Akashi Tai Tokubetsu Honjozo Sake, 72 cl

Product Information

As relevant now as it was then, Akashi-tai continues to be a market-leader and relentless tailblazer of authentic, Japanese sake. If you fancy a taste of something new, or enjoy the odd sake and want a prime example, you’re in the right place. Kanpai! Enjoyable either warm or chilled to complement the season, traditional Japanese sake can be savoured across a wide range of temperatures. Akashi Tai Junmai Ginjo Sparkling Sake is made using only locally grown rice from the Hyogo Prefecture. Ginjo is a premium type of Sake made with rice that has to have at least 40% of the outside of the rice grains (the bran) polished away. Junmai means no distillers alcohol is added which it can be in other Sakes e.g. Honjozo Sake. The Sake undergoes a careful, low temperature fermentation and it is then undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle with some more koji (the fungus used in fermentation process) to produce the fizz. The sake is carefully fermented at low temperature and it is allowed to undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle with some more koji (the fungus used in fermentation process). The most interesting part of the sake’s name is “kijoshu”, which refers to a special brewing technique when instead of water a brewer adds sake to the fermenting mash at the final stage. It gives the resulted sake a luxurious feel, deep flavour and distinctive viscosity. Normally, kijoshu sake is very sweet, but not in the case of Kanpai Tsuki, which is rather dry.

Akashi-Tai Tokubestu Junmai is quite pleasant chilled. It has an elegant but subtle aroma with notes of apple, elderflower and rice. The sake is quite acidic and dry with a simple taste, creamy texture and short but pleasant finish. Brewing superior sake by hand requires all five senses to perfect with the natural processes of fermentation and flavour development. Located in Hyogo prefecture, Akashi-Tai is a small craft brewery making beside sake Hatozaki whiskey and 135°East gin at its Kaikyo distiller. Despite its modest size, the brewery has a very good presence in the UK.

Know rice

For the brewery today, this means treating rice with respect. It means meticulous attention to detail and never cutting corners. It means sometimes going to extreme lengths, for instance making sake not only with the finest Hyogo-grown Yamada Nishiki rice, but also brewing with the When you try Tedorigawa Yamahai Junmai chilled, you taste its high acidity straight away. It has a nice creamy texture and is quite a mouthful feel with a long finish with a vanilla aftertaste. You can notice prunes and apple crumble flavours and the taste in general quite deep. I tried it chilled first and the low temperature does not do justice to Kanpai Tsuki. The fun starts at room temperature as the sake opens up. So you can smell sweet apple and pear with honey notes and some herbs and a bit of chestnut. It’s a full-bodied sake, slightly fizzy with a creamy texture notable acidity and spiciness from the higher alcohol content. It has a bitter but pleasant finish.

Tamagawa Tokubetsu Junmai is a savoury full-bodied sake with a deep taste and silky texture. For me, it tasted sweeter chilled or at room temperature than hot. The sweetness seems to dissolve as you warm the sake up. As many junmai sake, Tamagawa is not particularly aromatic sporting some rice notes and a bit of earthiness.Japan's signature drink has been brewed for around as long as hanami celebrations have existed, with historians dating its invention to the Nara period (710-794), although booze of various forms has been drunk on the island from at least the third century. While a degree of snobbery endures, there's logic behind the idea that you heat cheap sake and chill the expensive stuff. "If you heat fruity, light, floral sake, all you're going to get is alcohol fumes," says Cheong-Thong. Sakes with more body, or bottles which have been open a while, work well warmed to around 50 degrees, as the heat smooths out some of the rougher notes. "The flavours will still be in the sake, although the alcohol hits you first. Also, it's a very good way to liven up slightly stale sake." How we test sake Even the hushed sounds of natural fermentation at work can be heard in the cool, quiet rooms of our brewery." Since then, Akashi have taken pride in brewing sakes with the choicest ingredients, that are more often than not produced locally. The brewery’s proximity to the coast and their insistence of tanks with Japanese cedar wood lids leads to sea air impacting the flavour of Akashi-Tai sakes with a slightly salty and particular character. The key ingredient, however, is the yamada-nishiki variety of rice. Known as a superior strain, it’s native to the region just north of Akashi, and considered for sake production above all else because its starch molecules are loosely grouped. This allows koji mold spores to easily enter the structure, and produce superior koji and malted rice. Still, 'sake' will get you what you want both here, and in the bars of Tokyo. The drink is crafted from four ingredients – rice, water, yeast, and the fungus koji-kin (more on which later) – and although it falls in a similar ABV range to wine, it's brewed more like beer.

Polishing is perhaps the key step in defining what kind of sake gets made. It involves stripping away each rice grain's outer husk to reduce down the amount of protein and fat available for fermentation and thus shorten the brewing process. Given the region’s reputation for producing sake, it’s no surprise that the brewery is dedicated to deep-rooted brewing traditions and heritage. Akashi-Tai is true artisan sake, handmade in small batches by the toji (or master brewer) Kimio Yonezawa and his close team of trusted craftsmen. But to Akashi-Tai, respecting tradition also means keeping it alive, in an unending quest to challenge and improve throughout every step of the sake-making process.The different temperatures provide a changing array of flavours for the palate to appreciate. Warm sake is rather unusual in the world of alcoholic beverages, but it has a long history. Before the small, artisanal Akashi-tai ‘kura’ – or brewery to you and me (well, me anyhow) – became renowned for making sake, it produced soy sauce and traded in rice. This began towards the end of what is known as the Tokugawa Period (1600-1867), and it wasn’t until 1918 that Akashi first started making sake.