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CHENNAITHE HINDU WEEKEND
SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2019

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCSipping on rice
India is no stranger to rice-based alcoholic brews,including the Northeastern chhaang (which alsoincludes barley and millet grains) or the apung ricebeer from Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. “Thediﬀerence is that they are not made for commercial
sale, but for mostly home consumption,” says
mixologist Yangdup Lama. Rohit Arora of Tulleeho
also points out that there are key diﬀerences
between these brews and sake. “They are totally
distinct,” he says. “Sake has a more reﬁned or
cultured style of brewing, while rice brews in India
have a more raw style.”

Kanpai (Clockwise from top left) Cycling on theJohnny Cash trail in Folsom, rice-brewed alcohol,
the North American Sake Brewery, Easy Cup sake,
Gekkeikan’s award-winning Haiku, brewmaster
Kawase Yousuke MAX WHITTAKER, JOHN ROBINSON,California,*

ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES, SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

for your sake:: Sindhuri Nandhakumar

If you have heard of Folsom — the 78,000
strong town in California’s Sacramento
County — chances are it’s because ofsinger-songwriter Johnny Cash’s live
album, At Folsom Prison, recorded, well,
at Folsom Prison. We’re on the six-mile
Johnny Cash trail (a work-in-progress
homage to the singer, with upcoming art
installations), and our guide, Rob, shows
us the distant landscape of the prison. “Ithas the best view in the area,” he tells us
ruefully.
But if you are a connoisseur of spirits(the kind you drink), you might also knowthat Folsom is home to the Gekkeikan
Sake brewery. It is the ﬁrst and onlyoﬀshoot of the 400-year-old Fushimibased outﬁt with its accolade-winningjunmai (pure rice sake), made using thelegendary water of the Japanese region.
Brewing overWhen the nine-acre facility came to town
in 1989 (after testing the water samples in
30 locations across the US), it was one of
the few sake-producing outﬁts in thecountry, joining the ranks of the Japaneseowned Takara Sake in Berkeley.
California’s water, according to Gekkeikan
brewmaster Kawase Yousuke, iscomparable to Japan’s. The ﬁve versionsof the beverage made in Folsom —including the award-winning ‘Haiku’junmai and the nama (unpasteurised)sake — use water from the American River(most of it snowmelt from the Sierra
Nevada mountains) and premium ricefrom the Sacramento Valley. After
production, they make their way todestinations in the US, Europe, SouthAmerica and even South Korea.
Today though, it’s not just legacy
Japanese brewers making their markin the US. It is evident that themicrobrewing treatment given tobeer and cider has been
extended to the rice-based drink.
In the US, there are around 20
sake brewers, most of themdotting the Western and NorthEastern coasts. Earlier this year, therising number of commercial brewers
led to the creation of The Sake Brewers

Move over ‘ginaissance’. If the growing
community of American brewers have anything
to say, it’s sake’s time in the sun

Association of North America, thebeverage’s ﬁrst trade association formed
outside of Japan.
Juniper joy
The past few years saw gin — a drink
derisively referred to as ‘Mother’s Ruin’ in
the past — get a fashionable makeover,with sleek microdistilleries popping up
across the world. The trend made its way
to India, with Nao Spirits launching its
London and Himalayan Dry gins in thecountry. In a world that is continuing tolook for alternatives to gluten-laden
options, is sake primed to become thenext big thing? Bernie Baskin, Executive
Director of the Sake Brewers Associationof North America, believes so. He cites theglobal renaissance of Japanese cuisine as
one reason. Then there is the fact that theJapanese sake industry has marketed itself
to an overseas audience after facing
declining local demand (from around
4,000 breweries a few decades ago, thereare only around 1,200 in the country
today). “I think that work is paying oﬀ insome ways,” he says.
In the US, where Baskin thinks there is asaturation of beer breweries, sake bringsnovelty. “It’s a rather complex beverage toSake in my cup
Move over boxed wine. Culinary celebrity and former Iron
Chef, Masaharu Morimoto recently introduced Easy Cup
Sake, across various retail locations in the US. The 210 ml
glass bottles with plastic lids feature Gekkeikan’s Japanmade junmai, made using premium-grade Yamadi Nishiki
rice, polished to 70%.

Gekkeikan tookwater samples from30 locations in theUS before choosing
Folsom, and we get
our rice from theSacramento
ValleyKawaseYousuke, brewmaster at
Gekkeikan

brew, and some of the more experienced
brewers are fascinated by the challenge,” hesays.
Adding some spark
If sake conjures up images of solemn
brewing rituals and centuries-old recipes,
these brewers can convince you otherwise.
At the Gekkeikan brewery, we are treated to
fruit-ﬂavoured sparkling brews, with tips on
using them to make the best cocktails (‘a bitPlaying catch up
The Japanese beverage, now a global phenomenon,
is yet to make a splash in India*SANJAY RAMCHANDRANCMYKThe sake wave, while most prominent inthe US, has takers across the world (likethe Nøgne Ø brewery in Norway). But
what about at home, in India? Production,
it appears, is yet to kick oﬀ. Imports makefor at least 99% of the sake consumed inthe country (in 2017, India imported
around 69 lakh litres, up from 67 lakh
litres in 2016). Rohit Arora, Manager at
Tulleeho, an outﬁt providing beverage
education, training and consultancy
services, shares that there is a ﬂedgling
home brewing community — a number heplaces at approximately 50 across thecountry.
Meanwhile, the country’s alcohol
retailers — like the soon-to-be-opened
Tonique in Bengaluru, which promises
the country’s largest retail collection ofsake — are trying to push consumption.
But experts cite high import taxation,
price point (it is more expensive thanwine of comparable quality) and lack ofawareness as barriers. “It is a massive

trend around the world, but not as muchin India. Though people who travel doknow their sakes from their shochus (alsoa rice-based Japanese beverage, it isof junmai, a bit of the sparkling kind,some lime and tonic’) and advice on how
to use it for cooking (similar to whitewine, and to naturally tenderise meat andremove ﬁshy smells).
I ﬁnd out later that Virginia-based
North American Sake Brewery has anoption called ‘Spicy Vacay’ — infused withmango, lime leaf and jalapeno.
Experimenting, then, is part of the gamefor these new wave of brewers. “We havea lot of diﬀerent styles to work on,whether that means more traditional
approaches like yamahai or ki-moto(using diﬀerent kinds of yeast starters), or
playing with more yeast and rice-millingrates, and ﬁnding new ingredients andﬂavour proﬁles that will infuse well with
our sake,” shares co-founder Andrew
Centofante.
Given that sake is the country’s fastestgrowing beverage, there is demand tomatch. Jeremy Goldstein, co-founder ofNorth American Sake Brewery adds,“Sake truly is the cleanest, most curious
drink on the planet. Japanese brewers
bring so much experience, history andtradition to the table, while American
brewers are making fresh, local sake withan experimental craft twist.”

distilled and not fermented), the trend in
India has not grown as much, very likely due
to pricing and other matters of red tape,”says wine expert and journalist Ruma Singh.
One more restriction, she adds, is the lackof knowledge when it comes to pairing itwith options besides Japanese food, eventhough it has the potential to lend umami tosignature local dishes. As Yangdup Lama(pictured), partner and mixologist at theSpeakeasy bar, says, “Sake does well with
Indian barbeque items. Baked or tandoor
should be perfect.”
Sommelier Magandeep Singh wouldconcur. He pairs a scallop ‘sixty ﬁve’ dish(with rice hollandaise and podi) with Enter,a Black Dot honjozo (where distilled alcohol
is added during the fermenting proces) at
the recently-opened Rooh restaurant inDelhi. The challenge, he says, is that sake,being more ﬂoral than fruity, becomes
tougher to pair as it become more reﬁned.
“The more expensive the sake, the more youwant to highlight it on its own own,” he says.
John Leese, beverage development andbar manager at the Olive group ofrestaurants, believes that India is still on the‘tip of the sake iceberg’. “Many expressionsof high-grade rice polishings and sparklingsake are still to arrive,” he says. But
restaurants are trying to demystify thebeverage and make it more accessible. AtThe writer was in Folsom at theinvitation of Visit California

The Fatty Bao (an Oliverestaurant), the informal
Izakaya setting is meant
to encourage diners toexperiment with theirsake, sans any rigid pairingrules,saystherestaurant’s
executive chef
Prashanth.
Therobatayaki
skewers and thechargrilled,conﬁt duck wings,
hesays,pair
particularly well withoptions like Gekkeikan’sown daiginjo (a premiumbrew, where the rice is polished toat least 50%). Meanwhile, Ajit Bangera,
senior executive chef at the ITC Grand
Chola, experiments with Indian foodpairings and believes that the drink’s ricebase blends well with our cuisine, especiallyin its chilled form. “A chicken Chettinad anda ginjo sake for instance, would add value toeach other,” he says.
Thinking back to the ultra-premium
Horin daiginjo sake that I tasted in Folsom, I
can’t help but wish for it with a side oftandoori chicken!
A CH-CH