Sake

Last friday I went to a sake session hosted by my professional networking group CAAP(www.caapseattle.org) held at Nijo Sushi Bar and Grill on Post Alley. The tasting consisted of 4 different sakes paired with food. My friend KS and I had gone to Nijo a few weeks prior to try out their sake and food sampler as a prelude to hosting the event and I was impressed by the sake and the food served. My experiences have been that their lunch boxes are mediocre, but the chef's choice menu was creative and fresh. Last Friday, I was even more impressed by Nijo's sake expert who gave us a thorough lesson on the history of sake, types of sake and their flavors and an overview of the food we were having and why it was being paired with the sake chosen. One interesting piece of sake history (and probably the only piece of information that most of us will take away from the sake lesson) is that originally the rice grains were chewed by virgins prior to the fermentation process. JB commented that they can't do this is the US due to unavailability of virgins.

The sakes we tried were:

1. Mu - a junmai daiginjyo - this is sake that is brewed with rice that is at highly polished (at least %50 percent) and is generally supposed to be light. This was served with salmon and ebi nigiri and was the least favorite of the sakes I tried.

2. Sato no Homare - Pride of the Village (http://www.vineconnections.com/Fact%20Sheets/sake.pdf/sato_no_homare_pride_of_the_village.pdf) - a junmai ginjyo - this is sake that is also brewed with at least 50% polished rice. This sake has hints of floral and anise flavors. Definitely my favorite one of the night.

3. Kurosawa - Black River - a junmai kimoto - I didn't think there was anything too special about this sake. JB noted that he had seen this sake at other places.

4. Rihaku nigori - Dreamy Clouds - Nigori is roughly filtered sake. I never really liked sake until I had nigori and similar to not liking wine until I had a late harvest Moscato, nigori was an easy sake for me to start with - lots of residual sugars.

I noticed that a couple of the sakes that we tried were imported by vine connections (http://www.vineconnections.com/sake/index.html).

Kampai!