Episode 25: Emergence of Sake Series: Roots of Nihonshu
Greeting (0:20)
Hey, everyone! It’s so good to be back! Welcome to Season Three Episode 25 of Sugidama Podcast, the podcast about Japanese sake, the drink which is both traditional and innovative and which traces its history for hundreds of years. And today I am going to start a short series looking at existing sake brewing methods from a historic and taste perspective.
But before we talk about it, let me tell you about our sponsor, London Sake, who have one of the widest selections of premium and craft sake available online today. You can choose from over 100 sake from 25 breweries, and they will deliver across the UK and many European markets. And if you don’t know what sake to choose you can use simple online tasting notes together with very sensible and affordable food pairings to help you decide. What’s more, you can get a 10% discount by just using the code: SUGIDAMA (all caps) during checkout. London Sake: making sake simple.”
My name is Alex and I live in London. I am a certified sake specialist, sake judge, sake educator and sake advocate. Besides this podcast, I have Sugidama Blog where I write about all things sake, publish tasting notes, overviews, and information about sake events happening in London.
As I said earlier, it’s so good to be back after a break from blogging and podcasting (but not from sake of course). I have to be honest with you, I felt a bit of a burnt-out after two consecutive seasons of Sugidama Podcast, especially after the second one, where I made a commitment to publish episodes on schedule every other week. And gosh, it was so hard.
When I released the last episode of Season 2 with an excellent interview with Andy Travers, the owner and director of London Sake, our sponsor, I thought that I would take a few weeks off from podcasting and then start planning Season 3 while on holiday. But then I did not do much while away. Just relaxed and didn’t think about anything. In any case, it took a bit longer for me to get back to my laptop and mike to record a new episode.
So here I am. While I was on sabbatical, I have noticed a couple of new sake podcasts in town. The first one is from Jim Rion and Andrew Russell and I admire both of these gentlemen. Jim lives in Yamaguchi Prefecture in Japan and writes about sake for various publications as well for his own newsletter, Ochoko Times. Andrew was on this podcast in the previous season talking about yeast, the unsung hero of sake brewing. He works at Imada brewery in Hiroshima Prefecture and has first-hand experience and knowledge in sake making. The podcast is called Sake Deep Dive and if you like nerdy stuff and a lot of details about our beloved subject, try it.
The second podcast is called Sake Unplugged by Cindy and Guilia. They both live in Japan and Guilia works at the sake brewery at the moment. They are talking about various sake, breweries, places etc. I am quite excited that we have more podcasts about sake covering various aspects of this wonderful beverage. So tune in and enjoy!
The emergence of alcohol (4:28)
Back to Sugidama Podcast. Today I would like to start a new miniseries about sake brewing methods. I have covered this topic before in sake production episodes 4, 6 and 8. But this time I would like to take a bit closer look at various techniques that emerged in sake brewing over its long history and are still used nowadays. But we start with looking at how people discovered alcohol in the first place. Then we will talk about ancient sake brewing and finally move to the existing methods: bodaimoto, kimoto, yamahai and sokujo-moto wrapping up with some other methods which are not that well known.
OK. There’s probably no single country or region, which we could call the birthplace of alcohol. Various techniques for making it probably appeared independently across the world. The ties between regions were weak and the techniques developed in one place didn’t necessarily make it to another easily. Interestingly, the oldest discovered brewery, which was operating 13 thousand years ago in a cave in Israel pre-dates the emergence of agriculture, which started only around 9,500 BCE.
It led some scientists to argue that the desire for alcohol was the real driver behind the emergence of agriculture and subsequent progress rather than the surplus of agricultural products that led to the appearance of alcohol. I don’t know. Why not. Another interesting fact is that our predecessors developed tolerance to alcohol a long long time before they actually became humans, millions of years ago. Otherwise, we could not drink it now.
Well, in South Asia, the oldest traces of alcohol were discovered in China of course and are dated back to 9 thousand years ago, 7,000 BCE. Apparently, it was a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey, and fruit (hawthorn fruit and/or grape). So we can see that rice-based alcohol is a very old thing.
I am quite surprised that the oldest alcoholic beverages were more like beer rather than wine as you would think given that wine is generally easier to make. Probably ancient people noticed some booziness in left-over porridge or they found a way to make a sweet drink from germinated grains, which turned alcoholic with time. Cultivation of grapes only started 6,000 – 8,000 ago, a few thousand years after beer or other alcoholic drinks from fermented grains were discovered. While the first signs of wine found in Georgia, are dated 6,000 BCE.
So while it’s a bit counter-intuitive, grain-based alcohol probably emerged before wine. It’s logical that it eventually appeared in Japan, where rice was one of the key grains.
Origin of Sake: theories and legends (8:01)
Let’s now talk about ancient sake-making methods. At least about what we know about them. There are two major obstacles for me here. The first is a general lack of historical records the further back in history we go. And the second is that most of the information is in Japanese in which I lack any proficiency. I’ve been learning the language for the last few years but still, find it difficult to read even simple texts not mentioning anything as complex as sake related literature. So unfortunately I have to rely on English-language sources and occasionally on Google Translate.
So let’s start with what we know about alcohol making in ancient Japan. If you remember, I mentioned in the first episode, that the first even mention of alcohol drinking in Japan comes from the Book of Wei, a Chinese chronicle covering the period from the end of the 4th century until mid 6th century. But of course, alcohol existed in Japan before that.
There are many theories about the origin of sake or alcohol in Japan. And here we have another problem. Sake was the word used in Japan for many centuries referring to a rice-based alcoholic drink. But in the 19th century Japan opened up, and foreign alcoholic drinks started appearing in the country. They all as a collective were also called sake, which means alcohol. In order to distinguish them from the national drink, sake made from rice was renamed nihonshu, translated as Japanese alcoholic drink, which is still called sake outside Japan. Confusing, right?
When we are talking about the history of sake, we mean the history of nihonshu. But again, nihonshu now is very different from any rice-based drinks made even a thousand years ago. So I will start with sake grandparents so to speak.
First, there is a theory that sake came to Japan from China, in particular from around the Yangtze River, where rice growing began around 4800 BCE and the technique how to grow rice came to Japan via Kyushu, the most southern of the four largest Japanese islands, and therefore, closest to China. It would be the oldest origin of sake. However, apparently, the theory has a lot of contradictions in it and is not supported much in Japan. No idea what these contradictions are, to be honest as the theory has been mostly discussed in Japanese sources. Also, it was so long ago, and with no records remaining from that time, it’s impossible to say.
I have already mentioned the Book of Wei, the oldest mentioning of alcohol drinking in Japan. But before that, we have a discovery of a brewing pit in Japan which existed around 1,000 BCE, where fruit and berries based alcohol was brewed. But for some reason, it didn’t go further to become a dominant method. Probably because it’s was difficult to cultivate berries in large quantities. So we can’t call this drink a predecessor of sake.
There’s another theory, that sake first was made by a god, who is known under several names: Oyamatsumi, Watashi no Okami or Sakatoke no Kami, the latter means god of sake. So what’s the story about Sakatoke no Kami? Why he’s a god of sake? I am simplifying it a lot and also English sources are almost non-existent for this story so I am sorry if my version is a bit incorrect.
Anyway, there was another deity, Ninigi, who was a grandson of Amaterasu, the sun goddess and one of the major Japanese deities. He also was the great-grandfather of Japan’s first emperor, Emperor Jimmu. So Ninigi was looking for a wife. As it happened, Oyamatsumi, who was a mountain god (oyama means a big mountain) had two daughters: Konohana Sakuya-hime, the goddess of Mount Fuji and Iwanaga-hime, a rock princess.
There are a few versions of how Ninigi and Sakuya-hime met. In one story, Oyamatsumi sent him both daughters, in another version, Ninigi and Sakuya-hime met on the seashore and fell in love. In both cases, he rejected Iwanaga in favour of Sakuya-hime. As a side effect, his decision had a devastating effect on humans. As he rejected rock princess Iwanaga, humans, his descendants, got shorter lives like cherry blossoms rather than long lives like rocks. So blame him for our mortality.
Sakuya-hime and Ninigi had a few other dramatic moments in their relationship including Sakuya-hime giving birth in a burning hut with no doors. However, everything ended well and the couple had three sons. Oyamatsumi was so happy that he became a granddad that he brewed so-called heavenly sake (amenotamu-zake) to celebrate it. This way he became a god of sake as he introduced sake to humans. While there is no real evidence of this all actually happened you are welcome to believe in this version.
Mid sponsor’s message (13:57)
OK, before we talk about ancient brewing techniques and another legend involving sake, let me remind you about London Sake, our sponsor and their huge selection of curated sake sets, which provide a great opportunity to explore various styles and types of sake. Have a look but don’t forget about the magic word, SUGIDAMA (all caps) to get your 10% discount.
Kuchikamizake: an ancient sake brewing method (14:28)
So what are the ancient sake brewing methods we know about? During the Nara period in the 8th century CE, rice cultivation in Japan became stable. So people started having some extra rice they could use for other things. During that time we have the earliest records of sake making techniques. One of them comes from a text about Osumi province, today the eastern part of Kagoshima Prefecture, written sometime after 713 CE.
I have mentioned this method, Kuchikamizake, before in my earlier episodes. If you watched Your Name, a famous Japanese anime, you should know what I am talking about: the method when people were chewing uncooked rice and water and spitting it into a vessel. After a few days, amylolytic enzymes, which live in our saliva, break the starch in the rice into sugar and wild yeast that lives in the air starts converting it into alcohol.
This method is known to be widespread across a broad area from East Asia to the South Pacific, and South and Central America. Apparently, it’s also implied in Manyoshu, a collection of poems from the same period. There are a few poems that indirectly as I understand point to kuchikamizake. For example, there’s a theory that a Japanese word for brewing sake, which also sounds like chewing comes from this particular technique. Also, there’s a poem that suggests that a maiden was responsible for chewing the cooked rice. Again, in some sources, they mention cooked and in other uncooked rice. So probably they did both, though chewing cooked rice is definitely easier.
I read about an experiment done by students in order to see how strong sake could be brewed by the kuchikamizake method. They managed to make it around 9%. And by the way, you can do a little experiment yourself. Just chew cooked Japanese rice for longer than usual and you will taste some sweetness as the saliva will break the starch in the rice into sugars.
So It’s quite likely that kuchikamizake was a quite common method of making sake for hundreds of years. However, by the time the text was written, it had likely become an old custom that just happened to remain in the remote region of Osumi. So again, it’s unlikely that kuchikamizake was a real predecessor of modern sake brewing methods. Still, there are accounts of kuchikamizake being made and used in Shinto ceremonies on remote Okinawa islands up to the 1930s.
Storm God Susanoo and Yamata no Orochi (17:32)
There was another record however, a story (written around 716 CE) of a person, whose rice bento dried up first and then got wet and after some time became mouldy. Instead of throwing it away, he cleverly used the mouldy rice to make sake and he even had a drinking party afterwards. Here we have pretty much a modern way of sake brewing in this case using wild koji to break starch into sugar and wild yeast to make alcohol of it. This method is also mentioned in Nihonshoki, so it was probably quite common at that time.
The sake made this way was called hitoyo-zake, overnight sake and over time developed into two types, ama-no-tamu sake and yashiori-no-sake. Ama-no-tamu sake is actually the sake made by Oyamtsumi, the sake god I told you earlier in this episode. There’s a theory that it might be a sweet sake similar to amazake but with alcohol.
Yashiori-no-sake is also mentioned in Nihonshoki as well as in Kojiki, the two earliest historical Japanese texts. Yashiori can be translated as eight times pressed or eight times brewed sake. Again, not much is known about this drink, but there’s a very famous legend, which involves it.
So the story of storm god Susanoo and Yamata no Orochi. Susanoo no Mikoto was a younger brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu, we have already mentioned before. He was a good lad but a bit unruly and wild. As a result, he was kicked out of heaven and found himself in Izumi province. There he met a nice elderly couple who told him a sad story of losing 7 of their 8 daughters to Yamata no Orochi, a dragon with eight tails and eight heads.
The nasty creature came to them every year and demanded one of their daughters as a sacrifice. And it was about the time Yamata Orochi would come for their last one, Kishinada-hime. Susanoo had a good heart and he felt sorry for them. Being a god, he had a few tricks in his sleeves. First, to be on the safe side, he turned Kishinada-hime into a comb and placed it in his hair.
Then he told her parents to make eight-fold strong sake, called yashiori. It’s not clear what it was. Probably something close to kijoshu, when sake is brewed with sake, making it stronger. There’s a theory that it might be distilled spirit, but it’s quite unlikely as distillation came to Japan much later.
Then Sasunoo told the couple to build a large fence with eight gates and raise a platform with a large vat on each of them. In each vat, they poured that strong yashiori sake and waited for Yamata no Orochi to arrive. The creature didn’t keep them waiting for long.
Apparently Yamata no Orochi liked his drink and as soon as he noticed huge vats with booze, he dipped all his eight heads into the vats and drank the powerful yashiori no sake. Of course, he became so drunk that he fell deep asleep and Sasunoo didn’t have any problem with killing him. As a result, some people attribute the invention of sake to Sasunoo. Pity, he didn’t leave any brewing notes to us.
How ancient sake looked and tasted (22:19)
The last ancient sake I would like to mention today is shitogi, made from rice flour. Basically, white rice was soaked in water and then ground and the resulting flour dissolved in cold or hot water and left at room temperature for some time letting wild yeasts start fermentation. Shitogi may have been used in ritual offerings or during some special events.
Ancient sake was definitely very different from what we have now. First of all, it was usually cloudy or even more like porridge or soggy paste. I’ve read in one source that people actually ate sake with chopsticks that time. And it’s definitely true. I have once tried nigori sake, which was as thick as custard. However, there are mentions of clear sake, seishu, which was probably either filtered with a cloth or left to stand for a while so all the sediments fall to the bottom of the vessel and just scooped from the surface.
Secondly, ancient sake had a completely different taste: it was rougher because rice wasn’t polished or if polished then just a bit. It was sweeter, and it was lower in alcohol content. I guess we will stop here and will talk about the emergence of the modern sake brewing technique which uses rice, water koji and yeast in the next episode.
By the way, while researching Manyoshu, I found a poem about sake which I really liked. It goes something like “Don’t think about trivial things, just have a cup of cloudy sake”. Pretty good advice from the 8th century.
Sake of episode: Jidai Yamahai Junmai Ginjo (24:14)
Unfortunately, I cannot feature any ancient sake today. Just don’t have any. So I was thinking. It’s still winter and it’s the best time for warm or even hot sake. I wrote two posts back in November and December about warm sake: the first was about how to enjoy hot sake and the second featured 5 great sake to drink warm. You are welcome to read both. But I will feature one sake from that last post here, Jidai Yamahai Junmai Ginjo. At least it’s yamahai, which is an old brewing method, we are going to talk about in a future episode.
The uniqueness of this sake is that it’s a rare ginjo sake specially made to drink warm. Because, generally, people drink ginjo sake chilled, sometimes at room temperature. Jidai is quite versatile. I tried it at various temperatures and it’s pretty good at all of them.
Chilled, it has high acidity and deep taste, quite common for yamahai sake. But as you raise the temperature up, Jidai becomes more mellow with a luxurious velvety texture, sweeter and easier to drink. And it holds acidity at a high temperature pretty well.
Jidai has a fruity aroma full of apricot, pear, baked apple and a few herbal notes. It has a pretty complex flavour and a long and lavish finish. It’s great with hearty winter dishes like beef stew, roasted chicken, fried fish or mushroom risotto, with roasted seasonal vegetables, chips or fried rice. You can buy it from the Tengu Sake website. And one of the pairing suggestions there is dark chocolate. I haven’t tried it but if you do, please let me know if you like it.
Ending (26:17)
That’s it for today. I’ll be back with more episodes about the evolution of sake brewing methods and very interesting interviews. In the meantime, buy a bottle of sake and try it warm. Read my post with recommendations on sugiama.co.uk or you can look up warm sake at the London Sake website where you can get a 10% discount by entering SUGIDAMA all in caps at the checkout. And If you like to buy Jidai Yamahai Junmai Ginjo, go to the Tengu Sake website, I’ll put the link in the shownotes.
If you have any questions or suggestions about any sake topic, just drop me a line. My email address is alex@sugidama.co.uk or you can tag me on Instagram or Twitter @sugidamablog in one word.
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Kampai!