Attitude adjustment: Sake and shochu get image makeovers in Japan

Kasumicho owner Hitomi Watanabe recommends pairing a fresh plate of sashimi with Denshu, a dry sake from Aomori Prefecture.

Sake is what commonly comes to mind when one thinks of Japan and alcohol. For centuries, this rice-based, fermented beverage was the nation’s drink of choice, while shochu, a distilled spirit often derived from potatoes or grain, played a smaller role.

Today beer reigns supreme, garnering over one third of Japan’s 9-billion-liter annual alcohol industry. During this changing of the guard, beginning almost 50 years ago, sake and shochu were ignored, considered as the tipples of choice for stodgy older males frequenting dingy watering holes.

Recent marketing of shochu as a chic and healthy choice, however, has won over a younger generation, with its consumption actually rising 
to equal its sake rival. To a lesser degree, sake has also attempted to attract a more diverse fan base. Select bars and restaurants in Tokyo have been some of greatest purveyors of these developments.

Hasegawa Saketen, in the three-year-old, Tadao Ando-designed Omotesando Hills shopping complex in Minato Ward, is dead set on removing sake’s arcane imagery. ‘We wanted to create a new concept, a store where people could just drop inside and enjoy sake in a pleasant environment,’ says employee Nobuyuki Takagi, whose shop offers both sake and shochu from different regions of Japan.

Read about the spiritual pilgrimage of Kumano in Japan on CNN Traveller

"We wanted to create a new concept, a store where people could just drop inside and enjoy sake in a pleasant environment,"says Hasegawa Saketen employee Nobuyuki Takagi.

Sake, which has an alcohol content of 15 per cent, is enjoyed either warm or chilled, depending on the season. Shochu has nearly double the punch and is generally poured over ice or diluted with water. At Hasegawa, bottles of recommended offerings of both are available and rotated throughout the year.

Akin to many of the ‘one-cup’ joints that have popped up around the city, glasses can be eased back at the shop’s standing bar for around $4.

At Kasumicho 301-1, just down the hill in the hip Nishi-Azabu area, staff members recommend pairing their tasty shogayaki dish ($16), which is a bowl of pork strips glazed with ginger sauce over a bed of lettuce, with Mannenboshi ($9), a mugi jochu (or barley-based shochu) from Miyazaki Prefecture. ‘The aroma and taste both retain the barley’s characteristics,’ says employee Ayumi Komazawa. The pork is sourced from livestock raised on the waste material generated during the production of another Miyazaki shochu, Hyakunen no Kodoku, which gives the meat a slightly sweet taste.

Should one want to enjoy an assorted plate of sashimi ($30), sliced raw fish often including maguro (tuna) and ika (squid), there is Denshu ($10), a dry sake from Aomori Prefecture. ‘The taste is very deep and well-rounded,’ says owner Hitomi Watanabe, who adds that her inspiration for starting the restaurant came from this unique-tasting sake. ‘It is so dry that you cannot tell it was brewed from rice.’

Read about Japan's tradition-bound Kyushu island on CNN Traveller

To shift gears to an entirely new genre is to visit Shusaron, located a few minutes from JR Shinagawa Station, where manager Nobuhiro Ueno offers numerous types of aged sake.

Along one wall of his brightly lit bar are dozens of bottles of vintage sake, or koshu, culled from 40 breweries around Japan. Most experts will insist that sake should be enjoyed fresh, yet that is not a rule.

‘Aged sake offers a variety of colours, and is greatly different from normal sake with its smell and the taste,’ says Ueno, who admits that koshu is not popular in Japan, but his six-year-old bar has seen a steady increase in clientele since opening. Shichifukujin (2003), from Iwate Prefecture, is fruity and dry, characteristics typically preferred by men, believes Ueno. Women, he adds, tend to prefer Nagano Prefecture’s Shaburi (1998), which has a slightly more sour taste. Both are available for $8 
per glass.

‘Each year there is always something different,’ asserts Ueno, proudly.