Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I'm Beau Timken, master sake sommelier, and we're talking about the Junmai category in
this segment. Now one of the great things about sake is it is a food pairing beast.
Wine, is a grape. It's grape juice. Sake is built from starch. So a lot of times people
will think; Hey, starch goes better with cuisine than perhaps a grape juice will. And I will,
I concur a hundred percent. Anything that comes from the ocean, think of sake. Anything
that comes, has hooves or a tail or a beak or a butt, think of sake. Sake has incredible
amount of dexterity that goes very well with all food pairings. What I don't want you to
do is I don't want you to think about sake and sushi only. Granted they go together but
sake goes with so many other foods as well. I like to think of things of grilling. When
I talk about Junmai sake, I like to think of things that are grilled. If you have a
barbecue, anything off the barbecue, think of Junmai sake. If you like to cook some dishes
with some heavier sauces, I would definitely stick with a Junmai, if you want to have a
sake in that mix. Now sake on the whole has one third the acidity of wine. So it doesn't
have that super acidic push. That's why it just does far better with certain delicate
kind of flavors and components. That said, since sake's a starch, it has a far muted
sweetness, far more muted sweetness than a grape juice. So when you think of kind of
a sweeter Junmai, people come and say; Oh I don't like sweet wines, I'm not going to
like a sweeter sake; I bet you're wrong. I bet you would like a semi sweet sake. It has
more body, more texture. Again, it's far more muted, the sweetness, in a starch based beverage,
than it is for a good grape juice. So, think of your grill, think of Junmai. Think of anything
from the ocean, think of your Junmai And by all means, bigger center of the plate flavors
and textures, definitely go far better with a Junmai category, on the whole in general.