The Rumpus.net » Thomas Molitor http://therumpus.net Books, Music, Movies, Art, Politics, Sex, Other Sat, 26 May 2012 00:59:25 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Link to Drink: The Semiotics of Sake http://therumpus.net/2009/02/link-to-drink-the-semiotics-of-sake/ http://therumpus.net/2009/02/link-to-drink-the-semiotics-of-sake/#comments Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:00:17 +0000 Thomas Molitor http://therumpus.net/?p=6892

The first sign of a scholarly sake drinker is the utterance of its correct pronunciation: it’s sah-KAY not SAH-KEY. The Italian medievalist, novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco says that every cultural phenomenon can be studied as communication – and of course, sake is no exception, just check out TrueSake.com for a taxonomic understanding of the six categories of Sake and their signification. I was reminded of my first visit to Japan last year and visits to sake breweries while reading Kelly Kennedy’s Tokyo Underbelly link, a terrific photo gallery of the notorious red-light district Kabuki-cho. Mistakenly, sake is often referred to as ”Japanese rice wine” but, unlike true wine, in which alcohol is produced by fermenting the sugar naturally present in fruit, sake is made through a brewing process more akin to that of beer. This production distinction of saccharification didn’t stop the heavily hooded-eyed Robert Mitchum from tossing back one Guinomi (Sake cup) after another in the Paul Schrader penned 1975 movie about the Japanese mafia called ‘The Yakuza” in which the fermented Mitchum sits around a colorful assortment of throw pillows while negotiating honor and death by improvised neck surgery with the Japanese mafia. For New Yorkers (or those still in town after last night’s therumpus.net launch party) check out Rock-N-Sake in the Chelsea district and order the Calamari Sake Steak- a whole calamari steak sautéed in sake and butter. Kampai!

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]]> http://therumpus.net/2009/02/link-to-drink-the-semiotics-of-sake/feed/ 0 Link to Drink: What Christopher Hitchens Gave Up God For http://therumpus.net/2009/01/link-to-drink-what-christopher-hitchens-gave-up-god-for/ http://therumpus.net/2009/01/link-to-drink-what-christopher-hitchens-gave-up-god-for/#comments Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:00:03 +0000 Thomas Molitor http://therumpus.net/?p=5866 Rarely have I seen a Christopher Hitchens TV interview in which the atheistic author of God is Not Great isn’t knocking back an ice-clinking glass of whiskey of some brand or another. Yet, I never knew Hitch’s hootch of choice was Johnny Walker Black Label until I read a first-person account posted on the brainstorms blog of an evening spent with the God-searing, well-oiled polemicist. It’s an entertaining read of what happens at a book signing party when “the Johnny Walker wisdom is running high” as crooner Leonard Cohen croaks in Closing Time. If you’re less interested in the bitch of Hitch and more interested in sorting through the differences of dram, there are lots of dedicated sites out there, ScotchHunter being one of them and ForScotchLovers being another. The Wall Street Journal beverage historian, Eric Felten, has a good articleon blended scotch whiskies and “what to down in a down market.” Myself, I’m not much of a blended scotch whiskey drinker but I might be easily persuaded to renounce the Almighty for a fifth of Talisker 18. Year Old.

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