FIX MY DRINK
Each week in this space, we better our beverages together. Want to join in the conversation? See the bottom of this column.
This week’s question:
“I’ve only ever been served sake warm, but I hear it can also be served cold. What’s the right way for a Westerner to drink sake?” Dominic Ali, writer and communications specialist in Toronto
Answer Sake seems to be flourishing in Canada lately, particularly in British Columbia and Ontario, where izakayas (Japanese-style pubs) and ramen joints are becoming as familiar as sushi restaurants — meaning more nibbles to be washed down by the famous Japanese rice wine.
Canadians have been drinking sake since the 1970s, primarily at sushi restaurants and usually warm. Should we try it cold instead? My short answer is that we probably should when it’s the good stuff, since a lot of nuance gets lost when you heat it up. The more you pay for sake, the greater the likelihood becomes that cold is your ideal serving option. Particularly if the product bears the words “nama,” “ginjo” or “daiginjo” on the label — all indicators of a certain level of refinement, if I may oversimplify — you’ve probably forked over enough that you won’t want to burn off some of the more delicate flavours.
The real answer is more complicated. In his book
Drinking Japan, British journalist and old Tokyo hand Chris Bunting writes that the move toward serving sake cold is a relatively recent — and by implication, somewhat yuppieish — phenomenon. It popped up as late as the 1990s in Japan itself. Nowadays, Bunting warns, ordering warm sake can earn you a derisive snort from certain snooty Japanese bartenders. But he also makes the excellent point that it’s your sake, so you should decide how you want it. When I chatted last year with Torontobased chef and “sake educator” Michael Pataran on the same subject, he concurred with this do-what-you-please ethos. If it’s cold outside, he said, there’s nothing that beats a glass of warm sake. That’s useful advice in our country.
Finally, Bunting also cautions Westerners against tying sake to “overly romantic visions of Japan as a land of light-dappled shoji screens and Zen stripped interiors,” noting that sake is the cultural equivalent of beer that the Japanese themselves manage not to overthink. We shouldn’t obsess about the proper way to drink sake (or do anything Japanese), because the reality is never as mysterious or intimidating as we in the West trick ourselves into thinking.