Toronto Sakés tasting Oct 1 [Booze]
2011 Sep 20
The Izumi distillery has a Flight tasting at the counter, three different sakés. What would be great is if a restaurant nearby would have one with appropriate food, but it's still fairly new, it needs time to grow.
I'll certainly report on here more details on the tasting I'm organising, as before. Having more detailed notes for myself will be good, too. I was rather blissed out too much to remember the very nice things I said about somewhere into my third cup at the distilley, out of six... :)
I'll certainly report on here more details on the tasting I'm organising, as before. Having more detailed notes for myself will be good, too. I was rather blissed out too much to remember the very nice things I said about somewhere into my third cup at the distilley, out of six... :)
Niall
I sampled a fair amount of their selections, to the increasingly amused eyes of the very nice ladies at the counter. I sampled six drinks, and it didn't take long for them to fill my cup to the brim each time - possibly because at each one I sampled, my reaction immediately made other patrons do a variation of "I'll have what he's having". Kaching!
Most of them are unpasteurised, but none of them are ginjos, meaning they haven't milled the rice down to large or extreme amounts; nonetheless, the craftmanship is definitely palatable, and the boldness of some of the sakés can be tasted quite easily and immediately. More importantly, their freshness is amazing, in a similar fashion to the Hiroshima sakés I had managed to acquire on my last big tasting a year and a half ago (Forum - Saké Insanity)
I brought back four bottles. I put in the photo but here it is in full: home.mycybernet.net I'm making a tasting on October 1, likely starting near 8:00pm, either at my place downtown or at a friend's house near Chinatown. There is space for a few interested Foodies.
Bottles:
Teion Lucky Seven: low-temperature fermentation, high koji-to-rice ratio, mid-level sweetness
Nama Nama: their signature saké, unpasteurized, complex, bold but not overpowering
Genshu Nama Nama: same as previous but undiluted. Very bold, very powerful.
Arabashiri / Teion Amakuchi: Same as the first except it's sweet. Really sweet. Really really sweet. Of course I loved it. :)
Nihonshu-do (Sake Mater Value, an indication of sweetness), Seimabuai (rice polishing ratio) and rice strain are all unknown, though they are junmais (no added distilled alcohol). None are Ginjo or Daiginjo (that may happen later), so the seimabuai is likely around 60%.
I will add their Nama-Cho (pasteurised once in the bottle) once I can swing by the Rideau Vintages.
There is a small possibility of having a bottle from Osaké, the BC saké distillery, at which point we would have the Battle of Canadian Unpasteurised Sakés. (Everybody wins.)