Sake日本酒
A brewed alcoholic drink made from rice, water, koji and yeast. It is brewed rather than distilled, and usually lands between 13 and 17 percent alcohol after dilution.
Junmai純米
Rice, water, koji and yeast, with no distilled alcohol added. If a label does not say junmai, a small amount of distilled alcohol went in during pressing, which is a legitimate technique rather than a defect, though it changes the texture and usually lightens it. Read more.
Ginjo吟醸
A grade requiring rice milled to 60 percent or less and a longer, colder fermentation. Junmai ginjo is the same thing with no added alcohol. In Japan ginjo must be made with tsukihaze-style koji. Read more.
Daiginjo大吟醸
Rice milled to 50 percent or less, otherwise made like ginjo. More milling usually means a cleaner and more aromatic sake and a higher price, because polishing away half the grain halves the yield. Read more.
Honjozo本醸造
Rice milled to 70 percent or less with a small amount of distilled alcohol added. It is the added-alcohol equivalent of junmai and is often the best value on a shelf, because it gets overlooked by people chasing the junmai word. Read more.
Tokubetsu特別
Special. A tokubetsu junmai or tokubetsu honjozo does one declared thing beyond the grade minimum, most often extra milling. Read more.
Futsushu普通酒
Ordinary sake, the category that falls outside the specially designated grades. It has no milling requirement and accounts for most of the sake made in Japan.
Seimaibuai精米歩合
How much of each rice grain is left after polishing. Sixty percent means forty percent of every grain was ground away before brewing started. Lower numbers mean more milling. Read more.
Sake meter value日本酒度
A density measure written with a plus or a minus. Zero is the middle of the scale, positive runs dry and negative runs sweet. Plus seven is firmly dry. It measures density rather than taste, so treat it as a direction rather than a verdict. Read more.
Acidity酸度
Usually between 1.0 and 2.0. Higher acidity carries food better and makes the same sake taste drier than its sake meter value suggests. Read more.
Koji麹
Steamed rice with the fungus Aspergillus oryzae cultivated on it. The fungus produces the enzymes that convert rice starch into sugar, which is why sake needs no mashing step. Koji rice is 15 to 25 percent of the total rice in a batch. Read more.
Aspergillus oryzae麹菌
The mould used to make koji, and also miso, soy sauce and mirin. It produces no mycotoxins, and in 2006 the Brewing Society of Japan approved a proposal to call it a national fungus. Read more.
Shinpaku心白
The white, opaque starchy core at the centre of a brewing rice grain. Its starch is loosely packed, so koji can drive filaments into the grain instead of sitting on the surface. It is one of the three things that separate sake rice from table rice. Read more.
Sohaze総袯
Koji grown over the whole rice grain. It carries strong enzyme activity, dissolves the rice hard and drives a vigorous fermentation, which suits full-bodied sake and futsushu. Read more.
Tsukihaze突き袯
Koji grown in a spotted pattern, with filaments well developed in some places and absent in others. Enzyme activity is moderate and the result is lighter. Ginjo has to be made this way. Read more.
Moromi膕
The main fermentation mash: steamed rice, koji, water and the yeast starter, fermenting in one tank for three to four weeks at 8 to 18 degrees Celsius. Read more.
Shubo酒母
The yeast starter, also called moto. A small acidic mash in which yeast is grown to a density high enough to take over the main tank. Read more.
Kimoto生洜
The old way of making the starter. Wild lactic acid bacteria are cultivated over about four weeks to build the acidity, instead of adding lactic acid from a bottle. It comes out rounder and more savoury. About one in ten Japanese breweries still makes it. Read more.
Yamahai山廢
A kimoto variant that skips the pole-ramming step. It takes the same four weeks and comes out gamey and strange enough that you will either love it or pass the glass along. Read more.
Sokujo速醸
The modern starter, invented in the early 1900s, in which lactic acid is added directly. It halves the starter time to about two weeks and gives a lighter, cleaner result. Read more.
Nigoriにごり酒
Sake pressed through a loose mesh, so some rice solids stay in the bottle. It ranges from barely hazy to thick and white. Nigori describes filtration, not grade, so it can sit on top of any grade at all. Read more.
Namazake生酒
Unpasteurized sake. Skipping the heat leaves it bright and sometimes lightly fizzy. It has to be kept cold the whole way, and most of it is gone by early summer. Read more.
Genshu原酒
Undiluted. Most sake finishes fermentation at 17 to 20 percent and is cut with water to around 15 before bottling. Genshu skips that step. Read more.
Muroka無濾過
Not charcoal filtered. Filtering removes colour and adjusts flavour, and skipping it leaves a fuller taste and more colour. Read more.
Toji杜氏
The brewmaster, who runs production at a brewery. Koji making is described as the process that most occupies a toji. Read more.
Kura蔵
A sake brewery. A kuramoto is its owner.
Kanzake燬酒
Warmed sake. Japanese has a named band for roughly every five degrees, from hitohada-kan at body temperature up to atsu-kan and tobikiri-kan. Read more.
Tokkuri徳利
The narrow-necked flask sake is poured from, and the vessel most often stood in hot water to warm it. Its narrow neck heats unevenly in a microwave. Read more.
Ochokoお猪口
The small cup. It holds heat better than a wine glass, which is the honest case for it, and it loses on aroma every time. Read more.
Masu枡
The square cedar box, originally a rice measure, sometimes used as a drinking vessel or set under a glass that is deliberately overfilled.
Sandan jikomi三段仕込
Three-stage brewing. Rice, koji and water go into the tank in three additions over four days, so the yeast is never diluted far enough for spoilage microbes to take hold. Read more.
Multiple parallel fermentation並行複発酵
Saccharification and alcoholic fermentation happening in one tank at the same moment. The Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association says it appears in no other alcoholic beverage, and it is why sake reaches 17 to 20 percent without distillation. Read more.
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