Today’s article will deal with sake, even though the word is a bit misleading: In Japanese, the word “sake” (酒), “liquor”, can refer to any alcoholic drink, while the beverage called “sake” in English is called “nihonshu” (日本酒) in Japanese.  

It’s quite important to note that difference down as there are more Japanese liquors than just nihonshu and you shouldn’t be confused when seeing all the bottles foreigners refer to as “sake”
So let’s call the beverage we talk about today nihonshu and continue from here.
Nihonshu is brewed using rice, water and white koji mold as the main ingredients. Besides major brands, there are countless local nihonshu breweries as well. The alcohol content of nihonshu is typically about 10-20%. It is drunk either hot or cold, and it is usually filtered although unfiltered nihonshu is also popular.

The brewing process for nihonshu differs a lot from beverages like beer. When nihonshu is brewed, these conversions and the alcoholic fermentation occur simultaneously in the tank, which enables the nihonshu to have higher alcohol around 18%–20% before diluting it down to 13-17%. Moreover, the converting process in Nihonshu from starch to sugar is done by microorganism Aspergillus oryzae (Koji mold) sprinkled onto steamed rice, different from malting and mashing in the beer producing process.

There are cheaper and more expensive kinds of Nihonshu but a good bottle is around ¥2500. If you’re over 20, the legal age of drinking alcohol in Japan, you should definitely try a glass of Nihonshu while you’re in the country; you might really enjoy it !