Akashi Tai Tokubetsu Honjozo Sake, 72 cl

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The toji decides on the rice variety," says Cheong-Thong Marie Cheong-Thong, an effervescent sake obsessive who sits on the board for the British Sake Association and judges at the International Wine and Spirits Competition. "He decides on the yeast variety, he decides on how he makes his koji, he decides on the polish of the rice." Different types of sake Each was blind tasted neat to avoid brand bias, then diluted with water to mellow the alcohol and appreciate the more nuanced aromatics at play. Akashi-Tai is named after its home city, where the brewery started life in 1856 and continues to this day. Akashi city is a coastal fishing town in Hyogo Prefecture, which is known as the traditional sake brewing capital of Japan. Honjozo Akashi-Tai’s sake is made to be slightly lighter in style than their other types of sake, using high quality rice and a small amount of brewers alcohol to create a crisp, dry and easy to drink sake. While people outside Japan are just catching on to the great potential of sake and food matching, it’s a known fact in sake’s homeland that it can all but transform a meal. What’s more, it goes with a variety of dishes beyond what we might think of as its classic partner, sushi. As the Japanese saying goes, “sake and food never fight”.

The Tedorigawa brewery makes a wide range of excellent sake from classy Ika na Onna to sweet and clean Kinka and mellow Yamahai Junmai Daiginjo. You can enjoy all of them at various temperatures. But Tedorigawa Yamahai Junmai was probably specifically made to drink warm. 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. Akashi-Tai Junmai Ginjo Sparkling Sake is made at the Akashi Sake Brewery. It is made in the same way as Champagne and other traditional method sparkling wines starting with a Ginjo Sake then undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle. The brewery was founded by the Yonezawa family in 1886 in the town of Akashi, one of the major fishing town in the west of Japan. It is an excellent location for a sake brewery with the surrounding fertile soils which are perfect for growing rice and plenty of clean spring water supplies which need for sake production. Akashi Tai is a small artisanal brewery, known as a ‘kura’, who would have previously mainly supplied the local population. However, since the new president Kimio Yonezawa, took over there have been some major developments. The brewery has expanded and modernized its sake-brewing activities, and now produces and sells a wide variety of hand-crafted sakes. Futsu-shu, which is barely polished, is best thought of as table sake. It accounts for the bulk of sake sold in Japan, and though you'll find some paint stripper, there are many excellent everyday drinkers if you look hard enough.I know that I have already featured Tamagawa Tokubestu Junmai in one of my articles. But such a great sake, that I couldn’t help just feature it again. And of course, Tamagawa is an ultimate sake for kanzake. Made by the first non-Japanese sake master brewer, Philip Harper, the sake is great at any temperature, but especially when served hot. It was also recommended by Andrew Russell on a podcast episode about yeast. So it’s an amazing sake. The texture becomes creamier and almost velvety with a very luxurious feel. The acidity softens and some sweetness appears. Jidai Yamahai Junmai Ginjo has a long and lavish finish and holds acidity at a higher temperature pretty well. Akashi-Tai Honjozo Sake, is a medium-bodied sake with hints of citrus and straw, this is the drink the brew masters reach for at the end of a working day 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.

You can drink Tedorigawa Yamahai Junmai chilled but it doesn’t give it justice. Made by using a yamahai method, the sake acidity at 1.6 and SMV +2.0. It’s not that aromatic which is normal for junmai sake with gentle green tomatoes, rice, lemon and timber notes.However, when you start heating it up, the profile magically changes. It becomes very mild with dryness and acidity almost going away. The texture gets more buttery and the body – more mouthful. It pairs nicely with any food due to its umami and higher acidity. I had it with a beef stew and at 30-45°C it was the best. With lighter dishes, I would recommend it at a room temperature of even chilled. Helpful as these categories are, they offer only a vague sense of the breadth and variety available, even within each category. The only way to really find out what you like is to taste broadly and see what lights up your palette. It’s brewed at the famous Hayashi Honten, one of a few Japanese breweries run by a woman, in Gifu prefecture. Jidai as well as the previous Tedorigawa Junmai are made using a more traditional yamahai method, which results in a richer and deeper taste and higher acidity. However, Judai is still ginjo sake with a fruity aroma full of apricot, pear, baked apple and a bit of herbal notes. However, when you start warming the sake up, it becomes much more enjoyable. The acidity melts down with the sweetness making the taste more mellow and gentle. The spiciness from alcohol becomes more prominent but without a strong alcohol aftertaste. 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.

The balance of refined elegance and complexity found in Akashi-Tai range of sakes make them great for drinking on their own, but they also work beautifully when paired with all types of food. As well as being the heartland of sake, Hyogo is also known throughout Japan and beyond for its food culture, making it a global hotspot for gastronomy. This epicurean trait has of course had an influence on the sake the region is known for, and Akashi-Tai is a prime example, having grown up alongside the vivid flavours of one of the world’s most evolved cuisines. Mr Yonezawa says that he is driven by “that moment when food and sake become one, and both are amplified, when the food reveals hidden depths in the sake, and the sake lingers and prolongs the pleasure of the meal”. year old Hakutsuru is one of the largest if not the largest sake brewery in Japan. It’s located in Nada area famous for its excellent water and produces a wide range of sake, umeshu and other drinks. Really, it's the wrong name: the Japanese character for 'sake' just means 'alcohol', "but at some point it got bastardised," says Cheong-Tong. "It should really be called 'nihonshu': 'nihon' meaning Japan, 'shu' is the alcohol of Japan." 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). 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.That flavour is dictated by each brewery's toji – the sake master. Unlike wine, where taste is as much about the soil as the choice of grapes and which kind of wood it's aged in, sake is purely about ingredients and technique, rather than terroir.

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. Akashi-Tai Honjozo sake is made to be slightly lighter in style than their other types of sake, using high quality rice and a small amount of brewers alcohol to create a crisp, dry and easy to drink sake.

Review and Tasting

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. Next you have ginjo, at 60% polishing, and daiginjo, at 50%, both of which can be junmai or not. Here you get more delicacy, with fruit flavours, a smooth mouthfeel and clean aftertaste. Junmai versions ramp up the umami and acidity. How to drink sake Though sake is a drink steeped in ancient Japanese tradition and history, it’s a category that’s not always easily understood outside of Japan. Fortunately, quality, craftsmanship and taste are universal – and Akashi-Tai places all of these at the forefront of its production to create elegant, balanced but characterful sakes. Keeping tradition alive So, let's settle an age-old debate – should you drink sake warm or chilled? Well, it depends. "All sake used to be consumed warm or at room temperature," says Sebastian Lemoine, a Tokyo-based sake expert and teacher at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. "However, in the post-war period, consumers started to associate warm sake with the drinking experience of cheap, soon industrial, sake, which was required to feed a booming market." This cookie is set by Rubicon Project to control synchronization of user identification and exchange of user data between various ad services.