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Editor's Note: On October 21 in New York City, SLM dining critic Dave Lowry attended the "largest sake-tasting held outside of Japan," the 11th annual Joy of Sake. With hundreds of sake vying for attention, Lowry likened it to "the Westminster Kennel Club Show, with just a little less folderol and a little more alcohol." The following is the first of four blogposts about sake and The Joy of Sake. Don't know much about it? Mr. Lowry will take care of that.
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I wondered if the transvestite liked sake.
He—or, putatively, she—is the only transvestite there. I’m fairly certain of that. The place, just off Seventh Ave on 18th in Manhattan, is swarming. More than 500 people. It’s possible there may have been some other Transvestite-Americans in the crowd. It was New York, after all. For the most part, though, they look like the sorts haunting an upscale wine-tasting. Or at the steeplechase that’s taking place the next day, over in Far Hills. There are a lot of high-end ZIP Codes represented here tonight: Upper West Side, Park Slope, Bridgehampton. Like the transvestite, I’m likely unique in this bunch. I’m doing my best, as its sole representative, to uphold the gentle élan and sophistication of St. Louis County.
A friend and I are there early. Early enough, once we’d found the place, to take a leisurely amble down Seventh Ave while we waited for the event to formally commence.
Autumn in New York City may be one of America’s least celebrated indulgences. The atmosphere, cool but not chilly, the sidewalks busy, though not oppressively thronging. The scaffolding clinging to the soaring black spike of the emerging Freedom Tower is speckled with lights. Aromas, from sizzling gyro meat to freshly sliced pineapple, perfume the soft air. In an exhibition of self-denial that makes the anchorite Anthony’s resistance to temptation seem like an afternoon at Epcot, I have already passed up a least half a dozen pizza slices offered street side. I refrain. There is sake to be sampled. A great deal of sake. The glory of a New York slice is almost unparalleled; preparing the palate for sake, though, isn’t going to be facilitated by all that cheese and tomato sauce.
That’s why I am here. To taste sake. More of it, taking up two full floors of the Altman Building, than I’ve ever seen in one place. The Joy of Sake is the largest presentation of sake outside Japan. San Francisco and Honolulu host it, along with New York. It’s been an annual event since 2001. For sake enthusiasts, it’s like the Superbowl and New Year's combined—with an open bar.
Just moments before things get underway, Chris Pearce, who is the organizer of Joy of Sake and who speaks Japanese better than some Japanese, is in conversation with a knot of brewers who’ve all schlepped their wares from Japan. He’s wearing a sport coat and tie and what looks, at first, like a kilt. Then I realize it’s a tare, a long apron of the sort traditionally worn by sake brewers. We’re introduced; he is immediately urging me to organize a tasting in St. Louis. He knows we’re home to the largest Japanese festival in the US, at the Missouri Botanical Garden; he’s enthusiastic.
“You have about 40,000 people coming to that,” he says. “Perfect audience to enjoy sake.”
Pearce is that sort of guy. He’s an avid sake advocate. Which is like saying Glenn Beck can be excitable. Pearce is one of only about 40 professionally certified sake appraisers in the world. He explains to me a significant rationale for bringing all these sake varieties halfway around the earth: Sake consumption in Japan has leveled off. Brewers there are keen on exporting their stuff to potential audiences in the West. Pearce should know. His company, World Sake Imports, headquartered in Honolulu, does just that. A lot of it.
Just when Pearce has me imagining a St. Louis Sake Soiree, he’s called away. Time for the kagami-wari. In the old days, sake wasn’t bottled; it was kept in casks. For special ceremonies and festivals, village leaders gathered with mallets and, like a combination of ship christening and tapping the keg, they smashed the wooden lid of the cask to open it. It’s the perfect, splashy way to begin tonight’s event. There are a couple of blessedly brief speeches; the crowd, tasting cups already in hand are pressing in, and the cask is whacked open. Formalities are concluded. Time to drink.
It’s mildly astounding. Table after table of sake bottles are laid out. More than 300 varieties. To keep things sanitary and to prevent broken bottle dust-ups over the contents, the sake’s been poured into ceramic tumblers, each with a bulls-eye ring on the bottom that allows the sake connoisseur to judge clarity. There’s a bulb syringe in each. Suck some up and squirt it into your tasting cup. Sip. Make notes. Move on. Only 324 sakes to go.
Kinda, sorta, Joy of Sake is based on the ippai kokai, the annual tasting that follows Japan’s yearly, official National Sake Appraisal, where the country’s liquid rice product is judged officially by experts. Think of it as the Westminster Kennel Club Show, with just a little less folderol and a little more alcohol. All the sake is right at the peak of its freshness. (Wine, cheeses, Monica Bellucci; all have benefitted from aging. Sake? The best hits its peak, flavorwise, usually within about six months after it goes in the bottle.) Brewers are eager to show off their best stuff. Enthusiasts have the perfect opportunity to sample it.
Sake can roughly be divided into those varieties that are made only with rice, water, and mold, and those that have had alcohol added to the mix. It’s also categorized by the degree to which the rice used has been polished. (See next post, Speaking Sake). There is, of course, no way even the most determined or debauched is going to get around to even a decent fraction of all the sake here tonight. I have to be selective.
I start, for nostalgia’s sake, with a junmai ginjo, the Masumi Brewery’s “Karakuchi Ki-Ippon.” It’s a sake with no added alcohol, made with rice no more than 60% of the grain of which remains. (The more of the grain that’s polished off before brewing, the higher the quality, generally speaking. Not coincidentally, the more polish, the less the potential hangover.) Masumi Brewery is in Suwa, in Nagano Prefecture, St. Louis’s Japanese sister city. This is where I sampled sake for the first time, in a bar so tiny—the restrooms here at the Altman Building are more spacious.
The first sip of sake of the night. It’s dry. Smooth. Tastes vaguely of almonds and even more faintly of fruit. And more strongly of memories.
Sake benefits, as much as wine, from food. Which is a good thing, because more than a dozen of the top-tier Japanese restaurants in the City also have booths here. Everything tonight is off-the-menu. Creations they’ve put together just for the event. I’ve already cased the joint. I make directly for the early odd-on favorite, BONDST’s take on shrimp sushi (left). The shrimp’s been smoked somehow, and infused with the flavor of apples. The rice is a rich yellow, fragrant with saffron. Each piece has been wrapped tightly in bamboo leaves, which lend a vegetal tone. They’re exquisite.
Fortified, I moved on to the Daiginjo. These are the Mouton Rothschilds of the sake world, premium brands. A single bottle of Daiginjo can go for a couple of hundred bucks or more. This is where it gets interesting. There’s a throng around the Daiginjo tables. It’s amusing to separate those who are there because they have heard or read somewhere about the Daiginjo’s reputation, and those who are there because they know the good stuff. I try one from a Fukui Prefecture brewer called “Ichigo-ichi-e,” just because the name’s intriguing. It means, “one encounter; one chance,” an old saying from the tea ceremony that reminds us we have to appreciate every moment, treat it as one that can be, depending on our approach to it, savored or squandered. Kind of like carpe diem. It’s appropriate. This sake’s one that can’t be bought in the US—and in Japan I couldn’t afford it. It’s dry, almost astringent. Fukui Prefecture faces the harsh cold winters of Japan’s western coast; the rice grown here is distinctive. The icy snowmelt spring water makes for this kind of sake: elegant, clean, sharp.
A few more Daiginjo get my attention, then it’s time for a distraction. Which comes, as it so often does, in the form of pork belly. A glistening, luscious cube of it, marinated in a peppery, lemony mix of yuzu citrus, salt, and chilies, then roasted and squirted with Chinese black vinegar. It’s from brushstroke, over in the Tribeca neighborhood. What do I think? Hmm. Let me try one more to be sure.
I quickly learn the optimal approach to noshing at the food booths without looking like I’m being a pig. There are a number of non-Japanese Japanese speakers at Joy of Sake. But not so many that if the Japanese food servers hear one of us speaking it, we get their attention. We stand out. That makes it a trifle awkward to go back for third or fourth or eighth “samples.” Speak English and you sort of blend in and can make repeated stops at the tables without looking too overtly swinish. I quickly adopt this option, hoping only that my charm won’t render me too noticeable either. Probably, though, by that third sampling of pork belly, I’m at least a little obvious.
“This would never happen in Japan,” one attendee notes. We’re standing off to the side a while later, eating beautiful slivers of opalescent squid, splashed with its own ink, ink that’s been mixed with truffle oil, made by the chef from Hibino, in Brooklyn. He’s right. People are milling about. Swarming to the tables that attract them. From a Japanese perspective, it’s chaos. In Japan, there would be protocol. There would be a prescribed route to take through the maze of tables. This is a lot more fun.
Squid finished, it’s back to work. The selection of what’s before us is daunting. It occurs: one is surrounded by more varieties of serious sake than have probably been presented at any one place anywhere outside Japan—but simultaneously, this is not a serious sake tasting. How many of the bottles can the attendee work his way through in the course of an evening? Not even a significant fraction. Some opt for sake from regions they’ve visited in Japan. Sake has its own terroir. Or more precisely, its own eau. The water in Hyogo Prefecture, when much of Japan’s most renowned sake comes, is full of minerals. That’s why sake aficionados talk about the “masculine” character of the drink from there. Up north, Akita’s sake are dry, lean, with a characteristic edge. The soft water down south in Hiroshima produces sake thought “sweet”—in keeping with the Japanese stereotype that southern Japanese have a sweet tooth.
Then there are some here tonight who have different criteria. One woman confides in me: “I go for the ones with the prettiest labels.”
I catch Dave Rabinovici, one of the organizers, who’s been scrambling from table to table, making sure the sampling cups are filled, answering questions. How many serious connoisseurs are here tonight? I ask him.
“Not that many,” he says, then adds, “but more than you’d find in any other single place in the country.”
For the majority who aren’t experts, this isn’t about sampling individual sakes. It’s about getting a broad perspective. The Joy of Sake affords a unique opportunity. You can try the simple junmai and the more complex honjozo and quickly get an overall impression of what distinguishes them. Going to even a superbly-stocked sake bar or Japanese restaurant couldn’t come close to providing the same experience. The difference between a junmai ginjo and a junmai daiginjo is like the difference between a Merlot and a Burgundy. To be able to sample some of the very best representatives of these by simply stepping from one table to the next is a remarkable opportunity.
Maybe ten sake samplings later, and after a cup of sweet potato soup made with sake lees, coconut, and pistachios from WD-50, a molecular gastronomy restaurant on the Lower East Side, I find a corner; the crowd’s thick enough now it’s a balancing act to move through it with a cup of sake in hand. The one in my hand at the moment is a Gassan Uedaya, from Yamagata, up in the mountains of Japan’s northwest coast. When the Japanese and Swiss signed their Economic Policy Agreement in Zurich a couple of years ago, they served the Uedaya at the reception. Like a lot of the other sakes at the tasting, it isn’t available in the US, either. I want a moment to savor it. A woman spots my refuge, joins me. We watch as the transvestite floats by. Self-consciously skinny. Long, silky hair brushing down to his wispy biceps, sporting mirrored aviator sunglasses, a sleeveless and translucent top with a knee length black skirt and leather, calf-high boots. His targets were sylphlike and urban-cool. He was hitting pretentious and emaciated. But not for lack of trying.
“Something seem a little odd about that?” the woman asks me.
“Probably the esclavage de perles,” I said. “He appears to lack the cleavage for clavage.” I thought it was pretty witty. Maybe it was just the sake, though.
“Probably that’s it,” she says. Then we separate; Momofoku's má pêche (at left), arguably the hottest Japanese restaurant in Manhattan right now, is serving a delicate domino of black bass spritzed with lime and wrapped in a shiso leaf that needs further attention from me. She’s off, she tells me, to try a sake because she likes the name: Onikoroshi—“demon killer.”
Má pêche comes through; the bass is exquisite. Then I’m heading for a bottle legendary in the sake world, the Watari Bune. It comes from out in the sticks of Ibaraki, from a variety of rice that was nearly extinct. It was a kind that grew tall and ripened late, well into dangerous typhoon season, and farmers abandoned it for that reason. The 7th generation head of the Fuchu Homare Brewery got hold of some seeds that had been squirreled way, planted them, and waited two years to get enough to begin brewing. The Watari Bune is the result. Layers of flavor unfold when it hits my mouth. Watermelon, summer flowers, cottony soft; it lives up to its reputation.
That’s how it goes. And three hours later, the sampling cups are only dregs. The restaurant workers are packing up, clearing their tables. It’s a subway ride back to Penn Station, then a long train to New Jersey, where I’m staying. I wait at the platform, watching a New York Transit-produced video on a TV monitor that explains how riders need to be aware of potential threats. If you see anyone who looks unusual or suspicious, we’re told, report it to the subway police. I look around. Again, it’s New York. Friday night. Find somebody here who doesn’t look unusual and suspicious and you got a story.
What was the most joyous of sake at Joy of Sake? Hard to say. The palate, even for the serious sake connoisseur, after so many sips, begins to nap. That wasn’t why I couldn’t make the correct pronouncement, though. The tasting it turned out, wasn’t entirely over.
Several of the volunteer servers at the tasting were rewarded; the bottles remaining were divvied up among them to take home. Some of those servers, bottles in tow, gathered the next evening for a cookout. We met at Windsong, a farm just across the Hudson. Back during Prohibition the farm had been the site of a still that had turned out so many thousands gallons of moonshine it eventually drew the attention of the authorities. Who broke up the still and simultaneously sparked a fire that reduced the barn to whiskey-flavored ashes. A bamboo grove is thriving on what remains of the foundation. I was staying on the farm with its current, formidably hospitable owners. We lingered late, drawing chairs closer and closer to the stone-lined fire pit as the chill of the night hardened around us. A couple of deer hunters ambled by, stood in the glow of the fire for a few minutes and regretfully refused an offer to share some of the sake we’d begun to sample. Time, in fact, to pour some more. Someone came up out of the shadows, bottle in hand, and gurgled a measure into the square wooden cups from which sake often tastes best. I took a sip.
I was in Japan in October once, out in the boondocks. And walking one night across the narrow dike of a rice field where the harvest was past and where the straw stubble had been burned to make next year’s ground more fertile. The sake in my cup tasted like that night, faintly smoky, cool, earthy; autumnal. Perfect. There aren’t many sake that subtle, that layered in flavor. I tried to read the label on the bottle. But it was another October now. Full-on-dark out in the pasture of this farm, stars like steel pinpricks wheeling in the black sky overhead. The fire was by then only a circle of glowing embers, the shadows deep. It was late. And it was too dark to read.
