Sake Glossary

The plain-language pair you'll see or hear: <em>amakuchi</em> means sweet, <em>karakuchi</em> means dry. Rougher than SMV, but it's the shorthand a shop or menu will use.

"Great ginjo," the top polishing grade, with rice milled to 50% or less. The most delicate, aromatic, and precise style, and usually the most expensive. Junmai Daiginjo means it also has no added alcohol.

The everyday, non-premium class, roughly the table wine of sake and the majority of what's brewed in Japan. No polishing or purity designation, often with added alcohol and sometimes sugars or acids.

Undiluted sake, bottled at its full fermentation strength of roughly 18&ndash;20% ABV. Most sake is cut with water down to about 15%; genshu isn't, so it drinks bigger and bolder.

A premium grade using rice polished to 60% or less, fermented long and cold. That slow, cool brew coaxes out the fruity, floral aromatics sake is famous for. Add the junmai prefix (Junmai Ginjo) and no alcohol is added.

Sake with a small, legally capped amount of distilled brewer's alcohol added late in the brew. It comes out lighter, drier, and more fragrant than junmai, and it's often the style that shines served warm.

"Pure rice" sake, made from nothing but rice, water, koji, and yeast. No distilled brewer's alcohol added. The result is usually fuller-bodied, rounder, and more rice-forward than styles that add alcohol.

Two traditional, labor-intensive starter methods that let natural lactic acid build up on its own. They produce earthier, gamier, higher-acid, more robust sake. Yamahai is the slightly less back-breaking descendant of kimoto.

Steamed rice inoculated with <em>Aspergillus oryzae</em> mould. The koji's enzymes break rice starch down into sugar that yeast can then ferment. It's the engine of sake, and the same mould behind miso, soy sauce, and shochu.

Deliberately aged sake, rare and usually amber and rich, with nutty, sherry-like, caramel notes. Most sake is meant to be drunk young, which makes koshu a curiosity worth seeking out.

The sake brewery itself. Many are centuries-old family operations, and the kura's water source and local climate are as central to its identity as terroir is to a winery.

Sake's signature trick: koji converts starch to sugar while yeast converts that sugar to alcohol, both at once, in the same tank. Beer does these steps one after another; sake does them together.

Unfiltered by charcoal. Most sake gets a charcoal polish that strips color and softens flavor; muroka skips it, keeping a fuller, sometimes faintly golden, more characterful pour.

Unpasteurized sake. Most sake is pasteurized once or twice; nama skips it, keeping a fresh, lively, sometimes slightly spritzy character. It must stay refrigerated and drunk young.

Cloudy sake, coarsely filtered so fine rice sediment stays suspended. It runs creamy, often sweet, sometimes lightly sparkling. Shake the bottle or don't, depending on how much of that milky body you want.

A number, positive or negative, that estimates dryness. Positive (say +5) leans dry; negative (say &minus;5) leans sweet. It measures sugar density against water.

Rice varieties grown specifically for brewing, not eating. The grains are larger, with a starchy white core and less protein and fat than table rice, which makes for cleaner fermentation.

Japan's brewed rice alcohol, usually 14&ndash;16% ABV. It's made by fermenting polished rice with water, koji mould, and yeast. Closer to beer than wine in how it's made, and not a spirit at all, since nothing is distilled.

The acidity level of the sake. Higher acidity reads as drier, crisper, and more food-friendly; lower acidity reads softer and rounder, even at the same sweetness.

The percentage of the rice grain that <em>remains</em> after milling. A seimaibuai of 60% means 40% of each grain was ground away. The lower the number, the more polished the rice, and generally the more refined and fragrant the sake.

The opaque, starchy white heart at the center of a sake-rice grain. It's where koji digs in best, and a big, well-defined shinpaku is a mark of good brewing rice.

The modern "fast" starter method, where brewers add lactic acid directly instead of waiting for it to develop. It's quicker, safer, and gives the clean, precise profile most contemporary sake aims for.

The master brewer who runs the sake-making, traditionally a seasonal head craftsman leading a team. The toji's judgment on rice, water, temperature, and timing shapes a brewery's house style.

"Special." Tokubetsu Junmai or Tokubetsu Honjozo means the brewery did something out of the ordinary, usually extra polishing or a prized rice variety, without crossing into ginjo territory.

Serving temperature, and a real flavor lever. <em>Reishu</em> is chilled; <em>atsukan</em> is warmed. Delicate ginjo and daiginjo shine cold; robust junmai and honjozo often open up warm.