Name: What Japan's Rarest Sake Tastes Like
Uploaded: 2020-03-24T11:32:12.000Z
Duration: 13 min 50 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Last week after a hangover that made me feel like my head was in a blender, I made a conscious decision to give up drinking alcohol.

Adverbs of degree

But certainly for a few weeks - for a few months - to see what positive effect it would have on my everyday life.

This week, my so-called friend Ryotaro surprises me with a trip to try a highly potent, illegal form of homemade sake.

Once thing I promise you... is that you're gonna get a hangover again.

As I've said before, drinking sake is a highly deceptive process.

It looks like purified water and it tastes like the meadows of Narnia - it has a highly delicate flavor.

But drink a bottle or two, and you will get the hangover to end all hangovers - not too dissimilar from drinking a bottle of wine.

The sake we're trying today is not only cloudy in appearance, but it's also highly illegal to produce throughout most of Japan

and we'll get on to why that is in a minute.

But perhaps, above all, it's an absolute nightmare to pronounce.

The easiest way to remember it is it sounds like 80's pop sensation New Kids on 'doburoku'.

Fun fact: I actually spoke with Dwayne the Rock Johnson last week! -- [R]: No fucking way!!

Ah, sounds like you've been drinking again.

Be prepared to be amazed over dinner, because I've got a story for you.

... Unless you follow me on Twitter in which case you already know.

In a nutshell, doburoku is essentially unrefined sake that hasn't undergone filtering or pressing after fermentation,

giving it a cloudy, creamy-like appearance.

Before the 20th century, the drink was incredibly popular due to its simplicity and was home-brewed across the country.

However, after liquor taxation laws were introduced in the 1800s, home-brewed sake in Japan was completely outlawed.

The good news though is in recent years, home-brewing has reemerged in special zones,

with the Japanese government currently permitting about 150 towns and villages across the country

to brew, bottle and sell their very own doburoku.

And in order to get our greedy hands on this rare treat for the first time,

Ryotaro and I are travelling north to one such town called Tome,

hidden away in the Miyagi countryside about an hour north of Sendai.

But before we get to enjoy a bottle for ourselves,

first things first we're gonna pitch in and help brew a fresh batch of doburoku.

Given rice is the main ingredient in sake, it's essential to source nothing but the very best.

And here in Tome, they're not only blessed with having some of the largest rice fields in north Japan,

but they're also organic and free of chemicals for a pretty good reason.

In the winter months, over 100,000 migrating birds journey over from Siberia to have a bird holiday.

In effect, the rice fields of Tome become an enormous bird hotel.

By accommodating the birds and avoiding nasty chemicals,

the farmers of Tome have created a cheeky symbiotic relationship between nature and the local cuisine.

So the rice has been harvested, polished, just been cooked, and now we've gotta dry it

before it gets mixed with malt and yeast to begin the process of becoming sake.

Apparently you've gotta spread the rice out first.

That's embarrassing... --[R]: I saw that.

[R]: It's so funny, like you with two housewives, hehe.

So before the rice goes in the pot, it needs to be about 20ºC.

It's currently about 30ºC, but the temperature's going down very quick - it was steaming about 3 or 4 minutes ago,

and thanks to the fan, and these incredible hand movements, the temperature's gone down rapidly.

As doburoku is brewed in so few towns and villages, the essence of the drink is in its locality.

Historically, rice farmers labored for long hours and lived off little income.

And given refined sake is a pricey indulgence, instead of blowing all their pocket money, farmers started brewing their own.

And here in Tome, they've kept that tradition alive.

Every ingredient used in the brewing of doburoku, including the all-important yeast and lactic acid,

has been harvested and cultivated within the town.

It took over a year of trial and error to perfect and a relentless certification process from the government, but it paid off.

Today, they can legally prepare and sell their very own delicious local brew within the town.

So we've just put the rice into malt and yeast, and already it smells - it kinda smells like sake already.

It's got that sweet fragrance to it - that sweet aroma.

So this is left in the fridge for two weeks and it's stirred daily.

And at the end of the two weeks, you should be left with 12% alcohol.

It's not allowed to be called 'nihonshu', it's not allowed to be Japanese sake.

It's just labelled as an alcoholic beverage.

Nevertheless, it smells an awful lot like sake.

[C]: Ryotaro's kitchen... The most disappointing kitchen show to come out of Japan yet.

--[R]: So I'm going to make a bottle of my own.

So right now, I'm about to put the lid on the bottle.