Did you know that sake, when brewed outside of Japan can’t be labeled as Nihonshu? Yeah, neither did we! Apparently Nihonshu and Champagne have more in common than we thought!
How did we learn this interesting fact you ask? By attending JETAA Toronto’s latest event for JET Alumni and touring Ontario Spring Water Sake Company (Izumi) this past weekend.
The Toronto-based Sake brewery was once the only sake brewery on the east coast of North America. They started back in 2011, with the advisory assistance of a traditional Japanese brewery from the 1600s.
It should come as no surprise that the brewing process is steeped in Japanese tradition. There are only four simple ingredients needed to make sake, but that doesn’t make them simple ingredients.
When you only use four ingredients, you’ve got to be pretty picky to ensure you’ve got the right ones. For Izumi, that’s high quality rice from California, milled down to 70% size – no husk, just pure white rice. They import koji from Japan, a special mold spore that is used in sake brewing and inoculate the rice. The koji eats into the rice making sugar which then gets eaten by the yeast (specifically yeast number 7 which is also imported from Japan) which ferments it into alcohol.
Pretty simple steps on the outside, but once mistake in temperature or timing and an entire batch could go wrong. Unsurprisingly, just like sake brewed outside of Japan can’t be called Nihonshu, not all of the ingredients available from Japan are allowed to be shipped outside the country. You may not have thought yeast could be considered a national treasure, but yeasts 1, 2 and 3 are and cannot be shipped beyond Japan’s shores.
Who’d have thought sake brewing in Canada could be so cool?
If you missed the tour, be sure to keep an eye out for our next event!
And if you are looking for more info on sake, check out the Netflix sake documentary “Birth of saké”!
