原酒: Simply put, this is undiluted sake. Typically, sake is cut with water, bringing the alcohol by volume (ABV) down to 15 to 16 percent from its original 18 to 22 percent. No brewed drink has a higher natural alcohol percentage than sake. There are genshu brews that do have ABV levels as low as 15 percent, and a sake can still be considered a genshu if it has added water. However, the water cannot lower the alcohol content by 1 percent or more.
Yasunobu Tomita holds a bottle of his brewery’s excellent junmai Wataribune brew.
Unpolished Wataribune (on the right, in the plastic bag) is contrasted with Wataribune grains polished to 77 percent (on the left, in the round case).
Just-pressed sake has a fresh, fizzy quality that vanishes during pasteurization and storage. That’s not the case with this sparkling, cloudy sake. (For more, see page 223.)
Bottles of sparkling Dassai.
Sparkling Sake
Invented in America in 1939, sparkling sake made a comeback in Japan in 1998, when Ichinokura launched Ichinokura Sparkling Sake Suzune. There are several types of sparkling sake. One style takes already fermenting unpasteurized sake and does a second fermentation in the bottle, à la champagne. The other style bottles still-fermenting nigorizake for a fizzy, tart brew. Generally, since both styles are still fermenting, they should be refrigerated. These styles are called kassei-shu (the cloudy version is dubbed kassei nigorizake). Another style adds carbon dioxide to already-fermented sake, making for a sake that is stable, but perhaps lacking personality.
In November 2016, the Japan Awasake (awa means “foam”) Association was established. The group has a handful of rules, such as: sparkling sake can only be made from rice, koji and water; the carbon dioxide must be naturally occurring (i.e., the fizz cannot be added); bubbles must be clearly evident when poured; and it must have a minimum of 10 percent alcohol by volume.
Styles of Starter
Brewing sake involves making a highly concentrated yeast starter called either a shubo (literally the “mother of sake”) or a moto (the “base” of sake). Not only can the starter dictate how fermentation progresses, but the flavors in the starter can carry over to the final sake. This brewing stage is so paramount that sakes can be categorized by their starters.
Kimoto 生酛 and yamahai 山廃: These terms describe two sake yeast starters, as well as distinct flavor profiles. They are genres unto themselves, amounting to just 10 percent of all sake produced—yamahai accounts for 9 percent and kimoto only 1 percent. Both starters require about three to four weeks.
Dating from the late 17th century and appearing to originate in Kobe’s Nada brewing district, kimoto is a style of yeast starter in which the brewers mash rice and koji in small tubs of water into a creamy puree with oars and poles. The technique, called yama-oroshi, arose when it wasn’t possible to polish the rice to today’s superfine ratios, and brewers thought mashing the rice and koji together was necessary to make the starter. Finely polished rice has eased this labor somewhat; however, it’s still physically demanding work. Kimoto-style sake can have deeper and more complex flavors, due to the thoroughgoing way it is made. It can also be smooth, dry and acidic.
The yamahai method omits the yama-oroshi mashing step. Kinichiro Kagi, a researcher at the National Research Institute of Brewing, pointed out in 1909 that mashing the rice and koji together was superfluous, since the koji enzymes naturally dissolve the rice. He was correct, but as rice saccharification isn’t helped by mashing, the rice might not dissolve as uniformly as in the kimoto style, affecting the final flavor. Yamahai-style sake has a flavor profile similar to kimoto, but often with gamy nuances. The name yamahai came from the Japanese love of making long words shorter: thus yama-oroshi haishi (haishi means “ceasing,”) became “yamahai.”
Brewers at Kiku Masamune make kimoto starter.
Clumps of rice are mixed with a paddle to help speed along saccharification.
Sokujo-moto 速醸酛: The vast majority of sake is made with sokujo-moto, or “quick fermentation starter,” which was codified in 1909 by brewing researcher Kamajiro Eda. This technique, used in making 90 percent of all Japanese sake, adds lactic acid to the mixture of steamed rice and koji instead of propagating it naturally, as the kimoto and yamahai methods do. Sokujo takes around two weeks; while the yeast microbes it produces are not as robust and active as those produced with the kimoto and yamahai methods, they can create crisp sakes with low acidity.
Bodaimoto 菩提酛 (aka mizumoto 水酛): Bodaimoto yeast starter produces some of the most acidic sakes available, which among wine drinkers might even elicit comparisons to German Riesling. Mizumoto, which literally means “water starter,” refers to the method of leaving rice to soak uncovered in containers of water that become highly populated with ambient lactic acid. The rice is removed and then steamed, after which the lactic acid–rich water, known as soyashimizu, is then mixed with the cooked rice, protecting it from harmful bacteria. Like sokujo, the bodaimoto (mizumoto) technique creates a starter with natural lactic acid, though it isn’t nearly as stable.
This is one of the oldest styles of starters, dating from the Muromachi period (1333–1573). It is believed to have originated at the Buddhist temple Shoryakuji, located on Bodaisen mountain in Nara, home of the Bodaisen Shingon sect. Sake making was big business for Buddhist temples, which were cradles of learning and innovation in those days, akin to modern universities or research centers. Since bodaimoto was originally a summer brewing process, the practice fell out of use after the Tokugawa government restricted brewing to the winter months in the late 17th century. Although bodaimoto didn’t die out completely—Shinto shrines continued to use the technique to make their sacred unrefined sake called dakushu—it declined even further with the wide acceptance of sokujo in the 20th century. However, on March 3, 1984, Okayama’s Sanyo Shimbun newspaper reported that local brewery Tsuji Honten was reviving bodaimoto to make a nigorizake.
“Mizumoto” and “bodaimoto” refer to the same process, but because bodaimoto has the kanji characters 菩提 (bodai, meaning “enlightenment”), the term carries strong Buddhist associations. There is (as yet) no bodaimoto association comparable to the International Trappist Association, which has certain stipulations for Trappist beer, such as that the beer must be brewed by monks in a monastery (or at least under their supervision). However, there is an annual bodaimoto brewing event every January at Shoryakuji, the Buddhist temple where the technique was perfected.
Every year, breweries gather at Shoryakuji Temple, famous for bodaimoto, to make a modern version of
