Hananomai Katana, Extra Dry

What it is

Katana is a junmai ginjo, so no distilled alcohol, rice milled to 60 percent, and fermented long and cold. What sets it apart on a table of six is the sake meter value. Zero is the middle of the scale, positive numbers run dry, and +7 is firmly at the dry end. Skurnik describes it as sharp, dry and bold with notes of melon and almond, and recommends it against richer food like yakitori.

A note on the name

This bottle went into our records as “Hanamasamune Razasa,” which is a garbled reading off the label. The label says 花の舞の日本刀, Hananomai no nihontō, the Hananomai Japanese sword, which the brewery sells in the United States as Katana. The record is corrected here.

What the room said

Third. Extra dry sake divides a table in a way sweeter styles do not, and this is the bottle people either put near the top of their card or near the bottom, with very little in between. The average lands mid table because of it, which is a good argument for reading the spread and not only the mean.