The first sake I ever tried might have been cooking sake. It was in a dive bar in Soho in 1998, it was served in a wooded masu box, and it tasted like dishwater cut with lighter fuel.
Things didn’t get much better when I moved to Japan. Sake seemed to fall into just two camps: plain or bad. It would be nine years before anyone convinced me that people drank it for pleasure.
I’m fully convinced now. In fact, I believe that brewed rice is the most diverse, complex, extraordinary and exciting drink in the world — as long as you know what to ask for. The bad and the boring still exist, in copious amounts, but so too do many sensational artisanal brews.
Click below for info about artisanal sake collection KuroKura or private sake tastings in Tokyo.
