Sake - the good wine

Seeing as my favourite bar is oriental themed I'm surprised it took me this long to ramble on about sake. Oh! If you're ever in Sydney you should check out Uncle Mings bar on 55 York street. Yes, shameless advertising. I don't even get paid for this. I should ask for a raise. Well I'll ask for a job then a raise, it tends to work better in my experience. So it's settled, I'll get a job at a bar, what could possibly go wrong.

So sake...where was I, right, wine. I'm not a fan of wine but sake is different. Why you ask? Well for one it doesn't taste rank unlike wine. I mean if there's wine around I'll drink it, I'm not a snob. All I'm saying is that it wouldn't be my first choice. I suppose it's because, being a uni student, I've never had the money to afford anything other than sub par wine. Just for now let's ignore my bias and get down to the objective truth. Haha yeah right, this is my blog and I'll do what I want. 

In any case sake, also known as rice wine, is made of rice. Shocker. All those rice fields would seem kind of pointless without sake so I'm happy they found a good use for them. According to my comprehensive research that I did in a few minutes just then, the process of brewing sake is more similar to beer than wine. I know right, I'm pretty quick, ladies line up. Wait, no, shit, that's not what I meant at all. You know what, I'm too tired to care.

Sake is relatively new compared to the other beverages we have been dealing with. The first known record is said to be in the Book of Wei, I'm told it's a classic, as early as 710 AD.

There are three ways to serve sake, hot, at room temperature or cold. These three ways to serve sake are mainly due to the seasons and quality of sake. During Japanese winters, according to scientists, it's cold enough to freeze your balls off. Due to these sub zero temperatures, I did says freeze, the Japanese decided to warm the sake up. This is of course reversed for the summer, unless you're some sort of sadistic bastard who enjoys more heat in the summer. The highest quality sake is never heated because the falvour is lost by doing so. More importantly the rich people who bought this sake had climate control or some magic installed in their homes in order to prevent certain articles from falling off.

On a more serious note, sake is used in Shinto rituals in order to communicate with the gods. I don't know how much they drink at these things but it sure sounds like one of my nights. 

Whatever your reason for drinking sake is it's always a great choice and if you don't drink sake keep this in mind "sake is bloody brilliant" - Jesus. I'm pretty sure that's a direct quote. Even Jesus drank sake, so what's your excuse?

-Bassam

References:
Picture from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2009/06/11/christs-sake/
Info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sake