All There Is To Know About Dassai Sake

There are a lot of things that people enjoy about Japan. They have different kinds of unique art like anime and manga. They have a deliciously unique selection of food for a cuisine and they are one of the few countries that are really working towards developing green technology. Among all the other things that people enjoy or like about Japan, there is one that people never forget to put on this list and that is no other than their traditional nihonshu known to us as “sake”.

Luigi Anzivino [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]

An Introduction to Sake and How You Can Get a Hold of Dassai Sake for the Best Price If You Are in Places like Australia

If you know anything about the Japanese culture then you’ll probably already know a bit of history on their traditional Japanese liquor. Sake has been in the Japanese tradition since the emergence of the Shinto religion and, nowadays, it is even enjoyed outside of religious occasions because of how great of a drink it is. Towns that have the perfect climate to make these drinks like in the Fushimi area used to chew a certain rice mixture and spit it back in a communal tub to start the fermentation process of the sake. Not a lot of people know this and, fortunately, they stopped this practice when they found out that the mixing the Koji mold into the rice mixture activations the yeast to start the fermentation in an incredibly more hygienic way.

Kat Clay from Sydney, Australia [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

It is also useful to know that, although this drink is referred to as “rice wine”, the process involved in making it is more similar to that of making beer. This is so because wine is described to be made from fermented grapes while the beer is described to be made from fermented grain. Since sake is made from the grain of particular rice types, it technically falls under the description of what a beer is. Despite this, it is understandable why people would make the mistake of interchanging the two because if you base it from appearance, there is no doubt that sake looks more wine than beer.

Every type of alcohol has tiers or levels of quality. For example, it is said that the more years that a certain wine type is fermented, the better it tastes. It is certainly true for other alcoholic drinks and most definitely true for sake as well. Since sake is the traditional drink of Japan, it may be hard to get a taste of it outside Japan. There are usually some sake drinks available in a Japanese restaurant or hotels but if you are looking for the type of sake that connoisseurs go crazy about, you’ll have to resort to other ways.

Fortunately for you, if you are looking to get a taste of some “junmai daiginjo-shu” or “pure-rice top-quality sake”, all you need to have is a good internet connection, money to buy the drink, and your address. With these things in hand, you merely have to search online for which sake deliveries sites that have the beautiful bottles you want and that caters to where ever it is that you want the sake brought to. Naturally, these long-distance deliveries may take a while so be prepared to wait for it for, at most, 15 working days. The prices of these drinks may vary per site and per location as well so be sure to canvass through all the sources you see to find the best deal possible for you. A deal in Australia may be cheaper if you are in SF or San Francisco so take note of it cautiously. It may also be useful to read blogs or newsletters about dassai sake to know which bottles you should bother getting and those that you can forget about to save your money.

Information on the Brewery That Invented Dassai Sake and a Review on How It Survived Beyond everybody’s Expectations

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Sake has been enjoyed by humanity for thousands of centuries already. There have been many innovations and development to how this nihonshu is made but despite these changes, it still manages to keep the tradition this drink stands for alive and well. Sadly, tradition doesn’t influence sales of this drink a lot and so, during the most recent decades, the sake industry has felt a depression of some sort with regards to the volume at which sake is consumed globally. Basically, it was a scare resource initially since there were only a handful of breweries making this drink. Unfortunately, as it became more commonly made by people, the competition made it hard to survive as a sake brewery.

It might be hard to have data that goes as far as hundreds of centuries but that isn’t needed because looking at some statistical data in the recent years will clearly show that sake consumption has dropped tremendously. This data is from a study that states that in 1975, there was around 1.7 million kiloliters or 1.7 Mkl of sake that was consumed globally. That number kept dropping and continues to drop nowadays because the youth of today drinks less. Strangely enough, despite this decline in consumption, the brewery called Asahi Shuzo has found a way to continuously expand their sales beyond what anybody could have anticipated it to reach.

It was mentioned earlier that the competition in the sake industry got tough when everybody got into it. Relating things to the law of supply and demand, the oversupply of sake made the demand drop and so it became tremendously less profitable. This led to the closure of several breweries but, throughout that entire period, Asahi Shuzo found a way to prosper. No one figured it out then because the focus in the sake industry was to out-produce the competition. In the case of Asahi Shuzo, they did so by understanding the market of sake through a different perspective.

Instead of spending more money to make more breweries that made “okay” sake, the Asahi Shuzo brewery focused their efforts and resources towards the development of “junmai daiginjo-shu” or their top-quality sake which they branded as “Dassai”. For over 200 years, this brewery made ordinary sake called “Asahi Fuji” but in 1990, under company president Sakurai Hiroshi, they abandoned their Asahi Fuji and launched their Dassai brand in Tokyo. Two years later, particularly in the year of 1992, they released the Migaki Niwari Sanbu and now, it has become the company’s best-selling product.

This brewery is found in the Yamaguchi prefecture, specifically in the city of Iwakuni and there is a lot of sake history to be learned here. Before Asahi Shuzo made the best decision in their business life, they were just like any other brewery that was trying to make their own delicious and marketable type of ginjo-shu. That move they made in 1990, as they launched their Dassai brand, made it clear that the business was going about it the wrong way. The initial idea for this business is to make a delicious batch of sake that everyone will buy to maximize profits. What they didn’t realize until the appearance of the Dassai brand was that people were more willing to spend on quality over quantity. With this discovery, the shipment volume of Asahi Shuzo grew to new heights and, today, they are seen as one of the best brands of top quality sake in the world.

The Dassai Sake Bar Found In Singapore That Will Make You Feel Like You’re In Tokyo and the Drinks You Can Get There Like The Dassai Sake 23, 39, and 50

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The ginjo-shu is made from grains that have been milled at a percentage that falls in between 40 to 60%. In the case of dassai sake, the grains used are those that have been milled over 50%. They only use the inner white cores of the grains and, with this said, it is easy to understand why the process of making sake is so tedious. This intensive milling of the grain makes it hard for all breweries to be able to make it so it would be best to try out brands and bottles that you’ve presently read about or brands that have been reviewed by professionals online.

Most of the stores or establishments you’ll see online which are recommended to try are bars, pop-up carts, and specific breweries located in Japan. Chuo, Tokyo and many other places in Japan can fall under this list so it shouldn’t a problem for you to try dassai sake anywhere in Japan. It is available there whether it is the month of February or the month of March and it is usually offered in these places with the option of having the sake serves hot or cold.

If you are, however, not in Japan, there is another place in Asia wherein you can experience a real sake bar that offers the finest dassai sake there is out there. This dassai bar is located in Singapore, particularly in the Japan Food Town at Wisma Atria. Having only room for 25 people, it is a pretty small bar and considering the attention it gets due to its exclusivity as well as the fact that it is the only other bar of its kind aside from the one located in Tokyo, you can almost be sure of long lines you’ll have to wait through to get your turn.

Worry not about the wait because once you get it, all will be worth it as the quality of sake you will be enjoying here will certainly make you realize that it is a worthy indulgence.  They have Asahi Shuzo’s bests in this bar like the Dassai 23, Dassai 39, and Dassai 50. These dassai types are labeled as such according to how much of the rice grain was left and used to make the premium sake. To expound further, the Dassai 23 made use of rice grains that were milled to the point that the rice grain was left was only 23% of its original size. This logic goes for the Dassai 39 and 50 too. Also offered in this bar is the sparkling Dassai 50 which, as its name suggests, is a bit more special than your ordinary Dassai 50 for obvious reasons.

It may be true that quantity beats quality in some occasions but in the case of sake, it is clear that it is rather the opposite that applies. Every ml or kl of dassai sake is valued by sake lovers and enthusiasts and it isn’t hard to understand why considering that this brand of sake was made to showcase its luxury as a drink. There are many things you can enjoy if Japan and if you have the budget to get drunk on some dassai sake, you should definitely do so because it is an experience that not everybody in the world gets to have.