people at home know we’re rolling

Timothy Sullivan: 1:50
well, we’re dipping our toe back into the world of extreme sake.

John Puma: 1:56
Extreme.

Timothy Sullivan: 1:56
Yes. EXTREME,

John Puma: 1:59
Extreme. Um, so yeah, this is a fun series where we go after. You’re not, you’re not run of the mill

Timothy Sullivan: 2:09
Yeah.

John Puma: 2:10
types of sake. Is that a good way to put it?

Timothy Sullivan: 2:11
Yeah. And what have some of the extremes been that we’ve done already? We did extreme, robust rice milling,

John Puma: 2:19
We did extreme sweetness.

Timothy Sullivan: 2:21
We did extreme sweetness.

John Puma: 2:22
Hm.

Timothy Sullivan: 2:23
and today we’re going to be doing something really interesting and both you and I are pretty sure that this may not be our usual type of sake, but I’m super curious to taste it. Now, everyone who listens to our podcast regularly is going to know what Nama sake is. Nama means raw and Nama. sake is unpasteurized, right?

John Puma: 2:50
Totally. Yeah. Unpasteurized sake. We talk about that. uh, with some of our earlier episodes, we’ve gone through these different types of what these different levels of pasteurization mean. And we were very specific about, uh, you know, the right way to take care of our unpasteurized sake.

Timothy Sullivan: 3:05
And what is the golden rule for unpasteurized namasake, John?

John Puma: 3:10
you, refrigerate it, uh, and you have it fresh.

Timothy Sullivan: 3:14
Yes. Drink it. Fresh. Drink it young.

John Puma: 3:17
Yes.

Timothy Sullivan: 3:18
That’s what we always say.

John Puma: 3:20
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so, uh, all right. So extreme Nama, so it’s very, very fresh then.

Timothy Sullivan: 3:27
No, this is exactly the opposite we are going to explore a new trend in the world of extreme sake and we are tasting aged Nama, sake.

John Puma: 3:38
Um, how is, should we talking about Tim?

Timothy Sullivan: 3:41
Well,

John Puma: 3:41
a couple of months.

Timothy Sullivan: 3:42
The sake. We are tasting completely unpasteurized, no water added, no charcoal filtering, no heat treatment of any kind. This sake is seven years old.

John Puma: 3:57
so not, not to be showing my age a little bit here and making a Ghostbusters reference, but this is a little bit like crossing the streams. You said, you said aging, the Nama was bad.

Timothy Sullivan: 4:08
Most people say that unpasteurized sake is meant to be consumed young and fresh, but there is a school of thought. There is a philosophy out there that taking this raw unpasteurized, sake, and aging it can bring out new aspects to the sake and we are putting that to the test today. You and me.

John Puma: 4:34
Um, it’s going to be an interesting one then. All right, we’re going to break the, I guess it’s a, that is like a, a golden rule to him breaking the golden rule.

Timothy Sullivan: 4:46
yeah. Yeah. What are your experiences with age sake in general? Like, just forget Nama for a second. We did an episode on Koshu, which is age sake, just in general. any other experiences with age sake?

John Puma: 5:02
Um, well, I’ve had a wonderfully aged sakes that were aged, uh, chilled. I think we’ve talked about that in the past too. Uh, there’s a, the, the, um, the Yuki Muro from Hakkaisan is three year aged in a very cold environment. I’m very fond of that. And there are quite a few sakes from born that are aged for one year chilled. So yeah. An old hand at age. So as long as you keep it really cold the whole time.

Timothy Sullivan: 5:30
Yeah. And those sake’s you’ve all mentioned have all been pasteurized twice. So going, going into this, they are shelf stable and then they get super chilled and left for three years or so. But this completely unprotected un-aged non heat treated unpasteurized. sake sitting around for seven years. Oh my goodness.

John Puma: 5:57
And, um, wow. What’s that going to do to a sake?

Timothy Sullivan: 6:01
we are going to find out this is a little bit of unchartered territory for myself as well. I’ve had age sake aged at room temperature,

John Puma: 6:09
Yes,

Timothy Sullivan: 6:14
I can’t say I’ve had that much. That’s been aged for this long

John Puma: 6:18
this is madness.

Timothy Sullivan: 6:21
the world is turned upside down. Nothing makes sense.

John Puma: 6:24
No.

Timothy Sullivan: 6:26
Well,

John Puma: 6:26
in all honesty, I’m kind of excited about this guy. I really don’t know what to expect and maybe fun.

Timothy Sullivan: 6:34
Now I do have to say, people may be wondering at home listening. What if I’m interested in tasting it? Can I get aged unpasteurized sake for myself here in the States?

John Puma: 6:44
Well, Tim, we do not as a policy unless we have a really good reason taste on this. It’s not case that we can’t get here in the States.

Timothy Sullivan: 6:54
That’s right.

John Puma: 6:55
Um, so, so we were breaking one golden rule, but we’re keeping true to another.

Timothy Sullivan: 7:01
Yes. Yes. So before anybody worries that they’re going to have. Listen to this episode again, in seven years to taste own aged namasake good news is that this, there are aged namasakes coming into the States, and this is a new style that has enough momentum behind it, that there are people who are exporting this style from Japan. So you too can try this and maybe we should dive in a little bit to the particular sake we’ll be tasting, let people know the brewery. And the stats for the sake, and then we’ll get into the tasting.

John Puma: 7:40
sure. So the, uh, the name of our brewery here is, uh, Akishika, which I believe we did talk about, uh, with our friend Brian Ashcraft a little bit when he was on the show a while back, and they are located in Osaka prefecture, uh, and the name of the sake itself that we’re going to be having is, uh, okushika and the brewery is Akishika, and the brand is, uh, Okushika uh, and this is their Okushika 2015 and yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is the vintage. Yes, 2015. um, this is a, Muroka Nama Genshu. That’s been in the bottle since 2015. And it’s using, uh, they expressly say a state grown organic Yamada Shiki. the Polish on that Yamada Nishiki is 60%. Uh, and this, uh, the alcohol percentage on this is 18 because again Genshu, um, and yes, this is a yeast number seven also. We don’t usually get the yeast information. That’s nice that we have at this time.

Timothy Sullivan: 8:56
Yeah. So let’s dig into this a little bit. So the Yamahai Nishiki, which is a king of sake rice, it is organically grown and it’s their own estate grown. So this is a rice that the brewer, Mr. ohku, Hiroaki Ohku is the president and the master brewer.

John Puma: 9:15
Hm.

Timothy Sullivan: 9:16
And he has a motto for his brewery, which is from our own fields to the bottle. So this is grain, grain to bottle, minimal intervention

John Puma: 9:30
um, I like that. I like that idea. I think we we’ve spoken about, uh, estate rice before and how interesting that is and how having that control over. For lack of a better term, the upbringing of the rice in the field can really have a strong impact on the resulting sake.

Timothy Sullivan: 9:51
Yeah,

John Puma: 9:51
That’s very interesting.

Timothy Sullivan: 9:52
I think it’s important to mention as well that this is not a case where people are spiriting it away and aging it without their control. This is brewed specifically by this brewery to be aged for long periods of time. And this is their vision for this sake.

John Puma: 10:11
Um,

Timothy Sullivan: 10:11
again, from our own fields to the bottle, from grain to bottle, this brewery has a vision for what we’re about to taste.

John Puma: 10:22
grain a bottle with a slight detour in the aging room. Ah, all right. So aged Nama, this is a brave new world or old, I guess. Uh,

Timothy Sullivan: 10:37
Yeah. So I have to confess, I do have some reservations. I’m not familiar with the style and it goes against everything that we’re taught in sake school. So I’m really, really curious. However, the one thing that’s going around in the back of my mind is another thing you and I say a lot is that some styles of sake are indestructable right. Don’t we say that?

John Puma: 11:04
We do. Um, we do, and this is, um, when you have something that’s, uh, unpasteurized and undiluted and all these things. At the scene. It’s pretty indestructible to me. If you put this out for seven years and it is exactly though, you want it? I think, I don’t think it’s going to be easy to destroy.

Timothy Sullivan: 11:24
I hope not. Yeah, Well, I do have a quick story when sometimes when I’ve been selling sake before, if I’ve been working in a shop or something, and someone comes in to buy a bottle of Nama, sake, or unpasteurized sake, and they’re concerned that if they buy it and they do some additional shopping somewhere else and they won’t get home for an hour or two. Is it going to ruin the sake and they’re sweating bullets because the sake is going to be out of refrigeration for two hours. I think, that the brewer here at AKI Shika Shuzo would laugh them out of the store.

John Puma: 12:04
Yeah, I think, um, two hours is not much of a concern here. Yeah. I’ve you, have you ever tried to is a slightly off topic, I think, but, have you ever tried to shuttle a Nama home from Japan?

Timothy Sullivan: 12:17
Oh, I’ve done that.

John Puma: 12:18
Okay. I was always very sheepish about it. And then somebody reminded me that as long as I kind of take care of the bottle in my hotel room, the time that I’m going to the airport is kind of inconsequential. And then once you’re in the air, that luggage compartment is nice and cold. So it’s not really a concern unless you’re worried about the bottle exploding or something like that, but I’ve never had that happen.

Timothy Sullivan: 12:41
Yeah. Yeah, No, the luggage compartment on at 30,000 feet is nice and chilly. So

John Puma: 12:49
probably, probably chillier than that, uh, than that hotel fridge.

Timothy Sullivan: 12:54
for sure. Yeah.

John Puma: 12:56
but no fridge is here. This is.

Timothy Sullivan: 12:59
no,

John Puma: 12:59
Actually did we specify this was, uh, age at room temperature?

Timothy Sullivan: 13:02
I have to assume it

John Puma: 13:04
Yeah, it wouldn’t be as big a story

Timothy Sullivan: 13:06
The bottle, the bottle that I bought in, I bought this in a retail. And it was sitting out on a shelf, no refrigeration. So it’s still unpasteurized

John Puma: 13:18
Oh boy. All right. This is going to be interesting.

Timothy Sullivan: 13:24
uh, there’s actually a storage recommendation on the bottle.

John Puma: 13:27
Oh, all right, please, please, please. I need to hear this.

Timothy Sullivan: 13:30
the bottle says storage. Cool. Dark place. Cool dark place and then serving room temperature or slightly warmed.

John Puma: 13:41
Well,

Timothy Sullivan: 13:42
So it does not, it does not say refrigeration. It says it kind of implies like maybe a wine cellar type.

John Puma: 13:48
yeah, I I’ve been, I I’ve had mine in the fridge.

Timothy Sullivan: 13:52
Me too. I thought after seven years it couldn’t hurt A little chilling.

John Puma: 13:59
A little blanket too.

Timothy Sullivan: 14:01
All right. Well, should we open it up and get it in the glass?

John Puma: 14:03
I, I definitely think we should. I’m very curious about this. All right. Some indestructable sake in the wine glass.

Timothy Sullivan: 14:13
Okay. Well, it definitely has some color, but honestly it’s not as much color as I thought we would be for

John Puma: 14:21
I kind of thought this would be a lot browner, no offense to anybody who was rooting for that. Uh,

Timothy Sullivan: 14:27
like, oh, it looks like a white wine in the glass. You know, it has a, a golden hue to it, but it’s not too dark.

John Puma: 14:37
Yeah. Um, I am a little surprised how much like you.

Timothy Sullivan: 14:42
Okay. Let’s give it a smell. Okay. The aroma is funky.

John Puma: 14:50
Yes. This, this is a little more with inline that my expectations.

Timothy Sullivan: 14:56
I feel there’s a lot of complexity going on here. I’m not putting my finger on the aroma.

John Puma: 15:02
It’s definitely a funky town though.

Timothy Sullivan: 15:03
It’s funky. Tell me, John, tell me if you think I’m crazy, but it actually smells a little bit parmeasean-y to me. I know you’re not a cheese connoisseur

John Puma: 15:15
I could be it.

Timothy Sullivan: 15:17
Yeah, I’m getting a little, no, you don’t like that idea.

John Puma: 15:22
I mean, I don’t like Parma. I mean, parmeseans okay, but I don’t like

Timothy Sullivan: 15:26
Um,

John Puma: 15:26
a lot

Timothy Sullivan: 15:28
I’m getting, um, definite umami and kind of lactic. Dairy and a little bit of a cheese note on the aroma.

John Puma: 15:40
definitely the cheese notes.

Timothy Sullivan: 15:43
It, it smells funky and deep. All right. I’m going to. Hmm. Okay. Well, The flavor is very close to the aroma for me. You know, we’ve had those sakes on the show where the aroma is one thing and the palate is something very different. This, this lines up, and there is a richness here. There’s a definite lactic character, a funkiness, and there is a flavor descriptor that we use for aged. Like a little oxidized, a little bit exposed to time and that’s coming through on the palate for me as well.

John Puma: 16:39
I, I believe I can say this with the utmost confidence. And I can say that I’ve never tasted anything like this, or exactly like this. This is a new and completely different style for me. And I don’t have the language because I’ve literally never experienced it before. It’s just. Other it’s so different,

Timothy Sullivan: 17:12
Yep. Very well said. I completely agree. It’s It’s a unique approach and it is unlike anything we’ve tasted before. So in that regard, it is definitely extreme like this. This is hitting all the extreme for me

John Puma: 17:30
definitely. There’s um, you know, so I can’t. And power suggestion and all that. I guess I cannot un-smell the cheese.

Timothy Sullivan: 17:40
Oh,

John Puma: 17:41
Uh, you know, that’s okay. so I’m not taking big wafts of the aroma on this one. I’m just not a fan of cheese. Um, having said that, hmm, this taste is just so bizarre and so unusual that I, I. I keep sipping, cause I want to try and figure out like where journey ends. Cause it’s, it’s got such depth to it and it’s very unusual. And I just, like I said, just nothing I’ve ever experienced before in a sake. It’s very odd. I just may, maybe in anything.

Timothy Sullivan: 18:16
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Really well said. I, I will, for the listeners who are tuning in today, who are perhaps cheese lovers, unlike certain other people on the call,

John Puma: 18:29
You know, normal people, normal people, I think, would say an average normal people like cheese. I’m the weird one. It’s not, it’s not anybody. elses fault.

Timothy Sullivan: 18:37
Well, if you are a cheese lover and you like Parmesan and you’ve ever had those Parmesan crackers, I don’t know if you like Cheez-Its John or any of those cheese crackers, but they make these Parmesan crisp crackers that have, a specific texture, a specific smell. It very, very much reminds me of these Parmesan crackers. So I’m a little bit of grain, a little bit of rice, and then a dairy cheesy note on top. And I’m having it pretty close to room temperature, but I think warm might be the saving grace for the sake and really bring it home.

John Puma: 19:21
Hm. Well, you know, through the magic of editing, we can Test that out if you want. Ah, ha. We have warm sakeer sake.

Timothy Sullivan: 19:35
Through the magic of podcasting,

John Puma: 19:37
Yes.

Timothy Sullivan: 19:38
we’ve warmed up the Okushika 2015 and I’m ready to give it another smell. Okay. The surprises never stopped coming. This smells much less like parmesan

John Puma: 19:55
have as a big smile on my face. Uh, the lack of lack of cheese, it was a plus for me in many, in many aspects of my life.

Timothy Sullivan: 20:04
Yep. It’s amazing. It really will. You know, when you warm certain sakes, you can dissipate aromas, which you don’t want to do with. Super fruity melon-y fruit bombs. We always drink. That’s why they say never warm up those super ginjo sakes. But this one did kind of dissipate this more concentrated dairy, umami, aroma, and it’s coming out a little bit lighter, which is good for John.

John Puma: 20:30
Very good for John.

Timothy Sullivan: 20:32
Okay, well, let’s give this warm sake a taste and I have mine warm to probably like a 115 degrees, not piping, piping hot. Um, just a gentle warming. All right. Hmm.

John Puma: 20:49
Hey,

Timothy Sullivan: 20:50
I like it a lot

John Puma: 20:51
better I think I found the sweet spot for the sake

Timothy Sullivan: 20:54
Yeah, it removes a lot of the dairy and the cheese cast to the sake and it actually makes it taste a little bit more acidic and a little bit sweeter.

John Puma: 21:10
Yeah,

Timothy Sullivan: 21:10
Does that make sense to you?

John Puma: 21:12
it does. I mean, I don’t know if it makes sense, but the truth.

Timothy Sullivan: 21:18
Yeah. I have more, more sweetness coming through and. It, it feels a little bit warmer on the palate as well. Not, not temperature wise, but a little bit more of the alcohol is coming through, which is completely expected when you serve a sake that’s 18% alcohol. When you warm it up, you’re going to get a little bit more of those alcohol notes coming forward, which is happening here, but it’s kind of. evened it out a little bit, like if it was, if it had bedhead before it’s kind of run the comb through the

John Puma: 21:53
All right. I like it. I like it. Yeah. Very, very different experience when it’s warmed up and. Yeah. A much more, yeah, much more pleasant, much more, uh, imminently drinkable. Like this is like really simple now.

Timothy Sullivan: 22:10
yeah.

John Puma: 22:11
whereas I feel like you know, when I had it before, I was talking a lot about depth to not even be able to see the bottom, uh, or as now it’s, it’s become a kind of a little more compact, a little bit more understandable. and you can take that as you will, but I, um, but I do think that, you know, it does definitely change in, in extreme, extreme ways.

Timothy Sullivan: 22:35
Yes. Yeah. So we’ve had an extreme sake undergo and extreme transformation.

John Puma: 22:41
Yes. Quite quite a ways, quite a bit of extreme going on.

Timothy Sullivan: 22:48
Now I think this sake really lives up to the extreme series name. What is your impression now of aging unpasteurized sake? Do you think this is something that should be pursued? Do you think this is a trend that’s going to go away and another seven years,

John Puma: 23:11
uh, I could definitely see it becoming a trend is definitely, the people who are who are advocates of this style of sake are really, really into it. They’re very passionate about it, you

Timothy Sullivan: 23:22
Yeah.

John Puma: 23:22
Uh, Yeah. The, the, the, the place where we actually purchased this over in Brooklyn and, uh, uh, at Bin Bin George over there as a big proponent of aging, all manner of sake, uh, and, and is a big fan of this as well. And of course, the guy who, who exports this over in, Japan, uh, Yoram over in Kyoto, you know, obviously, feels very strongly about this style and, and wants to see it flourish.

Timothy Sullivan: 23:54
so there’s advocates in Japan that really cherish and root for this style. My personal feelings aside. I don’t think this is going to be everyone’s cup of tea, just because

John Puma: 24:07
No,

Timothy Sullivan: 24:08
it’s, it’s strongly flavored. It’s got a lot of personality and a lot of flavor. And I think for some people they’re going to want something a little bit lighter and more easy drink.

John Puma: 24:21
I mean, I, I, I generally, you know, that describes me pretty directly. I feel seen.

Timothy Sullivan: 24:28
You feel seen.

John Puma: 24:28
I do.

Timothy Sullivan: 24:32
Yeah. But I think this definitely has its place. And I think that. We need our envelope pushing. We’ve talked about this on the podcast before that if there’s an envelope in the sake world, it should be pushed because we need more variety. We need more styles. We need to do everything we can to recruit more diverse, palates to sake. And I think something like aged unpasteurized, Nama sake is just the ticket that the industry as a whole needs to. Shake things up and bring in new voices to the sake world. What do you think about that?

John Puma: 25:11
Yeah, we, we say, we’ve said this on the show, plenty of times that when we come across sake, that’s not for us. That’s kind of a good thing. It means that not is wider than our own personal tastes.

Timothy Sullivan: 25:23
Yes. And I feel that having this one warm, especially even if it’s not my everyday cup of tea, I feel like I can totally see myself drinking. With the right pairing or at the right circumstance. And it is enjoyable at the right temperature. And that really surprised me.

John Puma: 25:47
Yeah. th the transformation has went through, uh, want me to change the temperatures on it?. I’ve tasted sake to give you a very different experience at varying temperatures, but I’ve never seen one this extreme, or there had one, this, this, this much of a variance it’s. So. No. Is this, is this, is this the magic of seven year age Nama? Or is it, you know, the magic of estate grown rice? What are we saying here? You know, and it’s so much, we don’t even know

Timothy Sullivan: 26:18
one stat we may also want to call out is the alcohol percentage when you’re aging, something unpasteurized for that long, having a higher alcohol percentage is an important factor. I believe because the higher alcohol sakes are more resistant to spoilage when they’re unpasteurized. So taking something to. Uh, higher alcohol and not adding water gives a sake, the foundation, the kind of robust foundation. It needs to age more successfully. So you’ll find a lot of aged sakes a lot of koshus do come in those higher alcohol percentages and that’s something they’ve done here and it really plays up that aspect of it when you warm it, you know, that side of it comes out and shines when it’s warmed.

John Puma: 27:07
Yeah, very nice. Well,

Timothy Sullivan: 27:09
okay, John we’ve had the sake chilled. We’ve had the sake warmed. So my question for you is what do you think about sealing this back up and aging it further? Do you think that is. interesting things to do? Or do you think it’s going to continue to evolve or do you think it’s reached its peak when the brewer released it? Any thoughts on that.

John Puma: 27:38
Well, normally I’d say with the rulers intent is the way they put it on the shelf, but something that we learned from our experience talking about Tamagawa. Is that in that case, the brewer there, makes wonderful indestructable sake and his perspective on that is that you should take it home and you should age it more. Cause when he hands it out, it’s not in his night and it’s not done. It just escaped. Uh, so, um, you know, I think that may be for, um, for that style of sake, this indestructable style of sake, maybe that’s the golden rule.

Timothy Sullivan: 28:25
Um, Yeah. Yeah. I think you’ve hit on it. I I’m of the mindset that this sake could continue to age. In the bottle after it’s been opened, even at room temperature and it would continue to evolve new aspects to it and concentrate the flavor a little more. So I would not be afraid at all to continue aging, this at home. And I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do with what I have left in the bottle. And when the weather cools down and it gets really chilly again, I may break it out, warm it up. And see what happens after another six months, another year,

John Puma: 29:08
Hmm. Nice. I think that’s a fun idea. So tune into the show next year, and we’ll.

Timothy Sullivan: 29:17
join us for episode 208.

John Puma: 29:20
Yes. We’ll take the sake off the shelf and see what happens. Yes, yes, yes. Uh, it actually in, um, in sake revolution tradition, we should probably, uh, have this in like August and then warm it up.

Timothy Sullivan: 29:35
We have a pretty bad track record for serving warm sake in the summer and chilled sake in the winter, but we’ll get it. We’ll get it straightened out one of these years.

John Puma: 29:46
it right. Uh, all right.

Timothy Sullivan: 29:49
Okay. Well,

John Puma: 29:50
is it, is it time? Is it time to thank the people yet to.

Timothy Sullivan: 29:55
Well, we survived and actually thrived through another foray into the world of extreme sake. And I think this was a very interesting corner of the extremities that sake can reach. hope people might’ve had their interests piqued. And if you are interested in learning more about aged sakes, That is unpasteurized. Please visit our website. You can check our show notes and we’ll have some links in there where you can look to buy the sake for yourself.

John Puma: 30:31
mm.

Timothy Sullivan: 30:32
So I want to thank all of our listeners so much for tuning in. We really do hope that you’re enjoying our show. I also want to take a moment to thank our patrons. Thank you so much for supporting Sake Revolution. And if you would like to become a paid. Please visit Patreon.com/SakeRevolution.

John Puma: 30:53
And if you would like to reach out to us directly, and if you have, uh, sake questions that you need answered, you’ve got a nama it’s been sitting on your shelf for just years. And you’re wondering, is it good enough to drink? if it is very, very dark, in color, probably not, but, uh, if it has been, Made specifically for this? They absolutely. Yes. Anyway, we do want to hear from you. We have an email address just for that is the, the best way to get in touch with us it’s [email protected]. So please raise your vessel of choice please remember to keep drinking sake and Kanpai.