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!
