Taste With KJ - Autumn Sweets: A Dance with Red Rice Sake
In mid-October 2022, almost two years ago to the date, I was lucky enough to live out one of my life’s dreams by visiting the far reaches of Kyoto Prefecture and spending the day in a historic fishing village called Ine. The Funaya boat houses surrounding Ine Bay are over 300 years old and are protected as a designated group of historic buildings by Japan’s Historic Preservation Act. Lucky for me, there is an iconic brewery tucked away in this idyllic cove town called Mukai Shuzo, giving me the perfect reason to convince my sake industry friends to schedule a visit. Mukai Shuzo makes plenty of good sake, but is internationally renowned for its red rice sake called Ine Mankai. It is made using a blend of rice varieties including Kyo no Kagayaki milled to 70% and an ancient strain of rice called Murasaki Komachi milled just slightly which imparts its signature red color.
Ine Mankai initially had a rich, viscous texture and extreme levels of umami with some sugar to balance. It was known for its distinct flavors of bacon fat, brandied cherries and orange rind, which were appealing to us professionals, but could be too extreme or off-putting to most consumers. As of my trip two years ago, they had just released their new style of Ine Mankai, with a lighter rosé color, higher acidity and less bacon fat. We were all initially sad to see our epic red rice brew go, but it is totally understandable now that I have invested time into getting to know this new style.
Now that Ine Mankai is a lighter style brew, it is much easier to consume in larger quantities. Prior to this, it was difficult to drink more than a few ounces at a time, making it a hefty after-dinner type tipple. Now it is a refreshing quaffer, more reminiscent of a Corsican rosé with dried fruit aromas and firm structure.
Make sure to drink Ine Mankai just out of the fridge (around 40F) or slightly warmed to get the best expression possible. When chilled, it has pretty notes of cranberries, orange zest, fruit punch, plums, walnuts, and black cherry. When this sake is between 60-75F, it tends to express a cherry lozenge note which can easily be avoided by not serving at this temperature. This sake’s bright acid requires either a nice chill or warmth to provide a base for the aromas. When warmed, more yogurt and vanilla bean emerge, as well as soft cherry, orange blossom and caramel, making it feel like sipping a hibiscus flower tea.
Ine Mankai has always been a favorite at True Sake, proven by an article written in 2015 on the Top Ten Flavors of Thanksgiving Paired with Sake where Ine Mankai was daringly paired with modern cranberry sauce from a can! This sake can pair with literally any Thanksgiving fare, but I wondered how well it would do against both eastern and western autumnal desserts.
To give this new style of Inemankai a fair chance at pairing success, I included various types of autumnal wagashi from the superb sweets store K. Minamoto that vary in sweetness levels and umami. The western dessert options were even sweeter and richer, including pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake and sprinkled caramel apples. These three desserts could be quite challenging with Ine Mankai’s new refreshing style and may have fared better with the earlier, more intense rendition. Let’s see what happened!
Autumn Wagashi
Chestnut Pie - This pie is like a flaky, buttery, and sweet croissant. It has an essence of almond which brightens up the sake and brings out aromas of Meyer lemon and candied orange peel. The chestnut filling is subtle and earthy, as well as slightly sweet. But the outside of the pie is much sweeter, giving serious powdered doughnut vibes. It’s almost like the sake and pie together give a black coffee and doughnut pairing effect, where the coffee freshens up the palate for the next bite (except its sake). Love it!
Suikanshuku - This dessert is a dried persimmon cake filled with sweet white bean paste. The persimmon is candied and almost gummy, like a fig or a date in texture. The dessert itself has the taste of a jelly doughnut (still in doughnut mode here). Although the sweet white bean paste tastes almost vegetal. It's a vegetable I can’t put my finger on, except it's so obvious once I do. Omg, it tastes like spinach! When paired with Ine Mankai, the palate jumps to life with a Juicy Juice flavor (those ‘healthy’ juice boxes, remember?). This is a good pairing, but not the best of the bunch.
Nashinoka - This is a plant-based milk pear mousse with tiny chunks of real pear on top. It is SO wiggly and so pear! It smells so much like pear that it reminds me of a pear-scented body wash I used for the entirety of junior high. The sake brings out a nutty aroma and a dryness on the palate. The sake was overall too harsh and acidic for the very sweet and delicate pear puree. This sake would do better with a sweet, yet fruity sake like Kamoizumi Kome Kome ‘Happy Bride.’
Marron Pudding - This is a similar mousse to the pear, but was chestnut flavored with a soy milk base and caramel sauce. It was grainy in texture, with a shampoo/cinnamon butter taste. It was AWFUL with the sake. Again, this dessert was too sweet. There was also too much chestnut and soy milk flavor to work at all with this sake. I would skip pairing this with anything altogether and just enjoy it alone.
Oribenishiki - This wagashi was made of sweet potato paste mixed with chestnuts, then wrapped in red bean and Japanese-style cake. The whole thing tasted like sweet bean bread and I wasn’t into it. The sake also did not work. Some of these wagashi demand to stand alone!
Kuri Daifuku - This was a temperature sensitive mochi dessert filled with sweet bean paste and a whole chestnut. It was chewy and soft, with a hard center which was nice. The textural interplay was a pleasant turn of events. The mochi flavor which was subtle and potent at the same time (sweet and steamed rice-like) lingered endlessly. When paired with Ine Mankai, the sake became slightly minty and the cherry notes shined. Finally, another win!
‘Usagi San’ Rabbit Cake - Mr. Rabbit cake ended up being a surprise sample addition to my purchase by the kind person who sold me the sweets. This was the best wagashi of all, being made with sweet white bean paste and yuzu rind essence encompassed by a vanilla cake shell. This dessert was refreshing with the sake, where the power of the vanilla cake matched the intensity of the yuzu flavor. The yuzu and the sake combined created a refreshing effect and the vanilla cake paired amazingly with the red rice sake, revealing strong notes of dried cranberries. This pairing worked very well.
Western American Desserts
Pumpkin Pie - Either you love or hate this classic Thanksgiving dessert. With pumpkin pie, there is no inbetween. It has all the savory goodness of canned pumpkin purée mixed with baking spices, sweetened condensed milk and eggs to hold it all together. Add whipped cream and it's a party (or a necessity). It seems that Ine Mankai is a fan of pumpkin pie, expressing more of its yogurt notes and orange zest acidity. The nutmeg in the pie was a surprising delight with the cranberry tones of the sake.
Pumpkin Cheesecake - This dessert is pumpkin pie on top, cheesecake on bottom. But in this example, the cheesecake was the dominant force. When paired with red rice sake, the palate turned from Thanksgiving themed to a birthday cake flavored ice cream party. In general, the sake was too harsh and acidic here. This dessert would benefit from a richer, more potent sake pairing, such as Kanbara Yamahai Junmai Genshu Koshu ‘Ancient Treasure.’
I’ll admit, I needed to cleanse my palate between most of these pairings, especially after the pumpkin cheesecake. When water stopped doing the trick, I used Ippodo Barley Tea to refresh and to my pleasant surprise, tasting the Ine Mankai just before barley tea reminded my palate of barrel-aged bourbon.
Caramel apple - This caramel apple was made using a granny smith apple, which has tart acidity, not too much sweetness and a green skin. It was an interesting choice of apple to cover with the most insanely sweet caramel I’ve ever tasted in my life. The caramel was so sweet it tasted earthy, kind of falling back into itself. It also had sprinkles, which were highly unnecessary. At first bite, I began missing the delicate wonder of candied strawberries and apples in Japan that have just the slightest crispy coating, respecting the fruit beneath and the flavor of the crackly sugar. I much prefer candy coated apples in the fall, but they are near impossible to find in California. So sickly sweet caramel it is. I don’t think I have to emphasize how terrible this pairing was. The apple itself actually suited the Ine Mankai nicely, both having heightened acidities which complemented each other. As for the caramel and sprinkles, the -40 SMV sake turned into lemon water with a hint of cherry and tangerine. This was the worst pairing of the tasting.
It may have been the barley tea that made me realize the only way to end this epic pairing experiment was to switch beverage categories altogether. This tasting was finalized with a nice solid pour of Bulleit Rye. PHEW! As I recovered from the tasting by slowly sipping my whiskey, I had a few reflections that came to mind.
While many of the wagashi had ample sugar contents, there was even more sugar in all of the western desserts which hid inside the dense ingredients of cream cheese, condensed milk and butter. With richness being harnessed by bean pastes and mochi in the eastern desserts, they felt lighter on the stomach and palate while also allowing the sugar to shine brighter without the distraction of dairy products.
I did not try these together, but the best pairing for Ine Mankai could quite possibly be traditional mooncakes made for Mid-Autumn Festivals in many East and Southeastern Asian countries. There are a multitude of variations that can include lotus seeds, dried bean or lotus pastes, salted duck eggs and more; giving a sweet and savory experience perfect for Ine Mankai, especially when warmed.
Other Contenders:
Heiwa Shuzo KID Red Rice ‘Aka’ - In comparison to Ine Mankai, this red rice sake using Akamai rice and Gohyakumangoku has a modest -3 SMV, indicating a subtle sweetness. But its acidity of 1.8 in comparison to Ine Mankai’s whopping 5.8 acidity reading makes this sake actually taste sweeter. The moderate acidity and sugar content of Aka will make the sweeter wagashi items and sugary western desserts much more complimentary.
Kinmon Akita Koshu Yukyu no Umeshu "4 Year Aged Shizuku" - The SMV reading here is N/A (not applicable, aka the brewery doesn’t want you to know). This sake has a significant sugar content, but instead of coming off super sweet, the 4 year old aged sake lurking beneath the surface gives this sake incredible depth of character that balances the sweetness of the ume plum juice. The slight raisin and orange blossom honey notes will pair fantastically with the chestnut pie and pumpkin cheesecake.
What sake do you think work best with traditional autumn-themed desserts? If you would like to share your thoughts, email me at KJ@truesake.com and you could be featured in our next article. Kanpai for now!