New blog from Brendan O'Donnell – Historic drink gaining ground in the U.S.

I recently attended the 8th annual Northern California Premium Sake Festival in downtown Sacramento.  For those of you that have never been, be sure to pencil it in your schedule for next year.  What a great time!  Hundreds of different sakes from local breweries as well as Japanese imports.  Did I also mention- great food and a sushi making contest!   Here’s one photo from the event with me, a great sushi chef Billy Ngo of Kru and another friend, Eric Johnson.

And here’s a second photo – this time with Takumi Kuwabara from Takara Sake USA.

Sake is such an interesting thing to me.  It’s unbelievable how the sake makers are able to pull so many complex flavors out of the rice simply by using rice that is milled to different levels and the use of Koji mold to aid in the fermentation.

Sake is brewed, but it is not beer.  Sake is sometimes referred to as “rice wine” but it is not wine.  The Sake making process is unique.  This is a very old diagram from Takara Sake (one of our local California Sake breweries) of the traditional way to make sake.  Of course it is modernized now, but the basic principals are the same.

Sake is classified by the  amount of polishing that the rice receives.  Junmai Sake is made from rice that is milled to 70 percent from brown rice.  This means that if you start with 100 pounds of brown rice, you will continuously and slowly mill the rice on specialized sake equipment until only 70 pounds remain.  Ginjo Sake is made from rice polished to 60 percent and Daiginjo is polished to a minimum of 50 percent.  You will sometimes find Daiginjo sakes that are made from 30 or 40 percent polished sake rice.

If you’re one of the many people that have never tried sake, or if your sake experience is limited to a “hot sake” at a sushi restaurant, I strongly encourage you to visit one of our local sake breweries and spend some time in the tasting room.  With so many different types and flavors of sake, you are guaranteed to find one (or maybe several) that you absolutely love.

There are Two Sake companies right here in Northern California that offer regular tastings in very nice tasting rooms.

Takara Sake in Berkeley

Gekkeikan Sake in Folsom

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Brendan O’Donnell is Vice President, Sales at The Sun Valley Rice Company, LLC, which mills, packages and markets premium California rice both domestically and around the world. He is the Fifth generation of his family to be involved in California agriculture and has been marketing and promoting California rice since 2007. He is a graduate of UC Davis with a B.S. in Agricultural Systems and Environment and Communications. Brendan is also an active member of the Rice Leadership Development Program. When he’s not selling rice, Brendan enjoys golfing, skiing and spending time with his family. He and his wife, Erin have Two children, Bridget and Liam.