5 Tips for Sake Freshmen

The world of sake is intense and extensive, so there are so many entrances.
It’s impossible to challenge the last dungeon when you are level 10 in the gaming world.
If you have excellent navigators of sake, you are fortunate, and you need to follow them; however, all of you are not in the same situation.
Also, there are sometimes tasting events in Singapore. We SAKEMARU also do the tasting events every month. It’s worth to join the events if you’d like to learn more deeply about Sake.

But, I know you have a lot of things need to take care and difficult to spare some time for those events.
Sake sounds like a bit complicated, but please keep these 5 tips in your mind; therefore you can step into the sake world from the proper entrance.

1. Select the Sake with a low polish rate

There are 1,500 breweries in Japan, and they produce more than 15,000 labels, so it’s tough to select the one you may like by yourself in the early phase.
So, what’s important is to remember one terminology “polish rate” and select the one with the low polish rate.

The rice used for brewing sake is usually polished several percents away. 40% polish rate means 60% of outer part is milled away.
Because the sake produced with the rice highly polished tends to be clean and sweet, fruity, it’s easy to drink.

Maybe, you may hear about Daiginjo. The sake produced with the rice polished more than 50% is called Daiginjo. If you have not tried sake much and prefer fruity and light-bodied wine, we recommend you to start with those Sakes.

But, if you like more complex and full-bodied taste, it’s better to select the one produced with less polished rice. Less polished rice has a lot of components, and those components make the feeling of sake complex and full-bodied.

>Know more about grade of sake

2. Unnecessary to finish quickly

You may be afraid it’s difficult to finish one bottle in one night.
No worries, you can keep it for more than one week even after opening the bottle.
But there is one exception, aromatic sake is very easy to lose the delicate aroma so they should be consumed in 3 days. Of cause, you can enjoy after day 3rd, but the beautiful fragrance is decreasing gradually.
If you keep them in the fridge, you can enjoy them slowly. Moreover, if you select Nama(unpasteurized) sake, you can enjoy the transformation of the taste.

3. Preserve in the fridge

Singapore is very hot, so it’s better to keep it in the fridge.
Wine chiller would be OK but not good for the unpasteurized Sake. The temperature is not low enough to keep for long time.
The yeast is still alive in the unpasteurized sake, so it’s necessary to deactivate the enzyme in low temperature like 0 – 5 degrees.

4. Use red wine glass

Maybe, you think you need to drink sake with small sake cup, but it’s not correct. Brewers use the cup to check the taste of sake. It’s just a tradition, and there are various kinds of drinking vessels.
The wine glass is the universal and handy tool to appreciate sake. As same as wine, we can enjoy the difference of aroma other than the taste.

>Know more about the drinking vessels of sake

5. Pair with various kinds of food

From the sake’s standpoint, pairing with Japanese cuisine is a piece of cake.
Why don’t you try with other foods?

Sake doesn’t have a kind of lousy pairing like red wine with raw seafood.
Several restaurants are promoting the pairing with western cuisine. Please give a try new pairing!!