Episode 25 Show Notes
Season 1. Episode 25. Some podcasts have been around for years, but our little sake show has only been on the air for five months. In that time, with a little hard work and a lot of sake, we’ve hit two milestones: 5,000 listener downloads and 25 published episodes! What better way to toast our achievement than with the ultimate celebration sake – we are talking sparkling! Also known as “happo-shu” or “awasake”, this spritzy style of sake is having a bit of a renaissance of late. With the foundation of the Japan Awasake Association in 2016, a number of premier brewers turned their attention to giving sparkling sake an upgrade. From overly sweet and low alcohol to elegant and refined, the best sparkling sakes are now made under strict guidelines using the “champagne method”, that is employing a secondary fermentation in the bottle to create fine and all natural bubbles. John and Tim look at two different sparkling sakes as they toast this 25th episode. Here’s to many more! Remember to keep drinking sake and… well, you know what to do! (KANPAI!)
Skip to: 00:19 Hosts Welcome and Introduction
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy
Skip to: 01:32 25th Episode Celebration
Skip to: 02:08 Sake Education Corner: Sparkling sake
Skip to: 11:58 Sake Introductions
John and Timothy introduce their sakes for this week.
Skip to: 13:30 Sake Tasting: Imada Fukucho Seaside Sparkling Junmai
Imada Fukucho Seaside Sparkling Junmai
Classification: Junmai, Sparkling
Acidity: 3.5
Brewery: Imada Shuzohonten
Alcohol: 13.0%
Prefecture: Hiroshima
SMV: -3.0
Rice Type: Nakate shinsenbon
Seimaibuai: 70%
Importer: Vine Connections (USA)
Brand: Fukucho (富久長)
Skip to: 21:07 Sake Tasting: Hakkaisan AWA Clear Sparkling Junmai Ginjo
Hakkaisan AWA Clear Sparkling Junmai Ginjo*
Classification: Junmai Ginjo, Sparkling
Brewery: Hakkaisan Sake Brewery
Prefecture: Niigata
Seimaibuai: 50%
Rice Type: Gohyakumangoku, Miyamanishiki, Yamadanishiki
Alcohol: 13.0%
Acidity: 1.4
SMV: -5.0
Brand: Hakkaisan (八海山)
Sake Name English: Eight Peaks
Importer: Mutual Trading (USA)
NOTE: Use Discount Code “REVOLUTION” for 10% off your first order with Tippsy Sake.
*Please note: Timothy works as the Brand Ambassador for Hakkaisan Sake Brewery.
Please see our Ethics Statement for more information
Skip to: 29:10 Show Closing
This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!
Episode 25 Transcript
John Puma: 0:22
Hello, and welcome to sake revolution. America’s first sake podcast. I’m your host, John Puma from the SakeNotes.com and also the administrator of the internet sake discord.
Timothy Sullivan: 0:32
And I’m your host Timothy Sullivan. I’m a Sake Samurai, sake educator, as well as the founder of the Urban Sake website and together John and I will be tasting and chatting about all things sake and doing our best to make it fun and easy to understand. So, you know, John. Today’s a special day. You and I have something to celebrate.
John Puma: 0:53
I know. And I’ll honestly, Tim, I didn’t realize you were a football fan, but yeah, the season did start. Uh,
Timothy Sullivan: 0:58
No, no, no, no. This is not football.
John Puma: 1:03
uh,
Timothy Sullivan: 1:04
Do you, do you don’t know what today is?
John Puma: 1:07
Oh, uh, is, is Okonomimura opening up a New York city branch. That’s a little, I think it’s a little ambitious, but you know, I think that four stories of Okinomiyaki, uh, you know, maybe it has a place here in New York.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:19
No, John, no, I can’t believe you don’t know this, but today is our 25th episode of Sake Revolution!
John Puma: 1:29
Wait, w we’ve done this 25 times.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:32
yeah, this is our 25th episode, I think. Yeah, that’s a big milestone.
John Puma: 1:38
I think it might be, and we should probably celebrate, but how do you celebrate a sake podcast?
Timothy Sullivan: 1:46
Well, I think there’s only one thing that’s going to fit the bill this week. We’re going to have to go for sparkling sake.
John Puma: 1:54
Ooh. Okay. sparkling sake. Alright. I mean, I know about it. I’m not a foremost expert. I don’t have a lot of experience. You’ve got to, you have to educate me a bit on this one. perhaps the sake education corner would be the right place for that.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:08
Well, let’s mosey on over to the sake education corner.
John Puma: 2:12
spacious. My couch is exactly where I left it.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:16
So comfortable over here. I just love it
John Puma: 2:18
very comfortable.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:21
Well, when I think about sparkling sake, you and I have both been drinking sake for many years. Well, over a decade and, When we first got into sake, sparkling sake was not what it is today. It used to be very, very different. Do you remember your first experience with sparkling sake?
John Puma: 2:38
I’m not exactly. I want to say. I probably don’t remember what my literal first experience was, but I do remember, uh, honestly just being like, you know, maybe this isn’t for me. And, my wife being very much, uh, this is for me. And so she very much enjoys that, that fits into crazy style somehow. And. she’s the expert in the house.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:01
well, there’s been a big transition in the industry in regards to sparkling sake. when it first made an appearance. Sparkling sake was not something that had a lot of prestige in the industry. It was produced as something that was very low in alcohol high in sugar, very often, extremely sweet. And they would do CO2 injection, which means that they would pump the bubbles into the sake, like you’re making seltzer or Coca Cola or something like that. And very often the bottles would be frosted pink and marketed to women. so it was this sweet, sticky, low alcohol concoction that did not have a lot of, prestige in the industry. That’s how things started out there was a big shift in the perception of sparkling sake around 2016. There was the founding of what’s called the Japan, AWA sake association. So nine brewers got together and they wanted to create an association that was dedicated to upping the game and creating what we now understand as premium sparkling sake.
John Puma: 4:12
Now for the, for those of us who are not familiar with that, uh, either term or acronym, what exactly is awa?
Timothy Sullivan: 4:21
Awa means bubble or foam in Japanese. And it’s a word that is often used to refer to sparkling Sake, the technical term. There’s a, there’s another word you can use called Happo shu
John Puma: 4:33
HAP PO shu? Okay.
Timothy Sullivan: 4:34
Happo shu means like sparkling sake, but awa is often used nowadays to refer to sparkling. So you can say, awazake. Or awa sake and, uh, this association started. In the hopes of codifying a way of. Making premium sparkling sake. So they have certain rules and regulations that you have to follow to become a member in this group. And then if you’re a member, you can put a special sticker on your bottle and you qualify for a certain status and you create a premium sparkling product and the primary difference between premium sparkling sakes and all the rest are how you get the bubbles in there. If you do a secondary in bottle fermentation like champagne, or if you inject the bubbles in like you’re making seltzer or soda
John Puma: 5:27
All right. And I imagine that, well, imagine that they went through all the trouble of codifying it to health with lean a little more towards, towards the out of the bottle. Is there a difference? Is there a major difference in the way that in the finished product, obviously it’s the way that the difference in the way the bubbles get there, but what’s that really going to mean? As far as me sipping my sparkling sake in a little while.
Timothy Sullivan: 5:50
Yeah. You know, the bubbles are CO2 carbon dioxide, and I thought CO2 is CO2 to what’s the big deal, but yeah, but it’s the size of the bubble. Size matters, John,
John Puma: 6:02
it’s, it’s not the motion of the ocean.
Timothy Sullivan: 6:05
it’s the size of the bubble. So sparkling sake made with in bottle fermentation creates a very, very fine bubble. And if you think about. Bubbles in a fine champagne. you pour champagne into a glass, you get these little streams of bubbles going up the glass. If you pour seltzer into a glass, you get these big, large bubbles That’s the difference that you primarily notice and the texture on your tongue, you can really feel the difference. So that’s small, very fine bubble is highly prized in the world of secondary fermentations. So that’s really what they’re going for. And that is the key differentiator in my book that you can tell the difference between a champagne style, sparkling sake, and a CO2 injected, sparkling
John Puma: 6:54
All right. All right. what else do we need to know about this going in? I’ve had champagne, I’ve had sparkling wine. what’s sparkling sake. You’re going to be a little different from other sake’s I’ve had apart from, you know, there’s bubbles.
Timothy Sullivan: 7:10
Yeah, well, it’s interesting. I know some of the breweries that have been working on making premium sparkling sake, and they had to look at the champagne method for getting bubbles into alcohol. They had it kind of deconstruct it and then apply it to the sake production method. So it’s really interesting, but I thought we might talk about just a little bit is how do they get the bubbles in there in the first place? what’s happening and. In the world of sparkling wine. When you make champagne, it’s actually called the champagne method. What you do is you make a premium, still wine, so there’s no bubbles in it, but you ferment a wine, then you put the wine into the bottle. And then in the bottle you add what’s called Liqueur de Tirage which is a, a mixture of wine, sugar, and yeast. And these three things blend together and they put that in the bottle and seal it up. And that yeast and sugar kicks off a secondary fermentation in the bottle. That’s what they do, to get champagne or sparkling wine. So in the world of sake for premium sake, no additions of sugar are allowed.
John Puma: 8:21
Uh, that’s, that’s a thing. I remember us talking about that in previous episodes. If we’re adding sugar where we’re no longer making sake, and if I’m not mistaken, sake he’s in a place where. There’s the sugars aren’t there. We have to do things to the rice to make the sugars happen. It’s not like grapes where you’re just right there. It is. So what do we do? How are we doing this? This seems like a puzzle box that is very difficult to get through.
Timothy Sullivan: 8:46
Yes. If we were to add sugar to this, we could not sell it legally as premium sake in Japan, those additives are not allowed. So. what do we do? Well, what they do is they take a premium, still sake. So up to that point, things are the same. They make a premium version of the sake. They want sparkling and they take a still version of it. They put it in a bottle and instead of adding yeast and sugar, they take moromi mash. So do you remember moromi? They take some active fermentation mash, and that liquid has Koji. It has regular rice, it has water and it has some active yeast in there as well. So this is an active fermentation mash. They take a scoop of that. It goes into the bottle with the finished sake, they seal it up and that. That moromi that’s in there kicks off a secondary fermentation. So instead of adding yeast and sugar, they’re adding live Moromi.
John Puma: 9:48
will turn their carbohydrates into sugar, which will then kick off secondary orientation inside the bottle.
Timothy Sullivan: 9:56
So you’ve got all the ingredients you need.
John Puma: 9:59
who came up with that? That’s great.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:01
Isn’t that amazing.
John Puma: 10:02
that’s that’s phenomenal.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:04
And then the other big difference is that in the world of sake, we do the secondary in bottle fermentation for about two months in the world of champagne. It can be a minimum of 15 months up to several years. They let the wine hang out for a long time. But sake is a different animal. sake is generally meant to be consumed young and fresh. So we get two months of this secondary fermentation and then we’re going to disgorge and then remove the dead yeast. And then we’ll get a clear sparkling
John Puma: 10:35
So they have to, filter it in some way after the fact.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:39
Well, they do, what’s called riddling, which is the same as the wine world where they slowly. tip the bottle upside down. So it’s inverted with the neck of the bottle facing down all the dead yeast falls into the neck. And then when they opened it, the force of the bubbles is going to push all the dead yeast out and then they can seal it with the final closure
John Puma: 11:03
Okay. That makes sense.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:05
And that gives us a clear sparkling sake.
John Puma: 11:08
Fantastic. Well, I’m all for education. But I think bear with me here. I think we might need some hands on.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:15
Words are only going to take us so far,
John Puma: 11:16
I think it’s time for hands on a hands on experience. Need to taste this. The sake. And also once again, celebrate 25, 25 episodes. And that’s honestly, guys, it’s not counting the ones. We did test out things in the beginning and trying to figure out how we were doing podcasts. And then this is another thing that we tried to do in Japan. That totally didn’t work out the way he wants to, but that involves sparkling sake. Didn’t it.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:44
We’ve recorded well over 25 episodes.
John Puma: 11:47
guys, that’s the inside baseball. It’s how it works. Everything that makes it to the broadcast. Isn’t everything that gets made. that’s kind of how it works.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:58
So let’s introduce our sake. what sparkling did you bring to the table,
John Puma: 12:01
I So I brought a sparkling sake from one of my favorite brands slash breweries. so it’s, Imada fukucho and this is their seaside sparkling junmai. Imada Shuzo is in Hiroshima, which is, uh, we’re big fans, as you might’ve noticed from the last episode. and this was, Imada san wanted to make a sparkling sake And so she went for it and made this very, very interesting, very different sparkling sake, which we’ll get into. when we start tasting Tim, what do you do? Bring.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:36
Well, I brought a very special sake for me. This is Hakkaisan AWA, Junmai Ginjo sparkling sake So Hakkaisan again is where I lived for one year and where I did my brewing internship. And my son was one of the founding members of that Japan, awa sake association. I mentioned. So they’ve been. Creating champagne method, sparkling sake since 2016. Uh, so I got to work on this when I was living at the brewery. So I thought I would bring some Hakkaisan and, we can both taste our champagne methods. Sparklings
John Puma: 13:12
You worked on the awa while you were there. I didn’t realize that
Timothy Sullivan: 13:16
yes, I did.
John Puma: 13:18
it’s a wonderful. They had
Timothy Sullivan: 13:19
me do pretty much every job in the brewery. So I got to spend a few weeks here, a few weeks there, a few weeks there. And part of what I did was working on batches of the sparkling.
John Puma: 13:30
So one of the first things I’m noticing when I’m picking up my bottle is that this actually is a little bit cloudy. Now what’s interesting though, is that this is not a sparkling nigori. The cloud is actually a, it’s actually like leftover yeast probably from the process you were describing earlier.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:50
Yes. Yes. I’m sure it
John Puma: 13:51
is.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:52
Yeah.
John Puma: 13:52
which I always very fascinating when I was researching this, I was like, Oh, alright, it’s cloudy, but it’s not nigori. Okay. Let’s see what this is all about. if you don’t mind, I’ll pop it open. Alright, hopefully I didn’t disturb the thing too much. Oh, geez. Well, while we, while we wait for John’s bottle to sell Tim, why don’t you open yours?
Timothy Sullivan: 14:18
You have to keep
John Puma: 14:19
I have to keep going, uh, for those at home who are not seeing what’s going on here, uh, it, uh, almost
Timothy Sullivan: 14:25
almost, almost over
John Puma: 14:27
did not do so. I got the cap back on time. This is a,
Timothy Sullivan: 14:32
slow and steady
John Puma: 14:33
yeah, this is a very delicate procedure. Don’t try this at home.
Timothy Sullivan: 14:38
Okay. And you’re working with a
John Puma: 14:40
I am working with a screw cap. All right. It is open. And since I opened the cap, there is just a, just an unbelievable amount of bubbles. Just shooting to the top of this. I haven’t done anything with this I poured it. I haven’t really disturbed it. All I did was open the top and it was just going, it is, this is lively.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:02
I can tell you from a technical point of view, a little bit of what’s happening when CO2 is trapped in the liquid, it’s looking for an exit point and all those little bits of dead yeast and all that little sediment that’s in there is giving it an exit point. So those are all sources of bubbles escaping. So that’s why kind of a cloudy style. Sparkling is much more active when you open it than a clear
John Puma: 15:28
Yeah, this is, this is bonkers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite reacting like this. This is wonderful. A very different experience. All right, I’m going to pour some of this into my flute. You bust out the good crystal tonight.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:42
Yes, that’s a beautiful flute.
John Puma: 15:44
This was a wedding gift him. Hm. So one thing I’m the first thing I’m getting on. This is on the nose. it is pretty sweet smelling. Hmm. Oh, it’s got an SMV of minus three. So it’s not that sweet. Um, and I should mention that the seimaibuai has 70% on this junmai and the rice type is a one I’m not familiar with. It’s called Nakate shinsenbon, which is a little bit of a mouthful, but is, you know, I mean, it’s, it’s no gohya… see? It’s no.. see? It’s really hard to say that! gohyakumangoku, but it is still a mouthful. Hmm, this is a lot more mild than I was expecting a little bit fruity. The, uh, the sparkling aspect definitely massages the tongue while you’re tasting it, which is. Adds another bit of tactile sensation. It’s adding more. I guess, I guess this just gets filed under texture.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:50
Yeah.
John Puma: 16:51
Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:52
And you may want to think about the size of the bubbles. Like if you sit on seltzer or sparkling water or Coca Cola, and you feel that sparkle on your tongue is this should, this might be a finer sensation than that.
John Puma: 17:05
I don’t generally like seltzer. I don’t like hard seltzers. Um, and it’s partially, cause I don’t like the sensation of those bubbles. This is a very different thing. This is a more gentle sort of, uh, sparkling. Yes. It’s very soft, very light and a little bit of Apple. And I just, the thing I’m focusing on so much from tasting, this is the guests, the flavor is there and it’s very pleasant, but the way these bubbles are reacting inside my mouth is so interesting. It’s so different. I have to change my mind a little bit about sparkling sake, Tim.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:41
There’s some good ones out there I’m telling you.
John Puma: 17:44
I’m very nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:45
Yeah. So some things I’ve read about your sake are that indeed, Imada san is doing a secondary and bottle fermentation, so it’s an all natural sparkle. But one unique thing that she’s doing is she’s using white Koji
John Puma: 18:01
Yeah. All right. So Tim, we talked about Koji.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:04
We talked, we had a whole episode about Koji.
John Puma: 18:06
I don’t recall a white Koji, uh, coming up. I actually don’t recall color being a tremendously huge, uh, factor when we were discussing it. What’s special about white Koji. and why is it a specialist he’s using it in the sake? What’s it brings to the table.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:22
Well, there’s actually three kinds of Koji. There’s yellow, Koji, white Koji, and black Koji. So the standard Koji that’s used for almost all sake is yellow Koji. So that’s the industry standard for making sake White Koji is traditionally used for shochu, which is a distilled beverage, in Japan and black Koji is used for Awamori, which is, from Okinawa. it’s a distilled spirit from Okinawa
John Puma: 18:49
right. It’s a kind of a cousin of shochu in a way. Right?
Timothy Sullivan: 18:52
Exactly a black koji is a mutant of white Koji. Well, what you can do is if you use white Koji to make sake or use some white Koji, I think she doesn’t blend. She uses some yellow and some white, uh, it adds a different flavors. And I think in the case of white coachee, you can look for notes of citrus or citric acid or a little bit of that. citrus flavor. And I don’t know if you’re picking up on any of that.
John Puma: 19:21
I can believe that it’s one of the situations where you’re tasting something for the first time and you’re really trying to process it. And somebody says something you’re like, that’s what that is. Yeah. That’s yeah. Okay. So Apple, and then there’s it, won’t say it’s like on the finish really? That the citrus, and it’s not like, you’re not, it’s not like a grapefruit, it’s like very, very, very subtle, but just a little bit of that citrus that’s. Yeah. Okay.
Timothy Sullivan: 19:45
It’s like putting a squeeze of lemon in a sauce. Like the last thing you do is sometimes you put a squeeze of lemon in a sauce just to brighten it up. And I think that might come across like that in this sparkling sake you have
John Puma: 19:58
Yeah, I’m really enjoying this a lot more than I was expecting new things. Every day we try new sake for science, and sometimes we actually love them
Timothy Sullivan: 20:05
Yeah. I think some people might see it. Your sake has an SMV of minus three. Again, that’s the measurement of how sweet or dry. is it coming across as, uh, overtly sweet on the
John Puma: 20:15
Not really. It’s also, I mean, it’s almost neutral. It’s a little bit sweet. It’s not, you know, it’s not like a lot of champagnes you get are very dry. this is definitely not in that realm. but it’s also not aggressively sweet. It’s kind of, uh, you know, I mean, it is just a tiny bit sweet, not that bad, a little high in the acidity though. It’s um, 3.5.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:36
that’s very
John Puma: 20:37
high. I know I was understanding slightly for effect, but yeah, I know it’s 3.5, which I believe we talked about, just last week and how high acidity can come across as dryness. and maybe that’s counteracting that minus three on the SMV. And that’s why this is kind of neutral. Yeah. Very nice. Now, I’ve gushed about this long enough. I think. Tim let’s take some of that sake out that you helped make theoretically. Now, when
Timothy Sullivan: 21:07
Well, maybe not this bottle, but, this is a hakkaisan awa, and this is their champagne method. Sparkling. Now this has a seal, like you’re going to find on a sparkling wine. So John, you had a screw
John Puma: 21:21
cap I did. I said a regular screw cap in this. Yours looks like. Like a champagne top almost.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:26
yeah, so I have a foil which I’m taking off.
John Puma: 21:29
Oh, and under the foil guys, it is a legitimate is a, there’s a champagne looking cork and the little, uh, the little metal, uh, cage that keeps the cork. Is there a good name for that, Tim? Do you know that? Oh, there you go. I got it in
Timothy Sullivan: 21:45
There you go. Yeah. So there’s a real cork and that a metal cage. Twisted metal cage. And this is under pressure. We have five atmospheres of pressure, which is very similar to sparkling wine. And when you open this, you have to be a little bit careful and you have to make sure that you apply downward pressure to the cork when you’re releasing the cage. Because if it wants to, it can pop off unexpectedly,
John Puma: 22:16
that experience with sparkling wine before. It’s always a exciting surprise when that happens.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:24
All right. And now I’m going to pour into my glass. I have a coupe style glass in here, the bubbles. So this pour is very, very clear
John Puma: 22:40
Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:40
it’s the opposite of mine
John Puma: 22:41
opposite of mine
Timothy Sullivan: 22:42
one of the differences between our two sparkling sakes mine was disgorged. Meaning again, they inverted, it, got all that yeast residue in the neck and then removed that. It looks like your sake They left that in there as a little bit of sediment so I’m going to give this a smell. Okay. So I’m picking up on notes of Melon, little bit of fruitiness, very gentle aroma, Hmm. Wow. So on the Palate, this has a little note of a Melon upfront. Tastes a little bit like fruit salad. There’s a little bit of sweetness, but then the finish is dry and crisp. So the acidity on my sake yours was 3.5. Mine is only 1.4 and the SMV on my Hakkaisan Awa is minus five. Oh, yours was minus three, again for comparison. And one, bigger difference between our two sakes is that mine has a milling rate of 50% remaining and yours has 70% remaining. Yeah. So I think that gives this definitely a lighter edge and it feels very much like sparkling wine. I feel very celebratory holding this
John Puma: 24:06
Well, I mean, you know, again, we have, cause for celebration.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:10
I think we have to do a kanpai We usually do our company at the end, but
John Puma: 24:15
All right. Okay. I’m here. I’m willing. Let me just, let me pour a little bit more in.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:25
All right, Well, congratulations. to
John Puma: 24:27
25 episodes. Thank you everybody for joining us. We’re not done yet. Don’t go anywhere. Okay. But, uh, kanpai.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:36
Cheers kanpai. so, you know, pairing sparkling sakes with food can be a bit of a conundrum for some people.
John Puma: 24:45
I would have a really hard time trying to pair them with something.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:48
Yeah. Well, The safest way to go is just don’t pair it with anything and drink it as an aperitif or have it as a celebratory sake before you get onto the meal. I looked up the definition of aperitif recently, and it’s a alcoholic drink, consumed to, increase appetite for a meal or something like that. So it’s, uh, it’s something you drink before you get started eating to kind of. Get your appetite ready. And I think that these types of sake are really perfect for that. And they’re both low alcohol, yours and mine are both 13% alcohol. So for sake that’s on the low
John Puma: 25:29
yeah, we can drink a whole lot of this and not worry about getting too drunk. I do have a question about your sake though, Tim. I’m looking at the notes and I see under rice type. and I’m used to seeing occasionally two rices. Usually sometimes if, a brewery might want to use one rice for the Koji and a different rice for the main mash, this has three Yaka. gohyakumangoku miyamanishiki and Yamadanishiki. However, what’s going on here? What are they doing?
Timothy Sullivan: 26:02
Yeah. So they’re using Yamada Nishiki for the Koji rice and then for the or the starch component rice, as you just said, they’re using three types gohyakumangoku, miyamanishiki, and yamadanishiki and I wondered the exact same thing. And having worked at the brewery for a year, I had the. Opportunity to walk over to the master brewer and ask him directly. And I said, why are you using a blend of three rices? And this is honest to God, this is the answer he said, well, we tried a whole bunch of combinations and this is the one we liked best.
John Puma: 26:37
I mean, that’s a practical, that’s a very practical answer. I’m impressed that the there’s no witchcraft involved. It was just like, yeah, we tried other things. This is the one
Timothy Sullivan: 26:46
Yeah, there’s no sorcery. there’s no like a magic recipe. I think that they wanted a complexity, like a bit of a depth of flavor, not making it too simple or straightforward. And I think one way to achieve that is to blend rice types for the starch component. Now that I mentioned they’re using a hundred percent Yamada Nishiki for the Koji. And I think that when you use different rice types for that starch component, you can add a few layers into the overall impression of the sake. And I think that’s, what’s going on. When you have a lighter alcohol, you have to look to other places to get a little more depth, a little more nuance, uh,
John Puma: 27:30
of wish I got to try this. I believe I have, I might’ve had the awa, one time, quite a while ago. Of course, everything feels like quite a while ago, these days. and, but I do find myself really enjoying the seaside good stuff.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:50
I think I read somewhere that Imada san. They decided to name it seaside because they wanted people to pair it with seafood and things that come from the ocean
John Puma: 28:02
Hmm. She has a second line of sake in Japan called seafood, which I imagine has a very similar thought to it. It’s not a sparkling, variety. so I liked that she kind of keeps, uh, a nautical theme in some of her sake naming.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:16
Could you, could you imagine eating some seafood with that?
John Puma: 28:20
Ah, I am so inexperienced at, uh, drinking sparkling beverages of this type with food that I, I couldn’t even venture a guess right now.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:32
Well, when I do pairing dinners for Hakkaisan and we have the full lineup of all the sakes to choose from. Almost always, we start with a sparkling as a welcome drink
John Puma: 28:44
I think that’s fair. And also, you know, here’s, there’s a certain, as we mentioned earlier, and the reason we’re drinking this today, there is a, a thought of, Of celebration that goes with, with sparkling beverages in general. So, you know, coming in, having people be used to a champagne toast perhaps then, you’re giving them a sparkling sake right off the bat and you’re setting the mood. You’re saying that we can that sake I can party like champagne does. And, and here it is.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:10
Well, thanks so much to all our listeners for tuning in. We really do hope that you’re enjoying our show. If you’d like to show your support for sake revolution, one way you can help us out would be to take a couple of minutes and leave us a written review on Apple podcasts. It’s one of the best ways you can help us get the word out about our show.
John Puma: 29:28
Also be sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts and then tell a friend and I get them to subscribe to that’s how we grow the user base. That’s how we get more people listening to sake revolution.
Timothy Sullivan: 29:39
And as always to learn more about any of the topics or sakes that we talked about in today’s episode, be sure to visit our website, SakeRevolution.com for all the detailed show
John Puma: 29:49
And if you have questions. Like, why is yellow Koji used more than white Koji or black Koji, or what does black Koji really tastes like or anything like that? Please send us those questions to [email protected] so that Tim can answer them on a later episode. Yeah. So until next time, please keep drinking sake keep listening to our show, and to. Another, at least another 25 episodes. Tim. Thank you very much Let’s drink to that.
KANPAI!