Ask Beau – “So, what is in your birthday dinner sake glass?”

Ha! I’m not telling you Scott K. from Woodside! Just kidding. Of course I have all sorts of sakes to choose from. But I am not one for being, “Oh I must drink the best sake ever for my birthday!” But I also don’t want to drink what I am used to drinking on a regular basis. So there is that sense of a “special sake.” The only problem is that what is special to me might not be special for you! It’s up to us all to determine what our very own “special bottle of sake is for special occasions.”

But since you asked! I will tell you! It’s no secret though!

Many years ago I went to a killer brewery in Ishikawa Prefecture. I love the region for their style of sake, but ended up loving a sake that didn’t really fit in the mold of that style. (Mold heh! A sake pun!) The brewery was Kikuhime and they are makers of some amazing sake. Their yamahai junmai is known throughout Japan as being one of the best examples of funk in a yamahai style sake. It’s a great brew! But that’s not the brew that I adore.

Kikuhime makes a small tank Daiginjo sake called BY, which stands for brewer’s year. I say small tank, because they use smaller tanks in the production process to better control the final product. Better control usually equates to better outcome.

And I love the outcome. BY is a silky walk of immense flavor on a soft glide of complexity in a velvety package. So many layers at work, with so many expressions, but balanced, balanced, balanced.

So when you walk through the Japantown mall and you peer though the vast glass front of Benihana past the guys chopping and flipping, look for the bottle of BY sake and you will see one content birthday boy!