Concept Sake for meat
Why this sake goes so well with meat
One of the fundamental ingredients of Japanese cuisine is ‘awase dashi’ where ‘awase’ means combine and ‘dashi’ means soup stock. Awase dashi is usually made by combining kombu seaweed dashi and fish dashi. Both ingredients have their own distinctive savoury umami, and when combined together to make an awase dashi, the umami becomes fuller and stronger.
Scientifically speaking, the umami-carrying molecules can be divided into two groups. One of them comprises nucleic acids such as inosinic acid and guanylic acid, and the other comprises amino acids such as glutamic acid. When a food contains the two groups of umami, the resulting umami taste is greater than the sum of each group taken individually.
During the fermentation of Meat Lover Only sake, glutamic acid is produced in large quantities. The molecule in turn works in synergy with the meat’s inosinic acid to create the same umami-enhancing combination found in awase dashi.
Rice
Generally, sake is made from a special type of sake rice that is polished until only the core of the grain remains.
However, sake made to be paired with meat must be different. In order not to be overpowered by the stronger taste of meat, the sake too must be full-bodied and strong. To achieve this taste, rice generally consumed as food is used, and polishing of the grains is reduced to a minimum in order to preserve the outer shells that have a sharper taste and more nutrients than the core. This kind of rice is also better when used for the natural frementation method known as 'Bodai-moto'.
Bodai-moto, or the natural fermentation method
The Bodai-moto method dates back to the Heian era of Japan (year 794-1185). It consists of simply adding rice to water and leaving the lactic acid bacteria present in the ambient air to start the fermentation process in the water. That water is then used to grow the yeast that will be used for brewing the sake. Meat Lovers Only is made by using this natural yeast.
The environmental control necessary to promote the natural growth of the right bacteria necessary for sake brewing is very challenging, but the result is a sake with a much stronger flavour.
Water
The water used for Meat Lovers Only is drawn from underground sources of Mount Hotaka, known as one of the '100 famous Japanese mountains'.