ADDING BREWER’S ALCOHOL
Brewer’s alcohol can be made from cereal grains or sugarcane molasses. However, the law forbids the use of chemically produced synthetic alcohol. Some breweries do insist on using brewer’s alcohol made from rice, which is more expensive. The raw sugarcane is distilled into a crude spirit—often done in Brazil—and then imported to Japan, where one of the major distillers runs it through their high-tech multistory-tall column stills repeatedly until they produce a pure, clean alcoholic spirit. Even though the brewer’s alcohol might technically hail from another country, it would not be in any condition to put into honjozo-shu or futsu-shu without the expertise of Japanese distillers.
There is also a tradition of adding distilled spirit to sake to fortify the drink, just as there is a long history of adding alcohol to fortified wines like port and sherry. According to Domo shuzoki (loosely "Brewing for dummies), a brewing guide from 1685, adding the distilled spirit shochu will help bring out flavors and fend off bacteria that could cause spoilage. Another brewing text, dating from 1771, states that adding shochu does improve the sake, but also makes it drier. Contemporary breweries like Abekan Shuzoten in Miyagi Prefecture and Konotomo Shuzo in Hyogo Prefecture add their in-house distilled shochu to make a sake style known as hashira jikomi. What makes this practice even more remarkable is that only a handful of breweries have the necessary equipment to distill their own spirit, and shochu fetches good money on its own. Tamanohikari, a pioneer of the junmai-shu revival, has its own still with a worm-tub condenser that could produce excellent spirits, but since it doesn’t add alcohol to any of its sake, the brewery doesn’t make the hashira style. Cost and ability aside, most brewers now prefer to use the light, high-proof brewer’s alcohol because it doesn’t have a strong character like shochu does and it won’t affect flavor. Brewer’s alcohol is added for its effect on the sake, not because of its inherent flavor or properties.
During the 20th century, inexpensive brewer’s alcohol was added to sake for different reasons. During the late 1930s, rice shortages poised a threat to sake production, which in turn hurt alcohol taxes. To retain a high level of production, cheap brewer’s alcohol was pumped into sake. In the 1940s breweries were required to add alcohol, so junmai-shu vanished until the 1960s. The practice of “tripling” the sake with added alcohol continued even after shortages ended, ensuring high profit margins. This gave the practice a bad reputation.
Today, the vast majority of all sake made in Japan contains added brewer’s alcohol, the vast majority of which is inexpensive, flavorless distillate. Even the brews that win at the country’s National Sake Competition typically have added brewer’s alcohol, though, so if you dismiss the practice, you might miss out on some excellent sakes.
Maru from Hakutsuru and Tsuki from Gekkeikan are two popular futsu-shu brands. Table sake is often sold in cartons. The first paper-packed sake in Japan was Hakosake Ichidai, which launched in 1967 from Hiroshima’s Chugoku Jozo brewery.
Raw and Unprocessed Sakes
Nama sake varieties constitute a category unto themselves. The word can mean “pure,” “raw,” “undiluted,” “unprocessed” and even “genuine.” In sake, there are several different kinds of nama brews, which give folks the closest opportunity to taste freshly pressed sake, which is always a real treat. Typically sake is pasteurized, matured, filtrated, cut with water and pasteurized again before it is bottled and shipped. (The second pasteurization sometimes happens after the sake has already been bottled.) The different nama brews eliminate one or more of these steps. Nama-zake should be refrigerated and enjoyed in a timely manner.
Nama-zume-shu 生詰め酒: Literally “live bottled sake,” this brew follows the same post-pressing steps as regular sake, but skips the final pasteurization.
Nama-chozo-shu 生貯蔵酒: Literally “live stored sake,” this brew also follows the same post-pressing steps as typical sake, but it forgoes the first pasteurization.
Nama-zake 生酒: In this case “nama” means “raw” or “unprocessed.” This sake is diluted, but is not pasteurized. Unless the label reads muroka (無濾過), meaning “unfiltered,” it has been filtered to balance the flavors. The increased use of chilled shipping containers and the proliferation of refrigeration in sake storage has meant more nama-zake has become available not just in Japan but around the world.
Nama-genshu 生原酒: This is the “raw” or “unprocessed” version of genshu. It skips both pasteurizations and goes straight from pressing to bottling with filtering, unless it’s muroka (“unfiltered”).
PREMIUM SAKE RISING
The Return of Junmai
“My father was the first person to bring back the sake made from 100 percent rice that today we’d call junmai-shu,” says Hiroshi Ujita, owner of Tamanohikari in Fushimi, Kyoto. It was 1964, the year of the Tokyo Olympics, and for the first time since World War II ended, pure sake was back. “Before the war, all sake was junmai-shu,” says Ujita. Moments ago, he had been working on a laptop in a conference room, but leaped up after hearing me ask about his brewery’s history. His eyes are lively, and his voice is booming. This is important history, and his father, Fukutoki, had a major part in it.
“Up until 1940, Japanese law said that sake was made from rice, koji and water,” Ujita says. During the war and in the years after, rice shortages meant that brewers had to make sake with little or even no rice. As in the past, the government needed an alcohol tax to raise funds. “So, sake started being made with added brewer’s alcohol, glucose and amino acids.” The additives were cheaper than making sake from just rice. But it was the customers who ended up paying a different price. “You drink that stuff and the next day, you’re going to end up with a pounding headache,” says Ujita. “My father didn’t want to sell sake that gave people nasty hangovers. The answer was to make sake as it had been before the war.”
Yucho Shuzo brewery goes to great lengths to bottle the freshest nama-zake possible. Their Kaze no Mori sake, pictured here, is reviewed on page 235.
The sake business, however, was rolling in money, thanks to added-alcohol brews. The profit margins were enormous, and other brewers, as well as the Japanese tax office, probably weren’t thrilled with the idea of cutting into those margins by ditching brewer’s alcohol and other additives. But by 1961, rice shortages had ended and surpluses actually became a problem. Without that extra rice, it would have been difficult to make the shift back to additive-free sake.
At that time, the term “junmai-shu” did not exist. Tamanohikari used the word mutenka-shu, or “additive-free sake.” (These days, the term is used to refer to sake made with ambient, not added, yeast.) It might seem innocuous now, but at that time, the descriptor was confrontational. It strongly implied that other sake makers were adding things. “It was like dad was picking a fight,” says daughter Chiyoko Higashi, who sits on the brewery’s board of directors.
Tamanohikari’s mutenka-shu went on sale in 1964. It was a revolutionary moment in post – World War II sake history, but this was initially lost on the country’s sake drinkers. Higashi
