Tag - nihonshu-3

 
 

NIHONSHU 3

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 14, 2006
Picks to sip
Oushuku Nigori Umeshu from Tokushima
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 14, 2006
What type are you?
Depending on the "base" used for umeshu, you will find a wide variety of flavor profiles. For the novice, it may be good to start with a sweeter version, based on shochu. If you are a sake fan, obviously nihonshu-based umeshu will appeal.
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jan 21, 2005
Sugidama
Dear Alice,
Japan Times
Features
Jul 18, 2004
Rural revelations and a sake to go
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 6, 2004
Shinya Tasaki: Sommelier supreme
Shinya Tasaki was a teenager when he made his first solo trip to France in 1977. Even back then, he was so eager to learn about French food and wine that he visited as many wineries as he could -- only to be turned away from most. But his determination kept him from giving up -- and now nobody will turn him away, because Tasaki has become one of the world's best-known sommeliers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 30, 2004
Shōchū: The spirit of the times
All it takes is a whiff and a sip of shōchū  to realize it is markedly different from the more common nihonshu (which Westerners call "sake," although in Japanese, sake is a catchall word for all alcoholic drinks).
Japan Times
Features
May 30, 2004
Sommelier serves up a vintage haunt
Shinya Tasaki is Japan's best-known sommelier. Regularly featured on television, in newspapers and magazines, he runs his own French restaurant, as well as a wine bar and a school for sommeliers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 30, 2004
How shochu got its groove back
A young woman was seated at the counter, her long hair tumbling down to her shoulders and resting softly on her beige jacket. In a matching skirt and heels, her long slim legs were revealed. Classy and elegant, she looked like she was ready for a glass of Dom Perignon.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 27, 2003
So much to soak up in Yamagata
OK, let me put this out there: Yamagata-ken, just like any sensible prefecture in Japan, loves tourists. But you get the feeling that Yamagata Prefecture Tourist Division tries a little harder to promote its treasures. They even occasionally invite journalists up for a spin around the countryside.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Nov 10, 2002
Delicate pauses to refresh
There are really two kinds of restaurants.
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Oct 27, 2002
The fish, my friend, can be dried in the wind
In empty lots close to the piers of small fishing towns, up and down the coast of Japan, stand huge drying racks, hung heavy with the gutted, cleaned and butterflied morning catch. Empty, these racks look like a fantastical gymnastic apparatus. Fully laden, they resemble rows of clotheslines strung with mittens, hats and socks, which on closer inspection are revealed to be fish, squid and marine vegetation.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Oct 27, 2002
Before I go, these are a few of my favorite things
After precisely eight years, this is to be the final installment of the Nihonshu column. It has been extremely enjoyable write it over the years. The amount I have learned along the way has been nothing less than phenomenal -- and it only got more interesting as time went on.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Sep 15, 2002
Sake-shopping picks that really hit the spot
There exists, where you would least expect it, a marvelous oasis for sake shopping. Yoshiike department store, just outside Okachimachi Station and just across from the entrance to Ameyokocho, has a fantastic selection of sake and a plethora of sake utensils to go with it.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jun 30, 2002
Matches made in Tokyo
From California-style cafes to French bistros, international restaurants in Tokyo possess world-class wine lists. But if consumers' experience of wine is limited to their forays into international gourmet dining, it will remain an exotic, special-occasion beverage. To establish a comfortable home for itself in Japan, wine must find its way into less rarefied, local environments. It must make friends with Japanese cuisine, flirt with yakitori or sashimi -- or perhaps leap into an illicit liaison with tonkatsu.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Jun 2, 2002
In a pinch, these will do just fine
More than 50 families of crab, numbering thousands of species, thrive in practically all parts of the globe. Most crab species are marine and live in salt water or the brackish waters of bays, lagoons and river deltas. A relatively small number have adapted themselves to completely freshwater life-cycles and even fewer varieties have become solely land-dwelling.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
May 12, 2002
High fives for the best kind of Japanese food
There are five sets of five rules one must consider when attempting to make traditional Japanese food: the five colors (goshiki); the five methods (goho); the five flavors (gomi); the five senses (gokan); and finally the five viewpoints/considerations (gokan no mon), a Buddhist treatise on the proper way of eating and being grateful for food that has been prepared. Elements and variations on these dictums can be seen in all Asian cuisines that have been influenced by Buddhism. Originally codified in China, these axioms were imported, adapted and refined to fit the Japanese sensibility. They swayed the classically minded washoku chef for centuries.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
May 12, 2002
Brewing it naturally isn't so easy
In recent years, there has been increased interest in organic sake. To legally specify something as organic or organically produced is difficult, at least in countries that have begun enforcing the standards that are needed to ensure safety and quality, as well as the protection of the environment.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jan 6, 2002
Uncorking the bubbly, Nihon-style
Happy New Year to all Japan Times readers. May 2002 be a year of health and prosperity for all.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Nov 25, 2001
Hey, that's a sake of a different color
When you think about it, the realm of sake flavor profiles and types can be perceived as, well, a bit narrow. From the sweetest to the driest, from the roughest to the cleanest, we are not exactly talking about major bandwidth.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Nov 11, 2001
How mold grew to be so unique
There are two things that make nihonshu unique among the world's alcoholic beverages. One is the process known as heiko fukuhakko, or multiple parallel fermentation. In short, this means that saccharification and fermentation take place simultaneously in the same vat, as opposed to sequentially, as in other fermented beverages. The other thing making sake unique is the use of koji.

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree