Sake tastings mark the arrival of fall
Sake lovers eagerly await the coming of autumn, when spring's brash young brews begin to mellow and develop complexity. Unsurprisingly, this season is prime time for tastings, and October means sake events all over Japan. The wave of festivities kicks off on Oct. 1, or ...
Staving off the bulldozers for one more round
Tokyo is roughly divided into styles and cliques. Neighborhoods delineate and categorize, often in keeping with the cool factor of their inhabitants: Omotesando, Aoyama and Harajuku for fashionistas; Shibuya for party kids; Koenji for earthy music fans; and Shimokitazawa for the vintage-tint rock-star social ...
Sake sisters are brewing it for themselves
For most of its thousand-year history, sake has been a man's world. Even as recently as 30 years ago, women were forbidden to enter some breweries, but today's pioneering lady brewers and brewery heads are teaching the industry to embrace its feminine side. As a ...
Pairing tips from the sake experts
What kinds of foods pair well with sake? The obvious answer is Japanese, but, as sake continues to expand abroad, industry professionals and consumers alike are discovering a whole new world of pairing possibilities for the brew. At the sake specialty shop Sakaya, in New ...
U.S. sake lovers spread some joy
For the first time ever, The Joy of Sake, the biggest sake tasting soiree outside of Japan, will bring its American brand of culture-crossing conviviality to Japan. On Nov. 2, the event, which originated in Hawaii, will be celebrating its anniversary in Tokyo. "It's the ...
Events spur on a new generation of sake drinkers
At 5:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday evening, the line of people at the entrance to the Smile Nihonshu sake event was six deep. Inside the bar, groups of young people in their 20s and 30s clinked glasses and nodded along to a bouncy ...
Something new brewing for sake
When Kenji Ichishima, the sixth-generation head of Ichishima Shuzo in Niigata Prefecture, took over his family's sake brewery eight years ago at the age of 34, he immediately started making changes. First, he drastically reduced the number of products. Next, he revamped the brand ...
Great coffee: It's all in the brewing
Espresso "has the potential to deliver more of the incredible taste and aroma of roasted coffee than any other method (of brewing)," wrote Jeffrey Steingarten, food critic for U.S. Vogue magazine. Science says the torrent of pressurized water captures more of the aromatic oils than ...
A receptacle for the respectable
I ordered a shot of George T. Stagg's fiery Hazmat III in Shot Bar Bourbon, a tiny subterranean bourbon paradise in Ginza, and the bartender served it in a wine glass. I asked why. "For the flavor," he said, and to demonstrate, he tipped ...
The coupe gave way to the flute, but now it's swansong time for that venerated Champagne vessel
In the early 20th century, when society types in England and the United States pranced around drinking pink Champagne, they loved the coupe. The saucerlike glass showed off the colorful bubbly and came with a naughty, but probably apocryphal, story that it was modeled ...
Chocolate bars for whisky lovers
A tawny port pairs wonderfully with Stilton. Grand Marnier tastes great on vanilla ice cream. Chianti seems to suit a Margherita pizza. And whisky? Well, that goes with haggis. But haggis is a sheep's stomach stuffed with a mash of its offal, and tastes just ...
The spiritual side of making wine
Between the cold steel of enormous fermentation tanks and the state-of-the-art equipment in the tasting rooms of today's modern wineries, it's hard to believe that there is any element of the winemaking process that is not governed by the strict dictates of science. So ...
