Sake vs Shochu: Why They Are Not the Same Drink
Sake is brewed like wine; shochu is distilled like a spirit. Here is how Japan’s two great drinks differ in strength, koji, flavor, and how you pour them.
Sake is brewed like wine; shochu is distilled like a spirit. Here is how Japan’s two great drinks differ in strength, koji, flavor, and how you pour them.
Is sake wine or beer? Neither, exactly. Sake is brewed from grain like beer but drinks like wine. Here is what actually separates it, from koji to ABV.
Koji is the tame mold that turns rice starch into sugar so yeast can make sake. Here is what koji actually does, how it is grown, and why brewers rank it first.
How is sake made? A clear, five-step walk from polished rice to the glass — and the one step, parallel fermentation, that sets sake apart from wine and beer.
Umami is the savoury fifth taste, and sake is unusually full of it. Here is the amino-acid science behind why, and why glutamate alone is not the whole story.
Sake is a Japanese drink brewed from rice, water, koji, and yeast—not a spirit, not quite a wine. Here is what sake actually is, in three minutes, for wine lovers.