Episode 140 Show Notes
Episode 140. Week in and week out, our standard gear for tasting and evaluating sake is a simple wine glass. This works really well and almost everybody has one nearby. But in Japan, there are a wide variety of shapes, materials and sizes used to make cups for drinking sake. That got us wondering if we should take some other cups out for a test drive and compare them to our usual stemware. This week we are exploring Edo Kiriko. This luxurious and historic hand-cut crystal glassware is most well known for its royal blue and ruby red shades. It’s renowned for its elegance and sparkle and is often seen at high-end sake bars and restaurants. How does this glassware stack up against our standard wine glass? Tune in this week to find out! #sakerevolution
Skip to: 00:19 Hosts Welcome and Introduction
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy
Skip to: 03:10 Sake Vessels: Edo Kiriko
About Edo Kiriko
-Quoted From Wikipedia
“Edo Kiriko, which was produced in the late Edo period, is made of transparent lead glass (clear glass), which is cut with a file , a metal rod, and emery sand , and then polished with a wooden stick or the like. said to have been produced.
There is a big difference between the Satsuma Kiriko of the time , which also used colored glass that was layered with thick colored glass, and the deep cut and bold shape using a wheel .
After the Meiji period, due to the transfer of craftsmen and techniques due to the disappearance of Satsuma Kiriko and the introduction of technology from overseas, the techniques and materials of colored glass came to be used in Edo as well . The layer of colored glass is thin and vivid. The processing method also transitioned from handrails to those using wheels while inheriting the patterns.
Another characteristic of Edo Kiriko is that it delicately cuts familiar Japanese patterns such as arrows, chrysanthemums, and hemp leaf patterns that can be seen on kimonos .
Today, rather than clear glass such as crystal glass, which has been the material from the beginning, colored glass is used as a material, and is produced in large quantities as an image of Kiriko.”
-Quoted From Wikipedia
About Edo Kiriko
Download our Sake Vessel Cheat sheet:
Skip to: 12:54 Sake Introduction and Tasting: Nagurayama Gekkyu Junmai
Nagurayama Gekkyu Junmai
Alcohol: 15.0%
Acidity: 1.1
Brand: Nagurayama
Brewery: Nagurayama Shuzo
Classification: Junmai
Importer/Distributor: World Sake Imports (USA)
Prefecture: Fukushima
Rice Type: Yume no kaori
Sake Name English: Crecent Moon
Seimaibuai: 55%
Yeast: TM-1, Utsukushima Yume
Skip to: 27:18 Show Closing
This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!
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Episode 140 Transcript
John Puma: 0:22
Hello, you there at home and welcome to Sake Revolution. This is America’s First Sake podcast and I am one of your intrepid hosts. My name is John Puma. I am from the Sake Notes, and I’m also the administrator over at the Internet Sake Discord, as well as Reddits r slash sake community
Timothy Sullivan: 0:43
and I’m your host, Timothy Sullivan. I’m a Sake Samurai. I’m a sake educator, as well as 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: 1:00
Hello, Tim.
Timothy Sullivan: 1:01
Hey John. How you doing?
John Puma: 1:03
I am doing well. How about you?
Timothy Sullivan: 1:04
Doing great.
John Puma: 1:06
That is good. We like to hear that. Like when I, I I, I worry about the day when I’m like, Tim, welcome to the show. How you doing? And you’re like,
Timothy Sullivan: 1:14
life sucks.
John Puma: 1:17
Like, you’re like, uh, let’s go straight to the tasting. No
Timothy Sullivan: 1:24
Well, we have something special in store for our listeners today. We’re going back to a series that I love. We are going to be trying a new sake vessel.
John Puma: 1:36
Yes, yes, yes. we’ve had our, our series on sake vessels here for a, for a, a bit of time now. We’ve had, we’ve gone through quite a few, uh, and what we’ve been doing with all of them, just to bring everybody up to speed here, is that we’ll introduce a sake vessel that, uh, usually has some, some really interesting traditional ties to Japan and to sake, and then we will. Talk a little bit about the history behind that. We then will taste sake out of it and compare that to the experience that we typically have here of tasting that same sake out of a wine glass. It’s been a lot of fun and sometimes a little eye-opening.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:14
Yes. what are some of the other vessels we’ve spoken about to date? We did the sakazuki right?
John Puma: 2:20
Yes. Yes, we did. We did.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:22
yeah.
John Puma: 2:23
Not a lot of sake in that one, Tim, I want to tell you, and somehow the saucer did not capture the aroma of the sake
Timothy Sullivan: 2:31
What else do we have?
John Puma: 2:32
we, we’ve of always a fan favorite. We’ve had the masu.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:35
Oh, yes, the masu
John Puma: 2:36
That’s always, I think that that is, uh, there’s, there’s so much. Uh, I don’t want to use the word, uh, baggage with the Masu but there kind of is a lot of baggage with the masu. A lot of people, they know a little bit about the masu and so it was fun to be able to talk a lot about the Masu.
Timothy Sullivan: 2:52
And we did the kikichoko, the snake eye.
John Puma: 2:55
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That’s, that’s one with a lot of, a lot of history and a lot of, uh, a lot of weight behind it. I wanna say. you know, we talked about just like the concept of regular ochoko. Just lots of, you know, there’s, there’s a lot out there.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:07
Yeah. But if you thought we reached the end of the vessel series, you are wrong,
John Puma: 3:11
No, always more
Timothy Sullivan: 3:12
There’s always more. So what are we gonna talk about today?
John Puma: 3:17
Well, today we are gonna be talking about the kiriko.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:24
Kiriko.
John Puma: 3:25
Yes, the Kiriko Now, I’m gonna, I’m gonna say something here, uh, really quickly and it gets something out of the way, and that is, up until recently, I never owned my very own, uh, kiriko.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:37
you don’t say
John Puma: 3:38
Yeah. I do say as a matter of fact, and, I had seen them and I had, drunk sake out of them at, very nice bars in the past. Um, but I’d never actually owned one, and that is until this past holiday.
Timothy Sullivan: 3:52
Hmm.
John Puma: 3:53
Uh, uh, very, very good friend Timothy Sullivan, gifted a pair to Myshell and I.
Timothy Sullivan: 4:00
Yes. We, you and I were talking in our planning sessions about upcoming episodes we want to do in the vessel series, and you mentioned that, you know, you didn’t have a kiriko glass on hand, so I thought it would make a nice holiday gift and, uh, yeah. So, uh, I hope you like it and we’re gonna put it to the test today.
John Puma: 4:19
We are, and, and in full disclosure, I have actually not had any sake out of this particular kiriko yet,
Timothy Sullivan: 4:26
All right.
John Puma: 4:27
this is, this is the, the maiden voyage of, of the gift that you gave us. So I’m very excited to see how it’s gonna go. No pressure
Timothy Sullivan: 4:33
No pressure. All right. Well, for our listeners, we should probably define what kirkiko is and a little bit about the history too. So kirkiko just means cut glass. So if you’ve ever had a lead crystal cut glass goblet in your hand, this is like the Japanese version of cut glass.
John Puma: 4:56
Mm-hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 4:56
but there are some differences and some very interesting history to kirkiko. first thing we gotta get out of the way is that kirkiko, even today, is viewed as a luxury good in Japan. Like these are not everyday drinking glasses. These are something that are, I think, reserved for really special occasions. Basically, you’re not gonna see them in every izakaya, right?
John Puma: 5:20
No, no, no. It’s something that I only see at, generally higher end izakayas, I think are where you’re gonna see this kind of thing.
Timothy Sullivan: 5:27
Yes, I just had a birthday dinner Scott took me out to, I’m gonna shout out Tsukimi restaurant here in New York. They do a absolutely delicious one Michelin star kaiseki, and we got several different types of sake and they served us sake in beautiful. kirkiko cut lead crystal glasses and it really adds to the experience and it really makes you feel more elegant. And it, we’ve said in the vessel series before that what you drink out of can affect the flavor in aroma, but also how you feel holding it. And I think it can enhance the whole experience.
John Puma: 6:06
That’s, yes. I I think that in my history, uh, when I’ve experienced these, it’s been situations where they’ve had them up on the shelf and they’ve allowed, in my cases, they’ve allowed us to kind of like choose which one we wanted. They had a whole selection of them that was very nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 6:19
I love that. Now if you’re listening and you’re having a hard time picturing the kirkiko glasses, be sure to just hop over to SakeRevolution.com. Check out our show notes. We’re gonna have some great pictures of different kirkiko glasses and you can see what John’s drinking out of what I’m drinking out of, and some very. Uh, beautiful examples of this kirkiko cut Glass. And John, I also wanted to give you a little bit of the history of kiriko. we, we talked about the sakazuki and the masu and how they go back way, way deep into Japanese history. And the kirkiko is actually not that ancient a glass style.
John Puma: 7:00
T Tim, this is a, this is a reoccurring theme in our vessel series, is things that John thinks are ancient in some way or another are never, or rarely, quite as ancient as they seem.
Timothy Sullivan: 7:12
yes there. There was glass in long ago, imported from China centuries ago, but it was so rare and so expensive that really only the true elites of society would use it. The cut glass that we understand cut crystal, that we understand as modern cut glass came to Japan with the initial trade with the west, and this really started to happen uh, in the Edo period, which is 1603 to 1868. And really in the 19th century, kirkiko cut glass began to blossom in two areas of Japan. One is Edo is Modern Day Tokyo, and the other is Satsuma, the Satsuma region, which is Modern day Kagoshima. Both of these areas became production centers for this kirkiko cut glass and things really took off in the Meiji period, which is 1868 to 1912, this is when the West had a really ramped up presence in Japan, and this is when. Uh, the production of Cut Glass really took off and became an established thing that people recognized and really cherished and had a much wider distribution.
John Puma: 8:35
Hmm hmm. Okay.
Timothy Sullivan: 8:37
So I mentioned. There’s two areas where this cut glass really emerged. Edo, which is modern day, Tokyo and Satsuma, modern day Kagoshima. And these two types of glass are differentiated, so you call it. Edo-Kiriko for cut glass from the Tokyo area or Satsuma-kiriko for cut glass from the Kagoshima area. So they’re gonna have a regionality to them too.
John Puma: 9:04
well that’s interesting. That’s, that’s very interesting.
Timothy Sullivan: 9:07
One interesting thing that I, I read was that when the first cut Crystal Glass, the first Edo-kiriko was made, it was actually clear in color.
John Puma: 9:17
Oh, so just, just literally cut glass?
Timothy Sullivan: 9:20
cut crystal.
John Puma: 9:21
Mm-hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 9:22
Other decoration than the cuts themselves. But in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, influence from the west, brought in the more modern and recognizable colors that we now associate with kirkiko Cut Sake glasses. And we have a representation of both of the primary colors. your glass is a kind of this royal blue color.
John Puma: 9:47
Mm-hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 9:48
My glass is like a ruby red color.
John Puma: 9:51
Mm. the contrast is, is very interesting. you know, yours is very, is quite, quite red, and mine has a very, very lovely, very deep blue to it.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:01
Yeah, and just quickly, what, what is so indicative of Kiriko cut glass is that it’s two layers of glass. The colors on the outside, clear glasses on the inside, and when you cut away at the color, you expose clear glass beneath that, and that’s how you create the design is contrasting the color. Either ruby red or royal blue in your case. And the clear glass. So you make the designs by basically cutting away the color and exposing clear glass beneath that. It’s really beautiful and can get super ornate, right.
John Puma: 10:40
Yeah. Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:41
It’s like dime, diamond shapes
John Puma: 10:43
yeah, yeah, yeah, the, the blue color is only on the center, four of each set. It looks great. It looks really nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 10:50
Yeah. And your shape is more of a larger cup, right?
John Puma: 10:55
Right. Whereas yours looks a little bit more like, um, like a, almost like a tulip glass.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:02
Yeah. Or like a shot, larger shot glass kind of
John Puma: 11:05
Sure, sure. Yeah. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, it doesn’t flare out as much as a tulip does, but
Timothy Sullivan: 11:09
Yeah.
John Puma: 11:10
but there’s a, there’s a subtle, uh, and mine has a too, like where you get to the top, it kind of like blooms a little bit to kind of let that, probably let that aroma out.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:19
Yeah, there’s a little curved edge to the top. Uh, I think it helps the sake to roll on the palate very easily and helps the aroma get out to your noses. Love that.
John Puma: 11:28
Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 11:29
So they’re very beautiful. Primarily, uh, the colors you see are royal blue and this ruby red. and they have all these intricate cut designs and there were pages and pages you can find online that describe the names and the meanings of all the different cuts. And we’re not gonna get into that on the show today.
John Puma: 11:49
Oh, we could, we could do a two hour show about this, right?
Timothy Sullivan: 11:53
Yeah, yours has that beautiful kind of diamond shape pattern. Mine has, I think, a pattern that represents, um, rice plants or it has like, Uh, Palm frond kind of look to it and
John Puma: 12:06
yours is very ornate. Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:08
and, uh, wedges cut off the bottom. So there’s like a scalloped color along the, the bottom edge of it. It’s really beautiful, solid red along the top, the lip of the glass So as we always do, We’re gonna be putting the vessel, today’s vessel Edo-kiriko. We’re gonna be putting this up against our tried and true stemmed wine glass, aren’t we?
John Puma: 12:34
We are, we are. And, and I, based on the look of this glass, I think that this is gonna fare a lot better than some of our other, our other contestants, in the past.
Timothy Sullivan: 12:46
Yeah, when, when we evaluate this one, I think we should add in like the vibes factor, like how it makes us feel holding a fancy glass, right?
John Puma: 12:54
Yes, perhaps, perhaps. and since we’re gonna be drinking out of this very nice glass, uh, we needed to select a very nice sake to go along with it. And, so today we’ve got the Nagurayama Gekkyu. Uh, and this is a Junmai, uh, and in the west we call this one Crescent Moon.
Timothy Sullivan: 13:15
Hmm.
John Puma: 13:16
Yeah. Uh, Nagurayama is, uh, located over in Fukushima, and this sake is utilizing a rice variety that I’m not overwhelmingly familiar with. Yume no Kaori, which I think is like dreams of fragrance or dreams of aroma. I think or, or maybe the aroma of dreams, I might have it backwards. The polishing ratio of that yume no Kaori is 55%. the alcohol percentage is 15%. Uh, the acidity is a very light 1.1, and the sake meter value, that measure of dryness to sweetness is negative one, so very subtly sweet. Uh, and interestingly enough, the, the brewers, they say that the has a wisp of sweetness. Negative one. I, I can see that negative one. What a low acidity that that tracks.
Timothy Sullivan: 14:11
I’ll be the judge of that wisp.
John Puma: 14:13
yeah. Okay. Excellent. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, the uh, Nagurayama Brewing Company is, from Fukushima Prefecture in the, Aizu region. They were founded in 1918. But under a different, uh, brand name. It was, uh, Take Masamune back then. And then in 1937, they changed it to Nagurayama, to, um, invoke the name of, Mount, Nagura, which was nearby. And it wasn’t until 1973 that they started to make premium sake. So like ginjo and junmai, that kind of thing. Uh, so this is, uh, you know, only since ’73. They’re kind of new to this part of the game, but they’ve making sake for quite a while.
Timothy Sullivan: 14:57
Cool. Well that sounds great. I’ve never had this sake before. so I’m really excited.
John Puma: 15:02
Yeah. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had it before either. This is interesting. you know, It’s a little rare that we both encounter our sake that we haven’t had before.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:09
That’s right. And we’re always looking at our past shows. We want to try new things and not repeat sakes too often, uh, but as today is the day This is like a, unboxing video for you and me where we’re gonna get the
John Puma: 15:24
unboxing audio though,
Timothy Sullivan: 15:25
unboxing audio. Okay. Let’s get this open. And in the glass,
John Puma: 15:30
Excellent. Let’s do it. Well, all right, we’ve got two count them, two glasses of sake poured
Timothy Sullivan: 15:41
I smell a wisp of aroma of something.
John Puma: 15:44
a wisp, something.
Timothy Sullivan: 15:45
Yes. Okay. So John, let’s, let’s grab this beautiful kirkiko first
John Puma: 15:50
All right. Uh, I will say the, the kiriko, the, one of the things I’m really noticing from this, and I picked up on it a little bit earlier as well, it’s very light.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:01
hmm.
John Puma: 16:01
Like, you know, you kind of like, You draw an unconscious connection between, what a glass should weigh or how it should feel in your hand with sake in it, and it feels very, very light, which, you know, I think when a glass is very light, you get that, that you associate that in your mind with, with something very premium, something very, uh, purposeful.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:21
Excellent. Yeah, mine’s not that heavy either, actually. Yeah. Alright, well let’s give it a smell.
John Puma: 16:27
All right.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:29
Hm.
John Puma: 16:30
That’s nice.
Timothy Sullivan: 16:32
What do you think
John Puma: 16:34
Well, I’m not getting a ton. Uh, it, it kind of dissipates as soon as I. Or very soon after I swirl it cuz I can get a little bit of a swirl going on with this. It’s tricky but I I didn’t pour that much so I can get some swirl. And you know, we should remind people at home that even though Tim and I are both using uh, kiriko glass today, they do have very different shapes. Mine is a much wider mouth, you know, shorter glass with a wider mouth to it. And Tim’s is a much taller, narrower vessel.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:07
I’m getting a very limited aroma too, but I do smell something that has a hint of ricey-ness to it, like very much a Junmai type of aroma. Not fruity for me.
John Puma: 17:17
No. I get a sweetness though. Like, like there is, I get that little bit of rice when it comes. It’s like a little bit of rice, a little bit sweetness to it. You’ve, you’ve made mention of, of like, um, sweet rice, like almost like a, like, almost like a mochi. Yeah. In the past. That’s what I, that’s what I get out of this
Timothy Sullivan: 17:34
Hmm. Yeah. If you wanted to extend it a little more, I think I get a little hint of like a marshmallow as well. Yeah. But it smells good
John Puma: 17:45
Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:46
and very, very gentle. Very, very light. And we’re gonna see if that lightness is because of the glass or because of the, the sake in a minute. But should we give it a taste?
John Puma: 17:56
Yes.
Timothy Sullivan: 17:57
All right. Hmm.
John Puma: 18:00
Hmm,
Timothy Sullivan: 18:01
That’s good.
John Puma: 18:02
that is really nice there. You know, for a sake with a very low acidity, the acidity plays a little bit
Timothy Sullivan: 18:09
Hmm. You know, I think there is a wisp of sweetness there. There is.
John Puma: 18:16
success.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:16
There is truth in advertising. Hmm. Yeah, it has some, a little bit of a rice flavor. It has just a hint of savoriness as well. Um,
John Puma: 18:28
It is still, it’s, it’s pretty light, even though it ha, even though it’s a junmai, it’s pretty light. It has, it’s has a nice clean taste to it.
Timothy Sullivan: 18:36
Hmm. I find it a bit layered. There’s a lot of interesting things going on, but it does have a very gentle touch to it.
John Puma: 18:45
Mm. Yes. Gentle. That’s a really good word for this. I like that. I think this would be very, uh, at home with, uh, food. Um, I know people, people at home are like, yes, John all sake is at home with food. But, uh, this is especially, I think would go nicely. And, um, and there’s still some room for just sipping this
Timothy Sullivan: 19:04
Hmm.
John Puma: 19:04
like we are right now.
Timothy Sullivan: 19:05
Yeah, I like the, I like the layers on the palate. There’s some ricey-ness, there’s a little bit of savoriness. There’s that wisp of sweetness and. It plays together really well. It’s not overpowering. I can imagine if you were having this with food, it would be a wonderful companion and not over extend itself or outshine anything, but just balance perfectly with, uh, a variety of cooked dishes. And, uh, it’s, a really nice June grade sake, don’t you think?
John Puma: 19:35
Oh yeah. Yeah. I’m trying to think of what I would want to have with it though. It’s, and I want, I wouldn’t wanna go anything. Nothing too crazy, you know? Uh, I don’t think that this is, I don’t think this is gonna necessarily stand up to your extremely heavy Western dishes that Well,
Timothy Sullivan: 19:50
Right.
John Puma: 19:50
uh, it’s, it is, it is very light still. So, um, I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go back to our, our tried and true. I want Yakitori with this.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:01
Oh, I have something similar that I’m thinking of. Oyakodon do you know oyakodon? It’s like chicken and chicken and eggs over rice.
John Puma: 20:11
Mm-hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:13
It’s like in the same flavor family as Yakitori.
John Puma: 20:17
Yes. I, I see oyakodon at different, I’ve definitely seen that on menu at, at yakitori places as well. Yeah. Uh, I mean, they’ve got the chicken. And we can make a joke about the egg
Timothy Sullivan: 20:31
Which came first? john
John Puma: 20:34
You see? You can, you can, you can reference the joke without making it, I think uh oh, clearly Anyway, um, we’ve got the other one of our vessels today.
Timothy Sullivan: 20:47
we gotta be fair. We gotta be fair. We gotta try both
John Puma: 20:49
yeah, we’re gonna do this. Fair. Um, so now I’ve got my wine glass and I’m very curious to see, uh, what’s gonna happen when I. Go for the aroma first. So let’s do it
Timothy Sullivan: 20:58
I’m giving, I’m giving an aggressive swirl. Oh my gosh. It’s very different.
John Puma: 21:08
It’s so much more. Um, yeah. Yeah.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:13
Oh my gosh. It, oh, it, it almost smells like a different sake. It’s amazing. Don’t you agree?
John Puma: 21:21
I’m, I’m still getting, uh, a lot of the ricey-ness but some of that sweetness is kind of
Timothy Sullivan: 21:28
yes.
John Puma: 21:28
not present I’m, I’m getting a lot less of it.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:31
hmm. For me, the, the aroma of something candied kind of rises up a little bit more.
John Puma: 21:39
Hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:41
I mentioned like there was maybe a wisp of some marshmallow aroma on the, the Kiriko glass. Here I’m getting more concentrated sweetness and a little bit more of that marshmallow, candied impression.
John Puma: 21:55
I am getting a little anise.
Timothy Sullivan: 21:57
Anise. Oh
John Puma: 21:59
Yeah, that’s, that’s that, that the ricey-ness is still there. Felt the sweetness was a little bit reduced. And then that bit of, that like almost mintiness that, that, uh, that for me, I’m.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:11
Hmm.
John Puma: 22:12
I’m referring to as anise. It’s just the thing that’s popping into my head the most.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:16
Yeah. I think I would refer to what you’re describing is like an herbaceous quality
John Puma: 22:21
Yes, totally.
Timothy Sullivan: 22:23
but you do agree with me that the intensity of the aroma comes across stronger in the wine glass. Right.
John Puma: 22:29
Absolutely. Uh, I think I mentioned when I was, when I was sniffing this out of the kiriko, it was very much like I would get like a tiny wisp of aroma and then it’s just gone. And if I swirl a little bit or you know, tried try to swirl a little bit without spilling anything, I get a little bit and then it’s gone. it was a struggle really to capture the aroma. Whereas in the wine glass, this is a vessel. almost expressly to capture the aroma of, of the beverage inside of it, and it does such a fantastic job with that. So yeah, getting a, a ton of aroma with this and it let really lets us, um, explore it more.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:03
for me, I just took a taste from the wine glass and the taste is not markedly different for me from either vessel. Tastes very, very similar.
John Puma: 23:12
The taste is similar. I think it’s a little bit heavier. meaning, it’s styled up a, a notch higher. The flavors are all there. Uh, I think I said that when I had it outta the kiriko, I felt it had a bit of a lighter quality. I feel like it’s a little bit more present, a tiny bit less gentle
Timothy Sullivan: 23:29
Yeah, it’s uh, it’s a really good sake. It’s, uh, an approachable Junmai, wouldn’t you say?
John Puma: 23:36
Absolutely.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:37
Yeah. And if you’re on the fence, like I hear there, so many people get into sake and they get so into like the fruit bombs and the, you know, super ultra Melon-y sakes, and they’re just like, oh, I don’t like anything too. rice-y this is like the gateway to, the rice-y land don’t
John Puma: 23:55
the gateway Rice.
Timothy Sullivan: 23:56
Yes.
John Puma: 23:58
I like that a lot. That’s kinda and I think it’s apt. I think it’s actually very, um, I think it’s very on the nose. It’s very appropriate and it’s, it nails it. This is in fact a great gateway. For people who a gateway, rice-y sake, for people who are afraid of rice-y sake,
Timothy Sullivan: 24:17
Yes.
John Puma: 24:17
Yeah, I can see that. And, and sometimes I fall into that category. I, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve embraced it more over the years, but, uh, for a long time I was like, oh, I don’t like rice sake.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:27
Yeah. Yeah. They can be a little too bold sometimes, a little too grainy, but this walks that line perfectly. Like it’s not fruity at all, but it’s not off-putting with its ricey-ness. It’s, it’s overall mild and gentle like it’s trying to be approachable, I think, and, and really easy drinking, but it does have that rice-y spin to it and that, that, I will say it again, that wisp of sweetness.
John Puma: 24:55
Towing the company line there too.
Timothy Sullivan: 24:58
hook, line, and sinker. All right.
John Puma: 25:00
I will say, so for me, like it’s, Junmai kind of on its way to, on its way to ginjo, but it doesn’t, it avoids the fruit and it’s allowed to stand on its own as this lighter expression of Junmai when that makes it a lot of fun. That makes it a really interesting sake that, that. I don’t think there’s a ton, uh, that we get over here. At least that really goes for this style. I think it’s nice. I think it’s like, you know, it’s, it, it gets to stand on. So it gets to be a little novel.
Timothy Sullivan: 25:30
Now I gotta ask you before we wind up here, what is the vibe, check drinking out of the kirkiko Glass? how do you feel? Because it’s your first time drinking out of some very, very nice friend of yours gave you a kiriko glass and No.
John Puma: 25:45
very, very, uh, Very generous, apparently
Timothy Sullivan: 25:49
No, no, no. So you got a kiriko glass. You’re drinking out of it for the first time. What’s the vibe check? How are you feeling? How does it feel in the hands?
John Puma: 25:59
the glass in the hand is wonderful. I love how light it is. I mentioned that earlier. I know that’s like a weird thing to talk about, but I really like that about it. I also, um, you know, it feels good in the hand. It looks wonderful. and, from a taste standpoint, a little sad about the aroma situation, but I really thought the sake tasted fantastic out of the kiriko. Like it was really nice. It’s, like I said, a little bit more gentle, but I kind of liked that aspect of it. And so that was really interesting and really nice. And again, you know, we learned as we always do when we do these episodes that the vessel really does have an impact on the tasting.
Timothy Sullivan: 26:38
So if anyone is out there looking for a new type of sake glass to buy, keep your eyes out for edo-kiriko, because they’re beautiful. They’re a little bit on the pricey side sometimes, but they’re something really wonderful and full of history that you can have at home and really enjoy good premium sake from.
John Puma: 27:04
Well, Tim, thank you again for the wonderful gift. I just wanna say that
Timothy Sullivan: 27:08
my pleasure
John Puma: 27:09
Be out right out there and say that I’m gonna, I’m going to enjoy a lot of sake out of this cup. I have a feeling now, now that I’ve used it at home, the doors are open. I can have this whenever I want,
Timothy Sullivan: 27:18
Well John, it was so great to taste with you another vessel episode in the books.
John Puma: 27:24
Mm-hmm.
Timothy Sullivan: 27:25
This is really fun and I’m looking forward to the next vessel we’re going to taste test, but until then, I want to, uh, thank our listeners so much for tuning in. We appreciate you so much each and every week, and I also want to thank our patrons. Without your support Sake Revolution would not happen, and we appreciate you guys so.
John Puma: 27:48
And if you have any, thoughts that you’d like to share with us, any questions, comments, that sort of thing. Um, number one, if you’re a patron, you can just, you guys reach out to us on Patreon. We’re right there. but. In addition, we have an email address set up called [email protected]. You can also get at us on social media, Instagram, Twitter, uh, Facebook, or we are either Sake Revolution or Sake Revolution Pod. No TikTok just yet. So, you know, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’ll get there one day.
Timothy Sullivan: 28:20
If you would like to see the glasses that John and I were using today. Learn more about edo-kirik o You can check out our show notes at SakeRevolution.com where we’ll have everything available there for you, and we’ll also have a full transcript of today’s episode.
John Puma: 28:35
Without any further ado, please raise your glass. Remember to keep drinking sake and Kanpai!