Dassai Sake Tasting!

Asahi Shuzo

Asahi Shuzo, is located deep in the mountains of Yamaguchi prefecture, the most southern prefecture of the main Japanese island of Honshu.

The brewery is owned and run by the Sakurai family and crafts only premium Junmai Daiginjo sake using almost exclusively high end Yamadanishiki rice.

Otter Festival
The name “Dassai” translates to “Otter Festival”. Part of this comes from the ancient name for the area of Yamaguchi prefecture where the brewery is located.

In the old days, many otters could be found in the nearby rivers and streams of this area. The otters would often lay out the fish they caught on the shores of the river, just like they do at Japanese festivals. This led to the reference “otter festival” but there is also more.

A famous haiku poet named Masoka Shiki who lived over a century ago referred to himself as “Dassai” because of his propensity to scatter his reading material all over the floor of his room in the same manner that the otters would spread out their fish.

Mr. Shiki was instrumental in creating a revolution in Japanese literature during his time, and Asahi Shuzo shares a similar philosophy with him. Rather than become complacent with existing traditions and techniques, they also wish to reform and revolutionize how sake is made in order to produce a superior product.

Preparing Rice
When crafting their sake, Asahi Shuzo has always tried to incorporate the new along side the traditional. Some of their brewing methods make use of ancient tools and are done by hand, while others take advantage of extremely modern technology.

Dassai Centrifuge Machine
They’ve been the “first” in many areas including the first to use a centrifuge to “press” their sake as opposed to using a more traditional “fune” or large pressing machine.

Asahi Shuzo is also one of the first breweries to be able to brew sake year round, which allows them to put out a more consistent product.

Kosher Sake?

Another unique distinction of Dassai sake is their certification as a kosher sake. This certification was not easy to achieve, and took over a year to finish.

Everything from their rice and yeast to all of the machines that they use were scrutinized and validated. Asahi Shuzo is the first sake brewery to have every sake they make be certified as kosher.

Dassai 23 Rice
It once held the record of having the smallest milled rice and we’ll be sampling it this Friday. Super premium Dassai 23 is truly the sake that defines Dassai.

The “23” means the rice was milled down to 23% of it’s original size before brewing. This means 77% of the rice was polished off leaving a small itty bitty rice kernel.

The reason they do this is the center of the rice grain is where more of the pure starch is located. The outside of the rice grain is where most of the fat and proteins are located.

Pure starch produces a cleaner more elegant flavor while fats and proteins tend to produce more off flavors. As you can imagine, this sake is not cheap, but well worth it’s price when you consider the cost involved in producing it.