Sake Pocket Rockets
300ml sake is popular. For a set amount of money you can buy more 300ml bottles than 720ml and enjoy a greater variety. Also if you are going to a small Japanese BYO restaurant it is easy to put one in your purse and a couple of ochocko in your pocket and whip them out when you get there. Of course this only works for cold sake. (Don’t get there and ask them to warm your bottles. That’s not a cool look). So without further ado let me present to you our 300ml selections of the week.
Masumi Suzumi Sake 300ml
Light style with a slight sour finish. From Nagano.
AKA (Red) is bright on the surface yet deep, brewed as a yamahai for complexity, with subtle fruit and dairy aromas and a refreshing acidity underpinned by savory umami.
It is typical of the yamahai style in that it brings the flavour of rich food into sharp relief, and it pairs exceptionally well with meat and cheese.
Nagano is famous for snow monkeys. Best viewed with sake to warm you up.
In Masumi’s brewery. We don’t know what it is but it looks cool.
The gardens of Masumi
Grilled salmon in famous Niigata one man izakaya
Sake no Jin Niigata festival entrance
Downtown Niigata market
Okayama
Gozenshu Junmai Ginjo Nyoisan 300ml
Made from Yamadanishiki rice grown in Okayama. Ginjo grade. Light and approachable.
Gozenshu Tokubetsu Junmai Manetsu 300ml
Made with table rice ‘Akebono’ (sounds like the name of a sumo wrestler). This definitely should be consumed hot. Would suit a hotpot of any type. Sukiyaki, Oden or even Hungarian beef goulash.
Baked Gindara at Gozenshu’s restaurant in Katsuyama. They marinate it in sake kasu (the lees left over from their sake production) and miso. It was delicious.
Tools of the trade in the koji room at Gozenshu (Tsuji Honten).