Raleigh Sake Hotspot- Yard House Restaurant @ North Hills

    Next door to our other recent Raleigh Sake Hotspot, "Cowfish Burger", is the also extremely popular Yard House!  This place is POPULAR.

   Especially on the weekends, but did you know they also have a limited but fantastic Sake section in their beverages menu?  This place has more beers on tap than you could imagine but I would encourage you to try a bottle of "Yuki No Bosha" (Cabin In The Snow) Junmai Ginjo.

   This is one of my all time, top 5 favorite Sakes.  It's just perfect.  Perfect for a first timer or the experienced Sake drinker.

    A lot of Raleigh natives will be dining at Yard House at North Hills this weekend and this is a great Summer Sake, it's cold, sweet, smooth, and expensive.  I will preempt your sticker shock.  It's $30 for a 300ml bottle...  But Keep The Bottle!  It's less filling, has less calories than beer, and may just make you into a Sake fanatic, it's that good.

   They also offer a Nigori from Tozai (this is not for the beginner and I wouldn't recommend it).  They also offer a Daiginjo- Pure Dusk; it's way over hyped and way overpriced but decent.  Very pretty bottle.

  They have a nice cheap little Jumani called Beautiful Lilly; not bad at all!  You can also order "Sake Bomb", they give you a decent size glass of Beautiful Lilly and a nice little glass of Sapporo!  Don't mix as intended, rather enjoy both individually for $7!  It's a steal.   But really, buy the Cabin In The Snow, it's as good as it gets.

  And as always, Thanks to Yard House for offering great True Sakes, their food is also fantastic.

  Quick Summer Sake Hotspot Weekend Recommendation post for Raleigh readers, but to all:  Cabin In The Snow is an EXCELLENT Sake.

Review from "Rate Beer"

Address: 4208 Six Forks Rd, Raleigh, NC 27609

Phone:(919) 881-2590

Hours:

 

Friday hours 11:00 am–1:30 am

Charlotte & Raleigh Sake Hotspot- "The Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar"

Thursdays Sake is 1/2 Priced!

    "The Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar"; were to start?  As the name implies this is a complex and rather confused place.  I believe there are just two locations, the original in Charlotte and now they've opened in Raleigh.

    More importantly however-  Thursdays they offer their entire Sake selection at Half Price!  Which is quite the deal and they have a good selection, further proof of what hopes to be a coming trend.

(From their website, I cannot guarantee both locations offer all of these, I'm going to highlight my recommendations in BLUE)

Gingo Premier

375 ml bottle  19   

Fruity flavor and a flowery aroma, served chilled

Horin Ultra Premium Daigingo – Liquid Gold

250 ml bottle  40   

The crowned jewel known to bring good fortune, a must have for the special occasion, served chilled

Kanbara – Bride Of The Fox

300 ml bottle  26   

Intense aromas of grilled nuts, pistachio, and a hint of cocoa, served chilled

Karatamba

300 ml bottle  17   

Medium bodied with a clear, dry taste, served chilled

Mukune Gingo – Root Of Innocence

300 ml bottle  29   

Mellow and dry, rich flavor to finish, served chilled

Nanbu Bijin – Southern Beauty

300 ml bottle  28   

Elegant and soft fragrance, flavor of pears and grapes, served chilled

Ozeki Yamadanishiki

300 ml bottle  16   

Full bodied taste with aromas of the finest rice, served chilled

Rihaku Junmai – Wandering Poet  (Wonderful name, lots of people enjoy, not a great starter bottle, and not one of my personal favorites but very popular)

300 ml bottle  26   

Well-rounded flavor, drink a bottle and write a hundred poems, served chilled

Rihaku Nigori – Dreamy Clouds

300 ml bottle  24   

Bright and mouth watering sweet, aromas of ripe, red plums, served chilled

Sho Chiku Bai Gingo – The Hummingbird

300 ml bottle  26   

Deep aroma and rich flavor of premium rice, served chilled

Sho Chiku Bai Nigori – Silky Mild

375 ml bottle  17   

Bold and sweet, pairs well with rich and spicy dishes, served chilled

Takasago Ginga Shizuku – Divine Droplets

300 ml bottle  38   

Ultra premium with the freshest, cleanest taste, served chilled

Tentaka Kuni – Hawk In The Heavens (I haven't tried it but it's supposed to be excellent)

300 ml bottle  21   

Well-rounded, dry with underlying richness, served chilled

Tozai Nigori- The Snow Maiden

300 ml bottle  24   

Nutty and creamy, with bright fresh aromas. Mellow and easy to drink, served chilled

Zipang Sparkling Sake

250 ml bottle  17   

Bright hints of tropical fruit, with a refreshingly light finish, served chilled

     Divine Droplets is an extremely good Sake, it's also extremely expensive so this is a great opportunity to try it (maybe not the perfect "first" Sake).  I'll have an entire post about Divine Droplets, it's made in Japan's northernmost prefecture Hokkaido in an igloo!  Check it out!  (Bride of The Fox and Southern Beauty are also wonderful bottles, and great "first" Sakes, Karatamba is a great first Honjozo by the way)

     The menu is exhaustingly long, the sushi is good (not great) but they have a ton of variety.  I did get off a pretty good photo last time I was in there (by the way the relatively new Raleigh location now is incredibly popular so get there early, and here's a TIP- sit at the bar to avoid the sometimes hour long waits)

One more, and thanks to Cowfish Burger for offering up such a great deal to get people to try great "True" Sake!

thecowfish.com‎

4208 Six Forks Road #100

Raleigh, NC 27609

(919) 784-0400

4310 Sharon Road

Charlotte, NC 28211

(704) 365-1922

-Brad Russell

"Different Strokes for Different Folks", "Variety Is The Spice Of Life" and "Sometimes Less is More"

     Lastly, before we finally get to the point which is delving into North Carolina's Sake hideouts, let's take a minute to talk about the danger of getting caught up or confused in the number and class system that comes with our sought after beverage.  

Sake, as we've mentioned comes in many varieties, classifications, etc...  Mainly it is broken into categories of "Quality", "Acidity", and by "SMV" (Sake Meter Value).

Let's just briefly go over these, appreciate them, and then dismiss them.

     It's very handy that a lot of Japanese Sake breweries (and American ones; American Sake is by the way mainly produced in Portland and San Francisco) print on their labels the "SMV" and "Acidity level" of the Sake to hopefully identify a flavor profile.

(For example, Dassai 50 from the Dassai Brewery in Yamaguchi)

      It's meant to be helpful but it is by no means gospel or a perfect science.  Here are the basics-


SMV:    (how much sugar remains)  It generally ranges at it's most extremes from say anywhere between a value of -30 all the way up to 10.  Simply put, the "the Higher the Drier" and thus the lower the sweeter.  Anything below zero is sweet, anything further below that is very sweet and vice versa for "dry".  Most Sake lives somewhere in the middle (and again it's not like if you find a Sake that has a SMV of 4 you're going to like every other 4 or even find them drier or less dry than a 3 or a 5) but it's there to help because most importantly there is a lot of Sake out there for us to try.  Once more, obviously a -27 is going to be pretty goddamned sweet!   Icishima's Coy (for a fantastic example, by the way buy this if you see it)



ACIDITY:   (how much organic acid remains)  again, the higher the lesser the chance of a sweeter tasting Sake.



CLASSES OF QUALITY:  "Seimaibuai"

     "Sake" (table sake, "hot" Sake at the mall, Hibachi Steak House Ceramic Jug Sake), Junmai, Junmai Daiginjo, Honjozo etc...

     There are quite a few distinctions.   

(and tons of other varieties outside of this like Nigori, Sparkling Sakes, Namas, aged Sakes but for now here's the basic class structure)

     Here's a chart, it's all about the level of "milling" or polishing the rice grain has under gone- milling takes away the fat, the excesses of the grain, in an effort to get down to heart of the grain; the good stuff, the pure starch-  (chart courtesy of  http://www.sakayanyc.com/  NYC's only "Sake Only" store)

(small anecdote Daiginjo starts at this extremely high level of hand crafted milled rice, reducing the size of the original grain in half; however some very, very extremely high-quality handcrafted and intensely laboriously made Sakes have been fermented from rice polished down to below 20%, basically a grain reduced to the size of the head of a needle, much like this FONT) 

 Here's another chart as well, the internet's full of them but just to give you another perspective-

Ok.

  
      Lesson over.  Important info; the basics are laid out.  Now that you know it, forget it.  There are no pure truths, taste as much as you can.  Don't prejudge by price (Sake is expensive, but good, really good Sake doesn't have to be), milling rate, all these things are there but don't allow them to get in your way.  However the ceramic or plastic, white, volcanically hot jug of "Sake" from the hibachi restaurant, that stuff is awful...

Don't drink that stuff.  

Bad Sake

Want to know more details go to this link below -  From www.TrueSake.com
Author, Beau Timken 

http://www.truesake.com/learnSake101.php

-Brad Russell

"Youku"

Thirsty Traveler Sake     (  <CLICK THIS LINK)
"Youku"

      The second largest video hosting site on the internet, can you guess the first?

    Well unlike their bigger brother Youtube, Youku hosts a lot of copyrighted material but I think in this one instance this is a minor infraction at best.  So not only is this link a great chance to experience the Youtube of Asia, you get to see a little bit of Sake history, culture, and production.  This is taken from a TV show called "The Thirsty Traveler", originally aired in Canada and I believe re-ran on the Travel Network.

    You get to see the Gekkeikan factory (very cool, sort of the Budweiser of Sake, very old, very family run, but not quite the best sake by any means, and certainly mass produced, Gekkeikan does produce a Daiginjo, I've had it, well... we'll get to that).   http://www.gekkeikan-sake.com/

    BUT.  Most importantly you get to meet arguably the most knowledgeable, experienced, and recognized figure in the English-Speaking Sake world-  John Gauntner.  His books are mandatory, his teaching (which I hope to someday have first hand experience of), and his overall status in the Sake world is unprecedented.

    I will have much more information and links to his work, education seminars, and everything else in another post here shortly.

Enjoy.

Second post in and we're already departed from the purpose of this blog but nonetheless it's a nice video.  

-Brad Russell

You are not alone.

I was alone, now not so much.

I am just- a little lonely.  

     My initial tone for this blog, as I had imagined it was one of a romanticized lone wanderer, searching for the impossible: a deeply polished bottle of Daiginjo (the highest quality grade of Sake).  Trapped in a land where the finest pulled pork sandwiches rained down from the sky every day, while more and more taprooms opened their doors flowing with thicker, darker, “hoppier”  IPA’s.  Now certainly this place exists, I call it "downtown".

     However, now since years have passed since I began writing this blog in my mind, that same sense of solitude would have been embellished, a false premise; my desperation for “True” Sake was not that far out of reach after all.  The point is at first, finding “True” Sake (let me go ahead and start using this term because it will become ever present) in my native homeland was pretty damn difficult.  However, now it is much less so. 

     I love NC BBQ.  I am a very, very lucky man to have the option to visit and indulge myself in some of its greatest incarnations available all within a 20 mile radius from my house along with just about as good of a pint of beer ever created to wash it down with. 

     However, about two years ago, well truthfully after a lifetime of fascination in all things Japanese; film, food, animation, art, and lastly Sake (properly introduced via a flight of three small glasses at a sushi restaurant in North Raleigh), it hit me- Sake is wonderful! 

     It takes on the beauty and elements of great beer and wine, it dances the spectrum of flavors- some bold as the deepest glass of a red Bordeaux, others dry and clean as the clearest Vodka, some even floral and sweet like a Lambic and all of these flavors and varieties are attained by just two, TWO, ingredients- Water and Rice; along with centuries of mastering the art of production.  What rice matters, what water matters, what prefectures matters but you can pour a glass of Sake that tastes like a mouthful of cotton candy and in just a few moments that overwhelming sweetness evaporates.  On the opposite side of the spectrum there are Sakes as dark and brooding as anything you could imagine, requiring a slow sip, rest and re-approach, but still; made only from water, rice, and craftsmanship.  (Honjozo, little different, I know- we'll get there)  

     I think Japanese Sake is important.  I think it's fantastic!  Educating, discovering, tasting, and learning to enjoy Sake here in North Carolina is continuously less challenging than when I had first imagined this blog just a few years ago.  “True” Sake is coming to our state faster than you may realize. It’s on the menus of new restaurants, most specialty beer and wine shops have a rack of Sakes or at least a few bottles, “Total Wine” has a (terrible) section of U.S. made Junmai Ginjo's.

     I want to help to facilitate this exciting time of exposure and renaissance.  I'll help point folks of similar interest in the right direction and hope that a dialogue of interest and discovery here in the Carolinas ignites.  I have tons of photos, recommendations, tips, and most importantly know where you can and can't find "True" Sake around the Tar Heel State.  Thanks, I hope you enjoy what's to come.

Thanks to Beau Timken, John Gauntner, my brother, my parents, and my wife Amy.

The first post… 

Kanpai!  (we'll get to that) 

-Brad Russell