January 19, 2012
Back in Cupertino, Kuni (my pops) had a huge bag of fuguhire (dried blowfish tails) from Tsukiji market, which he is grills to make fuguhire zake. These tails are from the blowfish variety tora-fugu or “tiger fugu”. Fuguhire zake is a common way to drink hot sake in Japan during the cold winters, at least amongst my father’s generation
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January 5, 2012
If you can get your hands on sake kasu (sake lees, a yeast by-product of sake making) a subculture of cooking opens up to you. Most commonly used for marinating fish and pickling, sake kasu looks like pizza dough with the consistency of wet clay and aroma of nama (unpasteurized) sake. It’s usually available for cheap,
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April 28, 2011
Annual Sake Tasting & Lecture: Back to Basics! Tuesday, May 10 @ 6:30 pm Japan Society, NYC
Every year, Japan Society hosts a sake lecture and tasting, inviting dozens of brewers from Japan. Over the years, we’ve covered so many topics on sake–from water, rice, milling, sake vessels, molds, to even bottling. Sake is
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February 16, 2011
I regretfully report that Anders, aka Skankynavia and Packaging Whore columnist, is on sabbatical for the next few weeks, and will be returning in mid-March. Sorry, Martians! I know you all adore his posts, but our resident SkankMaster will be hibernating for the rest of the winter. It’s chilly up there in SkankyLand.
I’ll be filling
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February 3, 2011
I am excited to continue with Part Two of my sake series this week on Japanify. In my first post titled Futsushu vs. Tokutei Meishoshu, I described the difference between ordinary and premium sakes. We are now ready to define the different types of tokutei meishoshu (premium sake)–there are six types in
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January 27, 2011
I had many opportunities during my first six months living in Japan to get really unpleasant hangovers from sake. This was mainly because I was living off a wage that made me think “Did I miss my stop and end up in China?” while drinking a lot of cheap
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April 6, 2009
Yep, it’s the season for Japan Society’s annual sake tasting. Get your tickets before it sells out! This year’s focus is on Koji, the mold, the heart, the most important ingredients in sake
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March 18, 2009
After another late Tuesday night filled with drunken cocktail tinkering for today’s Happy Hour column, I’m back with the 2nd installment of the two-part primer on simple syrups. In case you missed last week, you
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March 19, 2008
It’s pretty cool this year. You will get to taste sake that you will never be able to in this country. Brewers will bring sakes that are submitted to this year’s National Sake Appraisal to be held in May this year. New Sake is very intense, and is truly a rare opportunity. Hurry and buy your
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January 25, 2008
Last week, Urban Sake‘s Timothy Sullivan was kind enough to invite me to his ongoing sake tasting course, “The Elements of Sake” at the Astor Wine and Liquor Shop’s very new and swanky
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