Episode 60: Saké Masterclass

Listen here.

Saké is very, very hip right now. In fact, we predict the old guard hip-hoppers and rappers like Jay Z and P Diddy will be swapping their Armand de Brignac or Cristal bottles for premium Nihonshu, real soon. The Foo Fighters are already all over it; releasing their own sake to celebrate their new album next month.

But do you like saké?

If you'd asked us that same question a decade ago, we probably both would have said

"No!"

"It's too strong and it's too rough," our then less-educated selves may well have responded.

We are of course older and far, far wiser. We've tasted saké in breweries in Japan and omakase dinners here, and found to our great surprise sake in fact was a beautiful drink with all the complexity and subtlety of wine.

While we're both pretty au fait with wine, our knowledge about sake was sadly lacking, so we invited expert, saké educator Melissa Mills of Sake Connect onto ExtraVirgin Food and Travel to talk to us about all things sake.

In this epsiode we learnt:

• The myth and magic of how it's made

• Where it's made both inside and outside Japan

• Saké styles

• What those names and percentages mean on the bottle

• The best foods to eat with saké

• Saké making at home (here's a link to Melissa's home saké making at home FB group

and we hear about the trip to Japan that changed the life (and career) for this former dental surgeon forever.

We reckon by the end of this epsiode, like us, you'll be approaching saké with a whole new level of interest!

Kampai!