in japan we say
酒なくて
何の己が
桜かな
Without sake
what is the use of
cherry blossoms?
I'll be the first to admit that sake is an acquired taste. This is true for most Japanese food , it simply tastes so different from what most non-Japanese are used to, especially given the way it's usually served . But like wine, it's a taste that will grow on you.Unfortunately, acquiring the taste for sake is complicated by the fact that much of the sake available in Japan, and nearly all sold outside Japan, ranges from poor to outright horrible .For example, in Finland the only brand of sake available is Gekkeikan (月桂冠), which is so vile that it is considered barely fit for for use as cooking sake in Japan. The other brand I've often seen in Europe and the US is American-brewed Ozeki (大関), the Budweiser of the sake world, which in Japan is sold in single-portion "Ozeki One Cup" portions, the primary target audience being alcoholics who can't afford to pay 1000 yen for a bottle of Everclear.
Remember that just because it says rice wine on the menu doesn't mean it's sake, there are many distilled Asian rice products ranging from shochu to mao tai out there, which are popular solely because they're a cheap way to get drunk. The myths of the potency of sake result mostly from this confusion.
I would recommend that you go for a dry (Jp. karakuchi) sake, with a nihonshudo around +6 to +10 if you can manage it. These tend to be very light, with the most resemblance to (extremely) dry white wine and with the least of the alcoholic smell and lingering aftertaste that make the Gekkeikans and Ozekis of the sake world so unpleasant.Or you could swing for the other end of the spectrum and go for a cloudy white nigorizake, which are sweet, thick and almost liquor-like. Many Japanese sake snobs disdain these, because the masses of rice floating in it mask all the exquisite nuances that they get their kicks from, but I fell in love with nigorizake the first time I tried it, before I learned to like the "normal" kind. However, their availability is somewhat poor even in Japan, it's a bit of a seasonal product best available in the spring (although any decent supermarket will have a few bottles in the fridge).
Now, the traditional way to drink sake (or so you've probably been told) is to heat it up. This way of drinking is called atsukan and, in Japan, it is reserved for two things
1.Warming you up in the winter
2.Making bad sake tolerable
If you order atsukan in the summer, you will get funny looks. If you order good sake as atsukan any time of the year, you will get very funny looks. All sake tastes the same when it is heated, and that taste is not particularly good; one particularly unpleasant aspect of heated sake (especially if too hot) is the noxious smell of ethyl alcohol rising from it, rice having little smell of its own to mask it. Yuck.
Instead, do as the Japanese do and drink your sake hiyashi, chilled. This is especially good for drier (karakuchi) kinds of sake. Those little porcelain thimble cups (o-choko) are made for slamming down like tequila shots, which is why you rarely see them in restaurants; a perfectly ordinary glass is a much better tool for slowly savouring your sake. Masu, those lovely wooden boxes, look and smell nice, but they tend to do strange things to their contents until they're worn in -- and it's difficult to drink from a cube anyway .
I love sake too. I like mine at room temperature when I am having a good sashimi meal.
