"Sake It To Me"

On Monday, Ken Hallenius and I made an excursion to SakeOne in Forest Grove, Oregon. SakeOne is the first sakeria, or sake brewery, in all of North America.

I'm not a huge fan of sake, but it is becoming increasingly popular here in the States. The explosion in the popularity of sushi is certainly one of the main reasons for this phenomenon. But sake is not just for Japanese food any more! All kinds of bars and restaurants here in Portland are now carrying several different kinds of sake, and apostles of sake are hoping that this trend will only grow until every respectable wine list has a sake section.

We took a tour of the sakeria, which included these lovely murals depicting the ancient process of sake making. I found them much more interesting that the modern industrial equipment that we saw, so I photographed the murals instead.

In this first mural, water and rice are mixed together (I think) . . . 

and in this one, koji, a type of mold is added to the rice:

the koji enzymes turn the "starches in the rice into sugars that can be fermented by yeast cells, which then give off carbon dioxide and alcohol" (see this article here).

We also did a sake tasting. We must have tasted 10 or 12 of their sakes and I have to say that I wasn't a fan of the vast majority of their traditional sakes. I find that sake has a quasi-medicinal taste I just don't enjoy. Even the suggestion that there was a hint of "candy corn" flavor in one of the sakes didn't help me enjoy it!

But they also produce a couple of flavor-infused sakes that I did enjoy. I tried a raspberry sake, and also sampled Ken's coconut sake, and both were much more enjoyable than anything else we tasted. I suppose they are the "wine coolers" of the sake world ;)

Despite my not being a huge fan of sake, the trip was really delightful. We had lots of laughs and can now say we've been to an authentic sakeria!