The good news is you can serve sake at many different temperatures. From out of the fridge at 40°F all the way up to piping hot at 130°F.

If you have a small ceramic sake cup at home, that is great to use for sake. You can also just grab a wine glass that works great too!

When you get sake home, you want to be sure to keep it in a cool, dry place and you want to drink it within a year at the most. After you’ve opened a bottle of sake, you can actually enjoy it longer than you may have expected. You can keep a bottle of sake for 2-3 weeks or even more!

There are some sakes aged on purpose that have a wonderful and rich flavor, but for the most part you want to drink your sake fresh and bright.

If you drink too much of any alcohol you can get a hangover, but sake is only 15% ABV. If you don’t overindulge and enjoy with food, you’ll have no problem at all!

If you’ve seen a cloudy sake that is milky white in appearance, we call this a “nigori style” in Japan. Nigori means murky or unclear. This style of sake is related to how this sake is pressed. If you use a course filter, little bits of rice starch get into the final product and that gives us that cloudy appearance and the taste is a bit sweeter than clear sake.

People often describe sake to be built like a beer and it drinks like a wine, but actually sake is its own unique beverage. Sake is naturally fermented from rice. One thing to know is that sake is not a distilled beverage. So enjoy as you would a wine, grab a wine glass and have some sake with your next meal!

Sake on average has about 15% alcohol. The products you see on the market are anywhere between 13-19% alcohol. Beers are generally 5-8% and wines are 10-14% alcohol. Sake can be a bit stronger than wine, but you can definitely enjoy it with a meal.

Of course you can pair sake with your favorite Japanese foods. Everyone knows sake goes well with sushi, sashimi and other Japanese cuisine…but did you know that you can pair sake with non-Japanese food as well? Try sake and cheese! It’s one of our favorite combinations, as cheese has that saltiness and a little bit of umami in it and it pairs wonderfully with the gentle umami in sake. Sake is low in acid, and if you find a sweeter style try pairing it with dessert. A dark chocolate or a fruit tart complements the sake beautifully.

In essence, there are only two types of sake. There are sakes made with rice and water only, we call these a Pure Rice Style. There are also sakes lightly fortified with distilled alcohol, we call these these the Alcohol Added Style. For the Pure Rice Style there are three grades: Junmai, Junmai Ginjo and Junmai Daiginjo. As you move up those grades, sakes get more premium, more expensive and a bit more silky and elegant in texture. For the Alcohol Added Style, we have Honjozo, Ginjo and Daiginjo. Again, as you move up you get more silky and more elegant.